What is wrong with this picture?

[DapOrp]

Hey guys,

I'm having some serious frustration issues.

I have a 1 meter primestar dish and the really old model LNB + Feedhorn. I've panned the sky from left to right with the primestar LNB and cannot get ProgFinder to say it's found anything. Yet, if I slap a DishNetwork circular LNB on it, using the same elevations I can hit every single dishnetwork bird up there with over 110% signal quality.

This is leading me to believe that my primestar LNB is either completely defective and no longer functional, or, this LNB is only able to pick up on analog signals which would be confusing my DVB card.

My primary goal at this point is to hit G10R at 123 West. With the circular LNBF I easily hit the dummy dishnet bird of 129 West so I know I must have a clear line of sight to where 123 is. With the primestar LNB progfinder just keeps saying I have 60-70% signal but no quality regardless of where it's pointed.

One thing I noticed with the primestar LNB is that the plastic cover on the end of the feedhorn has manufactured holes punched into it, as well as a crack due to weathering. Upon removal of this plastic cover I noticed that water has indeed made it's way into the horn and LNB when it was initially taken down from it's primestar position and placed on the ground for a few years and snowed and rained on.

When I look down into the actual LNB I can see that there is evidence of corrosion and rust developing on the inside near/on the two poles (veritcal and horizontal posts).

Is this a clear indication that this LNB has had it and I should just upgrade to a new Linear LNBF?

I'm finding it really hard to believe that I can hit the dishnetwork birds so precisely and completely miss EVERYTHING in between so consistently.

Anyone have any suggestions or advice on something else I may try? or, is there some way to convert a circular LNBF to accepting linear signals? Already tried turning it sideways and it didn't change anything.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Shawn95GT]

Did you set the L.O. to 10750 with the P* LNB hooked up? 10600 if it's a universal LNB but I'd suspect it's a standard.

 

[Bob Rock]

You have to tune you;re software to an active transpoder

You have to tune you;re software to an active transpoder on the satelllite you are trying to get .... with you;re software ... and also make sure you;re lnb settings are correct in you;re software .....

 

[bigOleB]

Invacom Universal:

10600
22k - On

 

[DapOrp]

Holy crap, it's working!

Well, thanks for having me not give up on this LNB. heh. Apparently it DOES still work!

What I ended up having to do since I don't have a standalone receiver to work with, or a hand held satellite meter, was have my main tower with the DVB card in it, broadcast it's desktop image to my other tower with a TV output card, and had that output the image of the quality level to a monitor I could see from my dish.

Saw some quality appear, and tweaked it out til it was as high as I could get it, and voila! G10R or more importantly, The Tube is coming in loud and clear!

Thanks for all of your help! I really appreciate it!

My next question would be regarding the V and H outputs on this LNB, I understand there's a switch I can get to combine the two together, does anyone know what exact type of switch I need and where I might find such a thing?

Thanks again! You guys are the best!

 

[Stefan]

"I understand there's a switch I can get to combine the two together, does anyone know what exact type of switch I need and where I might find such a thing?"

Look at the channel master multiswitches. They have 4 inputs and either 2 or 4 outputs. With the 4 inputs there are basically 2 pairs of H and V inputs. You switch between the 2 pairs of inputs using a 22Khz tone and of course you switch between the different polarity inputs using 13/18v. Anyway, I use one of these switches on one of my primestar dishes. On this dish I only use one pair of inputs. I also use one on my 8.5' birdview. One the birdview I use a bullseye type feedhorn which feeds 4 LNBs 2 Ku, and 2 Cband and one LNB is for each polarity. I connect the "22Khz on" pair of inputs to the 2 Ku lnbs and the "22Khz off" pair to the C band LNBs. This way I get seemless switching between Ku and C band using the 22Khz tone and 13/18v polarity switching. You can also connect upto 4 different recievers to the outputs or you can just use one and leave the others not connected.

Anyway, here's a link to the switch at Sadoun. However, you can likely find them a good bit cheaper on ebay. I have seen them on ebay for $10 "buy it now". Just search for "6904IFD". There's also a 6602IFD model. The 6602IFD has only 2 outputs as opposed to 4. It still has 4 inputs.

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Products/Channel-Master/6904IFD-Multi-Switch.htm

Note: 18v is Horizontal and 13v is vertical.