Way to tell where dish is currently pointed?

[guapoharry]

It sounds like a bit much to ask perhaps, but:

Is there a way to tell where a DiSEqC / USALS dish is currently pointed?

Do motors talk bidirectional protocol?

 

[Lak7]

Are you asking if it will tell you how many degrees from Zero it is?
I don't think so.

 

[Pepper]

What, you can't tell just by looking?

 

[guapoharry]

LOL Sure, but I'd have to get up from the chair.

Guess I'll have to set up cameras.

Example:
One of the dishes is on 72. Which one is it? Can't tell with the receivers, 'cause they might be switched to a fixed dish.

Another motor dish might be on 103, and another is on 125.

Guess I need to do several fixed Multi LNB setups instead...

don't want to run the motors more than necessary...

 

[Skyscanner]

Harry,
I have always thought it would be great for a receiver to show a compass icon in the setup menu with a pointer showing the direction the dish is moving or pointed at. I can't see my motorized dish from my chair either!

 

[delta_charlie]

Hi all, old analogue receivers that were used with BUDs show counts. How do the new receivers keep track of where the motor is at? Maybe some can display the counts???. Later, DC

 

[Tron]

Guess I'll have to set up cameras.

I have a friend who set up a BUD in his backyard. The positioner he was using had problems, and could only supply power to the actuator (no pulse count feedback). He set up a security camera aimed at the dish, and noted with a felt-tip marker on the security camera monitor where the dish should be for each given satellite! It looked like one of those write-on video walls in a military situation room, but it worked! ...

 

[Blindowl1234]

I thought of setting up a camera then I wouldn't have to get up and look out the window lol. Ya know we'd have to get a camera with some kinda of night vision too. Blind

 

[turbosat]

Dont those satellites have some kind of beacon that transmits their ID? Back when I had a Viewsat Ultra it would always display what satellite you were aimed at, if you were setting up a satellite, or went into that setup-screen to look. Only receiver I've had that would do that.
And usually accurate, except whenever I aimed to AMC5 and it would say it was looking at Echostar ? at 121W, lol.

 

[phpinfo]

I would just pick the satellite you want on dishpointer.com. Then take the magnetic azimuth and subtract 90. Then stand at the side of the dish with a compass (this is why you subtract 90), and move it until the left and right edges of the dish are flush, matching the compass needle.

 

[AcWxRadar]

It sounds like a bit much to ask perhaps, but:

Is there a way to tell where a DiSEqC / USALS dish is currently pointed?

Do motors talk bidirectional protocol?

GuapoHarry,

Unlike the C-Band dishes (BUDS) which may have a digital readout as feedback from the dish displayed on the positioner, I don't know of any H-H motors w/receivers that have bi-directional communications in the matter that you are curious of.

Although, I would be surprised if one didn't exist. There is probably something like this available, but I would rather suspect that it is more for a research tool and not anything that one of us would ever want to open our wallets for. I am sure they would be quite expensive.

Since my dish is so far away from the house it is difficult to tell if the motor is moving or not when commanded, especially on a cold winter night with a few feet of snow on the ground. I have often thought of attaching a potentiometer or an encoder in some fashion to the motor so that I could read, indoors, if the motor was moving and possibly, where it was positioning to.

I know it is possible with some expense and engineering, but, alas, I am not sure the venture is really worth it. Yet, it would be an interesting project.

RADAR