Zero Quality Signal--Have tried everything I can

[TryingMyBest]

My newbie mistake--so sorry

I had re-read the threads here over the weekend and one said to "blind scan" the satellite (SatMex5) once I was locked onto it. What I find totally hair-pulling and frustrating in general, as I alluded to earlier, is the lack of a central source for knowing basic things, like what a blind scan does. What I THOUGHT a blind scan does is scan everything on the specific satellite I have highlighted. Hence I assumed anything showing up on a Blind Scan HAD to be from SatMex5. Now after reading Radars/ / BJ /Satellite AV catamount posts, I understand my error.

So thank you all. I will say again that I appreciate everybodys time and effort, and trust me, I do find all this interesting and take joy in the learning process. So back up to the roof for me ASAP.

Somebody asked about my LNB. Here is a copy of the description:
1 x Dreamstar Dual Linear LNB
The Dreamstar dual linear LNB is designed and tested in Europe to guarantee the best signal strength and quality. You will not find a better quality LNB anywhere as it has an incredible 0.3dB noise figure and 100% compatible with all multi-switches. Dual output LNB will allow you to add a second FTA receiver in the future.


So, once I do indeed get SatMex5, do I need to "store position"? That I still don't know for sure.

Radar, thank you for telling me about that neat feature on the Coolsat. The SonicView does not have that, and boy would that be nice. Usually I just hunt and peck around where I think I am to see if I can find which satellite I am actually on.

Thank you all ! I will reply back once I get a chance to get back on the roof. If somebody could address the last question above (do I need to store SatMex5 once I find it, or am I done?) I am good to go.

 

[avg1joe]

The sonicview 8000 has the feature of guessing which sat it is on as well. Sometimes it guesses wrong.

I'd like to see pics of your setup screens with the strong tp from satmex5 and the quality meter showing. I'm unfamiliar with your box and am curious how the screens differ from mine and it will help us double check your work.

 

[Phottoman]

With you are standing behind the dish, and you're looking south, with your receiver already set on a Transponder that you know is HOT on your true south sat, turn the dish SLIGHTLY toward the West. You probably wont have to adjust the height of the dish, just turn it a tad West and see if your South Sat doesn't pop in.

Blind Scan once you have that TP as well aimed as you can get.

Once you KNOW you are on your True South, then go to the WEAKEST transponder, and adjust the height and left and right adjustments on the pole until you are as strong as you can get ON THAT sat.

Delete all but one of the channels you may have found on your last scan, and run another Blind Scan.

When you are finished scanning, your receiver will (more than likely) ask if you want to save what you scanned. Click YES.

Now, if you've done that correctly, you *should* be able to go to any other satellite of your choice and blind scan again. But this time when you scan, you'll be scanning the actual satellite you WANT. This is assuming you saved the TS sat, then told the motor to go to the next sat you want.

You'll have to scan in each sat you want to receive anything on, and this is where the List will help. Load a TP, find the TP, scan the sat.

Next ... repeat all above for each sat.

I'll assume you're going to be using USALS. If not, let us know and we'll adjust our thinking to get you more than just your TS satellite.

Once you have all the satellites scanned that you want, and as you leave each scan, be sure to click "SAVE" on your remote.

Once you have all the sats you want to see anything on, then you can start to build your favorites list(s).

I too am of the opinion that the receiver you are using is NOT the best for what you are doing. I believe there is a section on this forum where you can look at receivers being offered on eBay, check that out, you may be able to replace that POS you have for another receiver that will be more user friendly.

Keep up the good work. It's frustrating as hell, we know, but we ALL went through the same thing.

Photto

 

[AcWxRadar]

I had re-read the threads here over the weekend and one said to "blind scan" the satellite (SatMex5) once I was locked onto it. What I find totally hair-pulling and frustrating in general, as I alluded to earlier, is the lack of a central source for knowing basic things, like what a blind scan does. What I THOUGHT a blind scan does is scan everything on the specific satellite I have highlighted. Hence I assumed anything showing up on a Blind Scan HAD to be from SatMex5. Now after reading Radars/BJ /Satellite AV catamount posts, I understand my error.

So thank you all. I will say again that I appreciate everybodys time and effort, and trust me, I do find all this interesting and take joy in the learning process. So back up to the roof for me ASAP.

TMB,

Don't fret over this "oversight". It isn't actually a mistake, you just missed a portion of the procedure is all. This is a more frequent error than you think, so you are not alone.

What you have to remember is that STB's (receivers) of any make or model are simply dumb machines and cannot differentiate between right and wrong when it comes to scanning in channels. If it detects a signal, it scans it in. This is where YOU come in, to analyze what the receiver BLIND SCANNED to ensure that the channels logged were actually from the satellite that you wanted and not from some other satellite nearby.

The process that you utilized was actually correct, but your mistake was assuming that the channels that were logged in were from SatMex 5 (and I guarantee that they are not). You should have stopped right there and questioned the scanned channels to verifiy if they were from SatMex 5 or somewhere else. This is what we all do.

In essence, when you LOCK onto a signal, and then scan, you need to analyze what you scanned to verify what satellite you did indeed scan. The Coolsat's provider ID gives you some helpful tips long before this, but many other receivers don't.

Just think about the nomenclature of the scan mode: "BLIND SCAN"...... It's name says it all pretty distinctly... "BLIND" or in other words, it doesn't really care what satellite YOU think you are aimed at, it just looks for any valid TP signal and it is "BLIND" in regards to what satellite you have selected in the menu. Whichever sat you have selected in the menu is where the scanned transponders and channels are going to be stored and therefore, if you are aimed at the wrong satellite, the receiver doesn't care, it just logs whatever it finds right there.

Basically, you didn't do anything really wrong, you just missed a step. After scanning, you were supposed to verify that the TPs and channels were from SatMex 5. You simply jumped to the conclusion that they were from SatMex 5 and thus skipping the verification process. You kinda went to the YAHOO! stage because you detected and scanned some channels in. You were simply just a little premature in your celebration. LOL

With the provider ID that the Coolsat offers, you get an early chance (sometimes) to verify the satellite that you are aimed at ahead of time. This is akin to what we mentioned regarding the pitfalls of a satellite signal finder. Sure, it detected a signal, but where is it coming from? Which satellite is the dish and motor aligned with? You won't know that until you actually scan and then analyze the results. So you should now be aware that you were doing what you were supposed to, but you simply jumped ahead one step.

In a previous reply, I think that I had elluded to "staying in the present" and not jumping to the next step too soon. Although that statement was not directly related to this specific issue, I hope that you understand the importance of the notion.

Somebody asked about my LNB. Here is a copy of the description:
1 x Dreamstar Dual Linear LNB
The Dreamstar dual linear LNB is designed and tested in Europe to guarantee the best signal strength and quality. You will not find a better quality LNB anywhere as it has an incredible 0.3dB noise figure and 100% compatible with all multi-switches. Dual output LNB will allow you to add a second FTA receiver in the future.

I don't want to address the LNB issue right now. I don't have the specifics of this LNBF at hand and if you tried to include a LINK for it, it didn't work. However, we do need to address this issue in the very near future. I have some questions and problems regarding your LNBF quality. If it is a standard linear LNBF, then it should NOT have picked up on the DN transponder that it did, it should have rejected it and tossed it aside as being simply interefence or unwanted noise. Maybe someone else can address this issue, but I will postpone it for a few steps as I want to stay focused on other parameters.


So, once I do indeed get SatMex5, do I need to "store position"? That I still don't know for sure.

NO! The "store position" is not a "legitimate" function of USALS. As far as I am able to discern, there is no need to do this if you are using USALS motor positioning. However, I am so skeptical of the design and programming of the SV 360 that I may be wrong.

Allow me to fill you in with a bit of information regarding USALS. First USALS = Universal Satellite Automatic Locating System. The key word being "AUTOMATIC". When using or applying USALS, as long as you have a plumb mast, the motor elevation or latitude set correctly, the dish elevation set correctly, and one sat (the NEAREST) true south satellite dialed in, then USALS should be able to locate and lock all other satellites "automatically".

DiSEqC 1.2 is just the rough communication language between the receiver and the motor. USALS must use DiSEqC 1.2 to communicate the commands from the receiver to the motor. But, using straight DiSEqC 1.2 motor control forces you to manually position each satellite position and then "store" that position in the memory of the motor.

USALS does not store the position within the motor, it simply recalculates the command every time you request a move to a different satellite. It takes your site's longitude and latitude entries and the orbital position of the satellite selected and calculates a DiSEqC 1.2 command to send to the motor. The motor (if it knows where it's reference point is) takes that DiSEqC 1.2 command and drives the dish to that position.

DiSEqC 1.2 = Manually locating the sat and "STORING" the found position within the motor's memory.

USALS = Locate one reference point (nearest true south sat is best) and then calculate commands to locate all other satellites from that reference point. Store the data used to make the calculations in the receiver memory (lat/long/sat orbital position in degrees).

In both cases, the dish and motor must still be "CALIBRATED" at the nearest true south satellite. When I mention "CALIBRATED" I mean that the dish has to be physically adjusted and aligned to some reference point (hopefully the truest and nearest south satellite). Obviously, if you could just take a dish out to a pole and plop it on top and that was all that was necessary, everyone would be doing it and we wouldn't need a forum to discuss it. But, you and I know that it doesn't work that way.

The closer the true south satellite's orbital position is to your actual site longitude position, the better. For instance, my longitude is 96.4°W and my true south sat is 97.0°W. I am 0.6° off. If my longitude was 97.0°W, I would have a more pronounced benefit, meaning less "tweaking and peaking" duties. The further off you are (site longitude vs sat orbital position), the more time you will have to spend to adjust the dish and motor to make it PERFECT.

It truly is not as difficult as it seems, but you have to know and understand the logic behind it all first, before you begin. Otherwise, it seems too Greek.


Radar, thank you for telling me about that neat feature on the Coolsat. The SonicView does not have that, and boy would that be nice. Usually I just hunt and peck around where I think I am to see if I can find which satellite I am actually on.

Thank you all ! I will reply back once I get a chance to get back on the roof. If somebody could address the last question above (do I need to store SatMex5 once I find it, or am I done?) I am good to go.

TMB,

I have kinda answered some of your recent questions, but I still think that the notion of "storing" the position of SatMex 5 has you confused. In my comments above I kinda (loosely) described the differences between USALS and DiSEqC 1.2, but that is not enough.

USALS is a math program developed by the STAB motor company in conjunction with the aid of Eutelsat for the sole purpose of making it easier to align a satellite dish antenna. It is a great achievement and benefit for you and I. The actual program (USALS) is basically FREEWARE for anyone who wants to manufacture a satellite receiver. So, let's say that Coolsat wants to use the USALS program within their receivers to make them better. They have to submit their "proposed" design to the USALS labs and have STAB sign off on it (approve it), then the manufacturer of that receiver may apply a decal or logo that proves that their design was accepted.

Take a look at your SV 360 and you will NOT find a USALS logo on it anywhere.

Hmmm, why do you suppose that is? Do you suppose they failed the criteria that STAB and the USALS labs set forth? Doesn't it make you wonder why my SV 360 didn't work worth a crap regarding USALS?

I gaurantee that if you get a Coolsat 5000 or 6000 (or even the 4000) that you will immediately detect the difference. It is damned hard to beat these machines. Honestly, they are that good. They don't do all the fancy crap like HD or YouTube and 4:2:2 signals, but they actually WORK and do what you tell them to do for SD signals.

:up

TMB,

Don't give up, buddy. You just cleared a few hurdles that you clipped with your feet, but you are still on the track and running in the right direction! Once you get some of this stuff clear in your mind, it will all seem more than easy for you. The keys are patience and persistence.

RADAR

 

[freezy]

You could be in the hobby for 2 years and still have a steep learning curve ahead of you.

Kinda like me

Hang in there. My mom thought I was silly till I showed her a home shopping channel.

 

[AcWxRadar]

What I find totally hair-pulling and frustrating in general, as I alluded to earlier, is the lack of a central source for knowing basic things, like what a blind scan does.

TMB,

All the information IS here. You simply have to seek it out. The STICKIES and HOW-TOs and FAQ areas help, but there is so much information to cover that we simply aren't able to condense everything into a nice little packet. A great deal of this information is stored in our heads from our own past experiences.

Let's call this OJT or "ON the JOB TRAINING"!

You are basically getting the "shock" treatment in your exposure to FTA at this time. There is simply no way to condense EVERYTHING down into a neat little pocket book for everyone to use. There is just too much information to process here. That is why I compiled the post that is a STICKIE in the FAQ area to help you. It is LONG winded and covers a great deal of material, but it still lacks a great deal of information since I couldn't put it all in there. I wanted to get just the very basics out and that is difficult enough. Things with receivers and satellites change too often that we have a difficult time keeping up. Only the very basics can be condensed into a manual. The rest you have to learn as you go and that knowledge varies with the equipment you purchase.

You appear to be starting totally from scratch. Although this is not the recommended approach, your situation is an excellent excercise for yourself and others to learn through and from.

I hope you see the value of this excercise (this entire thread). It isn't only for you, it is for everyone.

RADAR

 

[Tron]

Let me step back to the Coolsat reciever for just a moment... If you were using a CS 5K, there is that feature that I mentioned called the "PROVIDER ID". As you are searching around and panning your dish and motor and adjusting your dish elevation, you would sometimes detect a signal and that signal contains identification information. The CS 5K and 6K and I belive that the 4K also unveils this, but up in the top, right corner of the screen, it identifies the provider's ID.

The Visionsat IV-200 will also display the provider ID at the top of the dish setup screen (provided, of course, that the ID is being transmitted). Sometimes, a default ID (which is usually an uplink equipment manufacturer) shows up. Galaxy 27, for example, used to show 'SCOPUS' when I was setting up for Whitesprings TV.

 

[TryingMyBest]

Thank you all

for taking so much time out of your day to share your knowledge and for your kind words of encouragement. Honestly, I enjoy this process tremendously, and love learning anything and everything. I have always been fascinated by satellite technology, even from an early age. I would look with awe at people living in remote places that had a BUD. When I look at a dish, my brain thinks "freedom".

I have limited internet access this week and will get back on the roof this weekend. As before I will post my results. Every piece of advice, and every place you point me to for information (as Radar did) will be studied.

Thank you all again and I will get back to you all in a few days. It's just as well, as the weather has turned nasty again, with thunderstorms and highs of only 53--very unusual for this time of year around here.

 

[TryingMyBest]

Coolsat and USALS

Radar, you are 1000% right about USALS and SV. Armed with your information , I went to the STAB home page, and downloaded their instructions. You are quite right, they clearly state that USALS compliance should be marked on the box. I didn't know the background on this until you explained it.

I also notice that Coolsats can be hard to find. I looked on both Amazon, and the place I bought my package (they carry 6 different receivers) -- neither had a Coolsat for sale. Amazon has a few used ones. Any good source to buy one? I could not find one on Craigs, and don't have an E-bay account.

Thank you all again !

 

[AcWxRadar]

Radar, you are 1000% right about USALS and SV. Armed with your information , I went to the STAB home page, and downloaded their instructions. You are quite right, they clearly state that USALS compliance should be marked on the box. I didn't know the background on this until you explained it.

I also notice that Coolsats can be hard to find. I looked on both Amazon, and the place I bought my package (they carry 6 different receivers) -- neither had a Coolsat for sale. Amazon has a few used ones. Any good source to buy one? I could not find one on Craigs, and don't have an E-bay account.

Thank you all again !

TMB,

It is difficult to keep up with the technology of all these receivers and devices. Many manufacturer's try to hornswaggle you into buying their products because they claim "it is the best and newest"! Hogwash!

Sometimes, and more often than not, the simplest and most inexpensive device is the best article available. I personally hate it when they try to get fancy! Just provide me with something that does the job I want it to. Forget all the bells and whistles and produce a satellite receiver that receives satellites, instead of all the extraeneous BS like you tube and www apps. Far too fancy!

I just must take a detour here and provide you with the following "fun" escape, (please be aware that there is some really agressive language contained within)"

youtube.com/watch?v=8AyVh1_vWYQ

Please allow me to inform you about Coolsats' 4k, 5k and 6k models. They are discontinued products so the only places you are likely to find them are on the used markets and E-Bay is the most likely source. Normally, they are in pretty good condition. I did purchase one or two that were lemons, but the seller also stated that there was a defect with them, so I was not caught unaware. I bought them dirt cheap to use for spare parts and was forewarned by the seller right off the bat that there were problems (honest advertising). However, I bought several that were just fine and all I needed to do is clean out the hack stuff and they were perfect for FTA use.

I would stack these early Coolsat models up against just about any other receiver for their ease of use and lack of defects. I have one CS 5K that I bought brand new that is still running, since September of 2004 or maybe 2005 and it hasn't been turned off (much) since.

Obviously, times and technology changes quickly, but not so quickly that these receivers are completely out of date. They may be out of date for the hackers, but not for us in regards to FTA applications.

I cannot dwell on these Coolsats forever, as there are new models that are just as good for FTA. Although it is also probably an obsolete model by now, the Fortec Star Dynamic receiver was a very great FTA receiver in the same rite as the early Coolsat models were. The Dynamic is/was a workhorse too! I bought one and was very impressed with how easy it was to set up and navigate its menus.

When it comes to this forum and what we discuss here, it is not merely a matter of discussing what is the newest thing on the market, but what works the best.

I keep wanting to say that if my 16 year old boy wanted a vehicle, would I want to buy him a brand new Corvette or a 1978 F150 pickup truck? The answer would be neither as I would make the kid buy his own doggone vehicle, LOL! But, I would rather see him get the pickup so that I can use it, too. Why? Because it serves a purpose of utility and it works and if we need to repair it, we can. It is simply the more logical selection.

Okay, enough of me speaking in parables and what not. You all get the point that I am attempting to make here. The big picture is to use the best and most friendly tools to get you acquainted with the heavens and the satellites and not confuse you with all the fancy pants stuff. Lest you lose interest in the subject.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Radar, you are 1000% right about USALS and SV. Armed with your information , I went to the STAB home page, and downloaded their instructions. You are quite right, they clearly state that USALS compliance should be marked on the box. I didn't know the background on this until you explained it.

Thank you all again !

TMB,

This is awesome! You have probably read that this is an addictive hobby, and maybe you wondered why we said this. Maybe you are now seeing what we mean by this phrase. As it is not that this hobby revolves around pulling in channels from all the various satellites, as that is not the full scope of this hobby! It is the pursuit of the information and the knowledge that is the fun. It is not the catch, it is the chase that is the thrill!

One item leads you to the next and you inevitably result in a constant and everlasting pursuit of more information and more knowledge.

Each step along the way brings you something new and a fond reward, but you never stop there... There is always one more horizon to investigate and one more bit of knowledge to learn.

I may seem to make this sound more romantic than it is, but once you are caught up in this whirlwind, you don't see the difference, you just want more of it.

We just have to have one more answer to our question, we just want to give one more answer to another's question, we just want to spend one more minute or one more hour researching something.

This is the greatest hobby as every step pulls you further towards the next step and each step takes you in towards several new directions. It is a journey into space, into books, into life, into knowledge, into the depths of human thought, into the realm of science and it eventually encompasses the world and the solar system and the universe!

Well, maybe my impression sounds a bit eccentric to you, but I enjoy it that much. All I can say is WOW! Give me more! This is "COOL"! Awesome!

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

TryingMyBest,

It has been a while, do you have any new information? I am still eager to hear how your system is progressing. Still wishing you luck here!

RADAR