More Info
My comments in BLUE
Firstly, thank you all again for your time and shared knowledge, all immensely useful. The weather here has turned rather nasty, with thunderstorms last night through the day today. I lost my signal on 97 West, which was at Quality of 99. It has been overcast all day, and more of the same is predicted
for this week (at least cloudwise). Given all that, I might not be able to get much done this week (my signal is still down).
***The signals on the 97W seem to be changing periodically as the engineer's tweak the focus of each transponder, some TP's will increase in strength while other's may drop, it's sort of like a handful of spagetti noodles, they can be misaligned in relation to one another or be neatly aligned. At this point, if they are still playing with the beam focus then we can expect these results and anybodies guess is as good as your's. Many of us guys have had to periodically refocus our dishes and having a motor makes it an easy task. Hopefully the satellite engineer's will get it finalized and all TP's will have equal quality but that could be wishful thinking.
On the other hand, when one earth station (that's your dish) experiences signal drop or loss, it doesn't always mean that your hardware is at fault. As you mentioned, the weather is a huge factor, your local weather can be clear and bright but very nasty at the uplink site where the signals are sent up to the satellite before beaming down. It's a 2 way street so to speak, the downlink signal is no better than the uplink signal, you get what is broadcasting to your dish regardless of clear weather on the downlink side. It can be vise versa also, good on uplink and poor on downlink, let's hope that both are good.***
I want to address what individuals wrote, but first, I want to ask my most important question, in very basic terms. Let's fast forward into the future, and assume I locate SatMex5. What specifically do I do then--do I need to push some button on the remote to "set" this to something? OR, if I find SatMex5, with my motor pointed at zero, am I done? Will USALS automatically know and take me to every other satellite? (Related: how do I get the motor EXACTLY on zero?)
Please give a concrete example. For example: You're on SatMex5, and you want to go to 99 West, you do this and this......
***This is a much deeper subject, briefly stating, if you find Satmex5 you will have fine tuning regardless, it will be much easier if you do lock onto a Quality signal from the sat but if you can't, there is still ways to find it but with the provided TP info given you, you should be able to lock on the HughesNet frequency because it's consistantly strong and present. Some of your questions will be addressed in further replies, read on.***
Related to this, can somebody please explain in simple terms what is happening once I get the motor, at zero degrees, pointed at my True South satellite? What does the system "think" and do?
If I can understand that, I think I will be good to go.
Now to some specifics:
(1) Are we in agreement that I should go for McGuyver's excellent idea of 11739 V 29981 auto (on SatMex5)? Yes you can, it's a strong frequency but you can't scan for channels cuz there are none.
Should I also use Phottoman's TP's? Yes also, these TP's can be scanned
11739 Vertical 29981 SR HughesNet = 69% quality (AZBox receiver reading)
12059 Vertical 3078 SR Televida Abudante = 40% quality (AZBox)
12175 Horizontal 12175 SR BYU TV / Latin America = 34% quality (AZBox)
12024 Horizontal 3000 SR ESNE TV = 29% quality (AZBox)
Thank you both for that information. Ur relcome
***The receiver is dumb, it can't do more than what it is programmed for just like a computer. FTA receivers are a computer in many ways, they use a processor also, the info that you input is adjustable and in most cases the receiver cannot compensate for discrepancies if the dish happens to be accidentally bumped out of alignment. I hope to address your multi-questions regarding most or all of the other's comments as well. The motor has an embedded electronic positioning scale which interacts with the receiver, they communicate with one another. When the motor is navigated in any position it can't remember any specific position until you tell it to "save" or "store" that position, once you save a position, the receiver takes note of it's position in relation to the motor's electronic positioning scale, it's all digital data. This is accomplished when you lock onto a quality signal, verifying it's good and you have saved or stored that specific location but in theory I believe as Phottoman has stated, you must first scan in something from the satellite that you're aimed at in order for the receiver to associate all the data, the frequency related to the position that was stored in memory. This data is or should be stored in the receiver's flash rom chip, it's not just your basic memory but it's reprogrammable in the case you fine tune the dish position and save or store the current settings. This is how the operator (you) can readjust the dish/motor positioning settings when needed, it's not permanant as I said.
Furthermore, once a satellite position is stored in memory, you can navigate the motor to another location either manually or by the receivers preset position of another satellite, this is considering you have already preset at least one postion in memory, the manual aspect is no different. This means that when the dish/motor is moved from a stored position and you change channels, the receiver recalls the stored preset position of the satellite in which the channel was scanned and it then automatically navigates the motor back to that digitally stored position according to the motor's electronic scale. Now, if you physically move the motor's position on the pole, the motor cannot compensate, it will always return to the stored (physical) position, the results are that it will now be pointing somewhere else in the sky. This is why when making any physical change of the motor's position on the mounting pole, it requires you to reposition the motor by using the receiver commands and save the new position settings, otherwise if you don't save or store the new position the motor will return to the previously stored position. It's very simple.
Progressing beyond this point after locating your true south sat, it becomes a bit more complicated but don't panic... in most cases it's easy once you get the hang of it. Are we all engineer's? Not all and all memeber's here have their own talents and specialties and lots of experience and someday you'll look back and see how easy it was all along. This stuff is confusing but have faith, you'll learn.
When I had troubles locating my true south sat (SatMex5) and finding a usable TP to lock onto, I had to use the basic "signal strength" meter in the receiver menu, although without a quality signal status as reference, I was able to guesstimate the dish to satellite position by noting the % of SS (signal strength) on the TV screen. Example: my receiver's signal meter indicated about 68% strength when in between (off focus) to ant satellites and once I came in focus (aim) of a satellite the meter signal strength rised to about 70 to 72%, this isn't much but it indicated I was crossing the path of some unknown satellite beam. The receiver cannot identify the TP if it doesn't have a corresponding frequency to identify. In other words, if the TP list in the receiver's TP data doesn't have a frequency that is currently broadcasting a signal, the receiver cannot lock onto that particular satellite, it can only see that there's a signal beam in the vicinity of the dish's sight. This pertains to signal meters as well, the cheap ones cannot identify any particular frequency, the more advanced expensive meters have a greater advantage due to the fact they have a TP data library embedded in the electronics such as a rom chip. They could be called a "smart meter" have you.
So, what I do is aim the dish by navigating the motor to obtain the best position using the receiver's SS meter until I find the center of the beam by noting where the signal drops as I move from east to west, then once I'm satisfied I then use the blind or smart scan feature and scan for live frequencies, the receiver should then and hopefully scan in at least one usable/viewable video channel. And if there is a satellite identifier (info data) in the stream, the receiver (most receiver's) will display the satellite's indentity such as "Locked 116.8°W satellite" or what ever satellite you're pointing at.
If you can accomplish locating satellites using this method, you can then find almost any satellite with the bare minimum information and without any prestored TP data. I've done this many times. If I found the 118.7°W satellite using this method, I would then know that I have to jogg the dish to the east just a bit more to find the 116.8°W satellite. If I moved beyond a bit too much I would then find something east of the 116.8°W sat which indicates I need to go west just a wee bit more and eventually I found what I was seeking.
Blind scan first seeks, searches and documents all broadcasted frequencies then converts the data to TP data that it can scan for channels, that's if the blind scan feature is working as advertised. Some receiver's are quick scanners and can overlook some TP's that are slow to lock signal on. This is when you have to go back, look over what was scanned and review channel lists and TP data to see if there was something it missed. If you already know there's a specific channel you're seeking but it didn't scan in, then you will use the manual TP search mode in the menu. This can be easily done but yet sometimes challenging depending on some variables which I won't go into detail about, not now anyway.
Usals is another mode of positioning that can be used but not always as reliable as the 1.2 Diseqc command feature. USALS is an automated method of navigating the dish and it's first must have a starting point, a stored location as a reference. You have to inform the receiver of your latitude and longitude coordinance so it can then use it's factory stored satellite position info data. If it knows that you are located geographically at let's say 117.8°W longitude, it can then use that as a reference and then seek all other satellites in the arc but it's not always accurate, you may find that it's a bit off scale either due to your physically misaligned dish and/or motor or possibly incorrect longitude coordinace you gave it. I myself always use the 1.2 Diseqc mode because you'll have greater control of the dish. Although, USALS can be useful in the initial setup of seeking the satellites in the arc, it can be an advantage and some prefer it over 1.2 Diseqc. It's a matter of what suits your needs.***
(2) To Phottoman: What exactly does a blind scan do? I thought (assumed) it just scanned every TP, listed or not. You state "Blind scanning that satellite will lock it into your system's memory so that if you are using USALS, the motor will know where it is, and should be able to find other satellites from there."
Can you elaborate on that? Specifically, lets say I do a blind scan on a satellite when I am NOT focused/pointed on that satellite. Have I now confused the system by giving it an incorrect position?
(3) To Radar--thank you so much for all the time and effort you have put into this.
I have been using the analog sat finder exactly the way Conky's video shows. Are you advising I should not bother using it anymore? How else would I know when I am ballpark--just watch the screen?
Regarding posts on the Sonicview, somebody asked if they are new. Yes, the Premier was purchased from GoSatellite, and the Elite from Amazon. None are what are called clones.
Both manufactured July 2009
"Boot loader" 01.00
Main software 02. 07
Radar, thank you for the warning on SonicView. I don't want to give up on it yet, simply because given that I did not know what I am doing, who knows what buttons I hit. I may be to blame. But if I get everything perfect and still have a problem, I will know the reason and get the Coolsat.
That is why my primary question is so important--so that I can understand what is supposed to happen, and what I need to do , once I locate SatMex5
(3B) You mentioned linear vs circular satellites being a factor in whether a 2nd lnb can be added to one dish. How does one know what type of satellite
it is? I don't see any hint in Lyngsat.
(3C) Regarding your advice on line of sight, I can tell you the angle is much less than 25 degrees, so that should not be an issue. Great idea, thank you
for sharing that !
(4) General: When adding a TP manually, how do I know the "FEC"? What is that?
The menu asks for "Frequency, symbol rate, Pol, and FEC"
(5) Out of curiosity, are some or most of you engineers? I am astounded at the depth of knowledge you all have.
(6) Conky--thank you for the pole measuring idea, and the post about hand made inclinometers.
(7) Ironsides--thank you for advising to check the settings on each satellite. I did do that meticulously, having neglected it the first time around.
So in summary, if I can get the basic idea of what happens or should happen after I find SatMex5, I should be good to go. As mentioned, the next few days look to be bad weatherwise, so I may not get a chance to do this for a few days. I will of course post at that time, and feel that given the great advice on TP's on SatMex5, I am determined to nail it.
Thank you again to everybody for your time and efforts in helping me. I am grateful beyond words. And thank you all for your kind words on encouragement.
***You won't usually find too many circular TP's mixed with Linear TP's on the same Lyngsat page of a satellite but you will find them commonly mixed on satellites that are used for broadcasting Dish network and DirecTV signals. Just spend some time reviewing the various satellites on Lyngsat and take note of the polarities shown in the left column. Look at the 110.0°W Dish Network channel list and then look at the 116.8°W list and compare. It will soon make better sense. the diff between the two types of polarities is that the linear are beamed like the cross hairs in a gun sight, the circular polarities are like left and right turn coil springs. The lnb's are designed to see and decode either polarity or some can do both but they cost more $$$. You may never have a need for a circular polarity lnb unless you subscribe to a broadcast service and want to use your dish system for reception of their signals, general FTA satellites are all linear.***
Hope this helps and I'm getting very tired of typing so somebody else can pick it up from here, good luck
My comments in BLUE
Firstly, thank you all again for your time and shared knowledge, all immensely useful. The weather here has turned rather nasty, with thunderstorms last night through the day today. I lost my signal on 97 West, which was at Quality of 99. It has been overcast all day, and more of the same is predicted
for this week (at least cloudwise). Given all that, I might not be able to get much done this week (my signal is still down).
***The signals on the 97W seem to be changing periodically as the engineer's tweak the focus of each transponder, some TP's will increase in strength while other's may drop, it's sort of like a handful of spagetti noodles, they can be misaligned in relation to one another or be neatly aligned. At this point, if they are still playing with the beam focus then we can expect these results and anybodies guess is as good as your's. Many of us guys have had to periodically refocus our dishes and having a motor makes it an easy task. Hopefully the satellite engineer's will get it finalized and all TP's will have equal quality but that could be wishful thinking.
On the other hand, when one earth station (that's your dish) experiences signal drop or loss, it doesn't always mean that your hardware is at fault. As you mentioned, the weather is a huge factor, your local weather can be clear and bright but very nasty at the uplink site where the signals are sent up to the satellite before beaming down. It's a 2 way street so to speak, the downlink signal is no better than the uplink signal, you get what is broadcasting to your dish regardless of clear weather on the downlink side. It can be vise versa also, good on uplink and poor on downlink, let's hope that both are good.***
I want to address what individuals wrote, but first, I want to ask my most important question, in very basic terms. Let's fast forward into the future, and assume I locate SatMex5. What specifically do I do then--do I need to push some button on the remote to "set" this to something? OR, if I find SatMex5, with my motor pointed at zero, am I done? Will USALS automatically know and take me to every other satellite? (Related: how do I get the motor EXACTLY on zero?)
Please give a concrete example. For example: You're on SatMex5, and you want to go to 99 West, you do this and this......
***This is a much deeper subject, briefly stating, if you find Satmex5 you will have fine tuning regardless, it will be much easier if you do lock onto a Quality signal from the sat but if you can't, there is still ways to find it but with the provided TP info given you, you should be able to lock on the HughesNet frequency because it's consistantly strong and present. Some of your questions will be addressed in further replies, read on.***
Related to this, can somebody please explain in simple terms what is happening once I get the motor, at zero degrees, pointed at my True South satellite? What does the system "think" and do?
If I can understand that, I think I will be good to go.
Now to some specifics:
(1) Are we in agreement that I should go for McGuyver's excellent idea of 11739 V 29981 auto (on SatMex5)? Yes you can, it's a strong frequency but you can't scan for channels cuz there are none.
Should I also use Phottoman's TP's? Yes also, these TP's can be scanned
11739 Vertical 29981 SR HughesNet = 69% quality (AZBox receiver reading)
12059 Vertical 3078 SR Televida Abudante = 40% quality (AZBox)
12175 Horizontal 12175 SR BYU TV / Latin America = 34% quality (AZBox)
12024 Horizontal 3000 SR ESNE TV = 29% quality (AZBox)
Thank you both for that information. Ur relcome
***The receiver is dumb, it can't do more than what it is programmed for just like a computer. FTA receivers are a computer in many ways, they use a processor also, the info that you input is adjustable and in most cases the receiver cannot compensate for discrepancies if the dish happens to be accidentally bumped out of alignment. I hope to address your multi-questions regarding most or all of the other's comments as well. The motor has an embedded electronic positioning scale which interacts with the receiver, they communicate with one another. When the motor is navigated in any position it can't remember any specific position until you tell it to "save" or "store" that position, once you save a position, the receiver takes note of it's position in relation to the motor's electronic positioning scale, it's all digital data. This is accomplished when you lock onto a quality signal, verifying it's good and you have saved or stored that specific location but in theory I believe as Phottoman has stated, you must first scan in something from the satellite that you're aimed at in order for the receiver to associate all the data, the frequency related to the position that was stored in memory. This data is or should be stored in the receiver's flash rom chip, it's not just your basic memory but it's reprogrammable in the case you fine tune the dish position and save or store the current settings. This is how the operator (you) can readjust the dish/motor positioning settings when needed, it's not permanant as I said.
Furthermore, once a satellite position is stored in memory, you can navigate the motor to another location either manually or by the receivers preset position of another satellite, this is considering you have already preset at least one postion in memory, the manual aspect is no different. This means that when the dish/motor is moved from a stored position and you change channels, the receiver recalls the stored preset position of the satellite in which the channel was scanned and it then automatically navigates the motor back to that digitally stored position according to the motor's electronic scale. Now, if you physically move the motor's position on the pole, the motor cannot compensate, it will always return to the stored (physical) position, the results are that it will now be pointing somewhere else in the sky. This is why when making any physical change of the motor's position on the mounting pole, it requires you to reposition the motor by using the receiver commands and save the new position settings, otherwise if you don't save or store the new position the motor will return to the previously stored position. It's very simple.
Progressing beyond this point after locating your true south sat, it becomes a bit more complicated but don't panic... in most cases it's easy once you get the hang of it. Are we all engineer's? Not all and all memeber's here have their own talents and specialties and lots of experience and someday you'll look back and see how easy it was all along. This stuff is confusing but have faith, you'll learn.
When I had troubles locating my true south sat (SatMex5) and finding a usable TP to lock onto, I had to use the basic "signal strength" meter in the receiver menu, although without a quality signal status as reference, I was able to guesstimate the dish to satellite position by noting the % of SS (signal strength) on the TV screen. Example: my receiver's signal meter indicated about 68% strength when in between (off focus) to ant satellites and once I came in focus (aim) of a satellite the meter signal strength rised to about 70 to 72%, this isn't much but it indicated I was crossing the path of some unknown satellite beam. The receiver cannot identify the TP if it doesn't have a corresponding frequency to identify. In other words, if the TP list in the receiver's TP data doesn't have a frequency that is currently broadcasting a signal, the receiver cannot lock onto that particular satellite, it can only see that there's a signal beam in the vicinity of the dish's sight. This pertains to signal meters as well, the cheap ones cannot identify any particular frequency, the more advanced expensive meters have a greater advantage due to the fact they have a TP data library embedded in the electronics such as a rom chip. They could be called a "smart meter" have you.
So, what I do is aim the dish by navigating the motor to obtain the best position using the receiver's SS meter until I find the center of the beam by noting where the signal drops as I move from east to west, then once I'm satisfied I then use the blind or smart scan feature and scan for live frequencies, the receiver should then and hopefully scan in at least one usable/viewable video channel. And if there is a satellite identifier (info data) in the stream, the receiver (most receiver's) will display the satellite's indentity such as "Locked 116.8°W satellite" or what ever satellite you're pointing at.
If you can accomplish locating satellites using this method, you can then find almost any satellite with the bare minimum information and without any prestored TP data. I've done this many times. If I found the 118.7°W satellite using this method, I would then know that I have to jogg the dish to the east just a bit more to find the 116.8°W satellite. If I moved beyond a bit too much I would then find something east of the 116.8°W sat which indicates I need to go west just a wee bit more and eventually I found what I was seeking.
Blind scan first seeks, searches and documents all broadcasted frequencies then converts the data to TP data that it can scan for channels, that's if the blind scan feature is working as advertised. Some receiver's are quick scanners and can overlook some TP's that are slow to lock signal on. This is when you have to go back, look over what was scanned and review channel lists and TP data to see if there was something it missed. If you already know there's a specific channel you're seeking but it didn't scan in, then you will use the manual TP search mode in the menu. This can be easily done but yet sometimes challenging depending on some variables which I won't go into detail about, not now anyway.
Usals is another mode of positioning that can be used but not always as reliable as the 1.2 Diseqc command feature. USALS is an automated method of navigating the dish and it's first must have a starting point, a stored location as a reference. You have to inform the receiver of your latitude and longitude coordinance so it can then use it's factory stored satellite position info data. If it knows that you are located geographically at let's say 117.8°W longitude, it can then use that as a reference and then seek all other satellites in the arc but it's not always accurate, you may find that it's a bit off scale either due to your physically misaligned dish and/or motor or possibly incorrect longitude coordinace you gave it. I myself always use the 1.2 Diseqc mode because you'll have greater control of the dish. Although, USALS can be useful in the initial setup of seeking the satellites in the arc, it can be an advantage and some prefer it over 1.2 Diseqc. It's a matter of what suits your needs.***
(2) To Phottoman: What exactly does a blind scan do? I thought (assumed) it just scanned every TP, listed or not. You state "Blind scanning that satellite will lock it into your system's memory so that if you are using USALS, the motor will know where it is, and should be able to find other satellites from there."
Can you elaborate on that? Specifically, lets say I do a blind scan on a satellite when I am NOT focused/pointed on that satellite. Have I now confused the system by giving it an incorrect position?
(3) To Radar--thank you so much for all the time and effort you have put into this.
I have been using the analog sat finder exactly the way Conky's video shows. Are you advising I should not bother using it anymore? How else would I know when I am ballpark--just watch the screen?
Regarding posts on the Sonicview, somebody asked if they are new. Yes, the Premier was purchased from GoSatellite, and the Elite from Amazon. None are what are called clones.
Both manufactured July 2009
"Boot loader" 01.00
Main software 02. 07
Radar, thank you for the warning on SonicView. I don't want to give up on it yet, simply because given that I did not know what I am doing, who knows what buttons I hit. I may be to blame. But if I get everything perfect and still have a problem, I will know the reason and get the Coolsat.
That is why my primary question is so important--so that I can understand what is supposed to happen, and what I need to do , once I locate SatMex5
(3B) You mentioned linear vs circular satellites being a factor in whether a 2nd lnb can be added to one dish. How does one know what type of satellite
it is? I don't see any hint in Lyngsat.
(3C) Regarding your advice on line of sight, I can tell you the angle is much less than 25 degrees, so that should not be an issue. Great idea, thank you
for sharing that !
(4) General: When adding a TP manually, how do I know the "FEC"? What is that?
The menu asks for "Frequency, symbol rate, Pol, and FEC"
(5) Out of curiosity, are some or most of you engineers? I am astounded at the depth of knowledge you all have.
(6) Conky--thank you for the pole measuring idea, and the post about hand made inclinometers.
(7) Ironsides--thank you for advising to check the settings on each satellite. I did do that meticulously, having neglected it the first time around.
So in summary, if I can get the basic idea of what happens or should happen after I find SatMex5, I should be good to go. As mentioned, the next few days look to be bad weatherwise, so I may not get a chance to do this for a few days. I will of course post at that time, and feel that given the great advice on TP's on SatMex5, I am determined to nail it.
Thank you again to everybody for your time and efforts in helping me. I am grateful beyond words. And thank you all for your kind words on encouragement.
***You won't usually find too many circular TP's mixed with Linear TP's on the same Lyngsat page of a satellite but you will find them commonly mixed on satellites that are used for broadcasting Dish network and DirecTV signals. Just spend some time reviewing the various satellites on Lyngsat and take note of the polarities shown in the left column. Look at the 110.0°W Dish Network channel list and then look at the 116.8°W list and compare. It will soon make better sense. the diff between the two types of polarities is that the linear are beamed like the cross hairs in a gun sight, the circular polarities are like left and right turn coil springs. The lnb's are designed to see and decode either polarity or some can do both but they cost more $$$. You may never have a need for a circular polarity lnb unless you subscribe to a broadcast service and want to use your dish system for reception of their signals, general FTA satellites are all linear.***
Hope this helps and I'm getting very tired of typing so somebody else can pick it up from here, good luck
