Yesterday Was Not A So LUCKY Day

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Buy or borrow a CIRCULAR lnb for Dish Network. Install it at the focus point of your dish. Set your receiver for the proper lnb lo for whichever one you have. Aim for Dish's satellite 110W.

he already has a circular lnb.....the invacom is both....

but i agree....

drive the dish to 110w using USALS then aim for that

you might also want to try 97w instead of 91w.....97w has alot more active transponders
 
primestar31,

Used one of the Circular LNBF side of the Invacom QPH-031, scanned dish network 110W satellite, could not get any quality signal either way....The weather got cold so I called it a day....Going to let it rest for a while before I try again. There got to be something wrong with the elevation settings called out by the motor manual, I know that the Latitude degrees setting for the motor has to be the same as my location, but I cannot seem to get the dish degrees/angle setting to come in for any quality readings.

What are the possibility that the GS120 motor and the Wingard 1M dish could be mis-matched as Vinnie mentioned of his setup?

Thanks for your help.
 
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How do you know that lnb you are trying to use is good? I've heard there are clones of it out there, and that they are junk. That's why I suggested you use a known good dedicated circular Dish Network lnb to aim first.

I would suggest even taking the motor out of your variables right now, and just mount the dish on the pole all by itself. Once you get the proper azimuth and elevation set for it, and have quality on 110w, you'll at least know it's working. THEN you can add the motor back in... Installing a motor such as this the first time for anybody is/can be a horrible ordeal.
 
There got to be something wrong with the elevation settings called out by the motor manual

forget all about what the manual says.....

- make sure ALL of your settings are correct....
- make sure you are selecting an active transponder....
- make sure the pole is level....
- make sure the motor LATITUDE SCALE is set to YOUR LATITUDE....

when you are 100% sure about all of the above....

drive the dish to 91w using USALS....set the DISH ELEVATION to 22 degrees....now VERY SLOWLY pan east to west....if you get nothing, increase the dish elevation by ONE DEGREE....now keep repeating that process untill you get a quality reading, or you hit 40 degrees on the dish scale,

you still have not answered the most important question....WHAT TRANSPONDER ARE YOU SELECTING on 91w??

if your not selecting an ACTIVE TRANSPONDER you will never get any quality at all....even if you ARE AIMED CORRECTLY!
 
I kept hearing that setting up a motorized KU dish was very hard. I had no problems what so ever. I set the motor to my elevation, I never touched it again. I used the formula in the manual to get the dish elevation, which really didn't matter because I had to mount the PS mount upside down on the dish so I was blind here. I drove the dish to my closest tru south satellite and adjusted everything perfect. That was is it tracks perfect and is spot on everywhere I put it. One thing I would tell you is to get a cheap analog meter to help you. To a novice it helps a ton and doesn't cost much at all!!
 
Perhaps buy one of those $10 satellite finder meters? It came in very handy during my recent install as the meter is very sensitive when the dB dial is turned up and responds instantly when you're getting near to a satellite. We had it at the 3 o'clock position (meter needle at 5 when there's no signal) and knew we were getting closer by seeing it go to 7. It was a small change. I wouldn't have noticed it but the person helping me install has experience and knew it made a difference and we were getting close.

Once he knew we were getting close, I went to the receiver and let him know as soon as I saw the signal level bar turn blue and hit 90%. It was only then that the little meter started pegging and beeping like crazy. From there we were able to maximize the signal quality slightly.

As mentioned, we had no idea what the elevation should have been and probably would have been hunting for a lot longer without that meter. Glad I added it to the shopping cart.

V
 
what transponder are you selecting for 91w?.....that is the most important question right now

Mikey11,

Sorry for not answering much sooner, I have selected transponder 12010 v 11574, the ABC News One, it has always been a good active transponder to select.

A good point was made to bypass the motor, will go point and search for the Dish Network 110W satellite, it has a FTA Dish promotional channel, will be using one of the Circular port/connector of the Invacom QPH-031.

Will report tomorrow

Thanks for the help.
 
avenger :

I tried to find a signal with my 1.8m Dish using a MicroHD and looking for a C Band strong signal transponder (In SatMex5 in my case) and I couldn't find anything in several days. When a friend of mine brought his receiver with the channels already scanned in his antenna, we found the satellite signal in minutes. Next days I took my receiver to my friend's house and did a blind scan for several satellites. I came home and move my antenna trying to find other satellites using one of the channels i just scanned in the other antena and it was much easier to find the signals. I wanted to say this just in case you are trying to find a transponder signal instead of finding a specific channel´s signal that already was scanned and working in your receiver. It was much easier for me that way using that MicroHD.

When strong winds moved my other antenna ( a fixed 3ft offset Ku Band dish), I realigned it tunning a specific channel (Create in AMC21) and again, it was very easy for me.

Regards.
 
Today I was not able to work with dish as planned....Will see if I can get some TPs from Dish Network 110W, also going to try 97W Galaxy 19, if I am still cannot get anything to work, then will swap to the small Ku dish for now....All of the procedure looks simple and it should work, but will check and wiil see what is causing this problem as soon as I can.....Working with this dish is an eye opener, it is not as easy as it was with the small dish, I am sure the technique is the same but the result is much different....I have turn the dish so much that I am wearing out the pole, LOL!!.

I am hoping that I can hit/get the sweet spot soon.
 
Not a good update report...Today I have used two different types od "Satellite finders" an inexpensive black one with a needle indicator which I have own for a few years, and a newer that I bought from Ws International (DSF120+C)...The microHD doe not seem to like the first one, but the DSF120+C is buzzing like a bee which can be heard from a distant and showing a very good signal strenght.....The signal is maxed out, and cannot be improved any more.

Even with all that buzzing and a good signal strenght, I am still getting the "no program found", and therefor NOTHING!!.

I know for sure that the Invacom QPH-031 and the SNH-031 are good LNBFs, have used the Circular and the Linear side of the QPH-031, and have use them both with good results, and the receiver shows them to have a very good signal and be working.

The motor moves and responds to the USALS commands....The best signal was accomplished at the end of the dish lowest elevation which is close to the 25degrees called out by the Motor's dish angle table in which I have been there and done that many, many times....Do not know what else could be the problem.
 
How are you scanning 110w? Remembering to set the LO to 11250? Entering a TP/polarity/SR (if so what?) or are you Blind Scanning? If blind scanning, are you changing the start and stop frequencies to 12200 - 12750?
 
While it could well be a problem as suggested above, I wonder if your new dish might be the culprit?
A bent LNB arm or incorrectly assembled dish mount could throw you off.
Might be worth reviewing.
Did the previous owner discard his toys because he couldn't get 'em to work? :)
 
How are you scanning 110w? Remembering to set the LO to 11250? Entering a TP/polarity/SR (if so what?) or are you Blind Scanning? If blind scanning, are you changing the start and stop frequencies to 12200 - 12750?

Brian,

I did set the LO to 11250, right polarity, blind scanning, did not change start and stop frequency to 12200-12750 was not aware of that.

Anole,

I hope that is not the dish, or bent LNB arm assembly, and the dish mount is correctly assembled.....I was searching for 97W Galaxy 19 it has a lot of TPs to search, I was thinking that maybe the dish was receiving signal from either of the two satellites near by such as 95W and 99W. I never did actually try to see if that was the case.

Here is an interesting thing. While scanning for Galaxy 19 97W, went into the satellite list section and started to remove the "Hearts" to make the satellites non active...The only one left active was Galaxy19, satarted to scan and the microHD went into the Booting/Looping sequence, turned off and disconnected everything went back inside and was starting to do the recovery routine, and noticed that the microHD was not Booting/Looping anymore...I did the recovery routine anyway just in case, which means that at least there is and good signal and something to look forward to.

Will start again, this time I will see if the signal is coming from either the 95W or 99W and scan for their TPs accordingly.
 
When there is a short in the coax, motor or LNBF, the microHD will power cycle to protect against damage. If the power cycling quit when the coax was disconnected, this was not an example of the corrupt user file.

Look for a defect in the coax, fittings, motor or LNBF that could cause a short.
 
When setting the DISH ELEV, are you centering on the bolt head or the edge of the metal bracket inside the slot?

During dish elevation setting I am centering the edge of the metal bracket inside the slot.

Still having problems with the motor's loose LNBF stud connection to the receiver side as mentioned on a previous thread...The insertion of the "O" ring into the stud's cavity is holding but it still wiggling loose at times, that explains the booting cycle of the microHD. Might have to carefully apply a small portion of RTV to the inside of the cavity, maybe that will keep it from coming loose.
 
Are you saying the coax connector on the motor is loose? That's a red flag right there.
 
The compressed f-fitting on the motor being loose would not produce a short. Look for another cause of the short.
 
A F-fitting "can wrench" will tighten the fitting on the motor, but you'll probably have to open the motor to secure the fitting on the inside while tightening.

I had to do this with one of my SG-9120Bs.
 
A F-fitting "can wrench" will tighten the fitting on the motor, but you'll probably have to open the motor to secure the fitting on the inside while tightening.

I had to do this with one of my SG-9120Bs.

I had the impression that there was a way to do this as you said...For right now it seems to be holding up, if it persists to come loose then I will defenitely have to take it apart and correct the problem, I was telling Brian that this motor still have both tamper stickers intact, and he mentioned that the guarantee is only good for one year, this motor is about six years old.
 
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