Okay, finally got aligned yesterday and started pulling in channels and adding sats to my sat list. Everything worked fine until I got to AMC 9. All the other sats were right when I typed in the coordinates and did a blind scan, but when I put in 83W and scanned I got only one TP for AMC 16 (TP 24 @ 12181 H). So, I am confused as to why all the other sats lined up, but this one is 2 degrees off.
AMC 9
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AMC9 & AMC 16 transponders strength are pretty strong its pretty easy to blind scan the other sats transponders. Try entering them manually and see how that goes. If all the other sats come in fine then its a strength of signal issue. AMC 9 is my true south bird and I have experienced this many times. I have also seen both sats have active transponders that are close in freg and sr interfere with each other.
Can I just ask if you are using a motor or not? I am not sure how you "found" 83W. I have been turning my dish by hand for a few months but Im about to attempt to get a motor working. I am just wondering if I might find similar issues. If so, then I think I will do what Greg suggested.
Edit: My bad. Your signature says you are using a motor
I guess I can just expect similar results. I wonder if its an issue of fine tuning the motor position.
Mike
Edit: My bad. Your signature says you are using a motor
I guess I can just expect similar results. I wonder if its an issue of fine tuning the motor position.Mike
couple thoughts
-85W alot of times wont have an active TP up. If it does have the test card its at 12182 H 3978
-Are you using USALS? Reason I ask is a few years ago AMC9 was at 85W...they moved it to 83W and put a different sat there. My old Pansat still shows AMC9 at 85W in the menus. Maybe the 9200 does too? I would check that
To make sure you're on 83W put in the following transponder
12140 V 30000
That is a strong transponder to lock. What I've learned is to find 85W I move to 83W and lock that transponder. Then move the dish west until the quality is 0. Then you're usually on 85W.
-85W alot of times wont have an active TP up. If it does have the test card its at 12182 H 3978
-Are you using USALS? Reason I ask is a few years ago AMC9 was at 85W...they moved it to 83W and put a different sat there. My old Pansat still shows AMC9 at 85W in the menus. Maybe the 9200 does too? I would check that
To make sure you're on 83W put in the following transponder
12140 V 30000
That is a strong transponder to lock. What I've learned is to find 85W I move to 83W and lock that transponder. Then move the dish west until the quality is 0. Then you're usually on 85W.
Yep, I am using USALS. And actually, AMC9 was not in my list, so it is one that I added and I have double checked that I put it in as 83W.
Thanks for the help, I am open to more suggestions. When I aimed the dish the first time, I did so using the quality meter for a transponder in the antenna menu after moving the motor to 97W (0.6 degrees east for me), not an actual channel. Should I have done this with a channel? Also, what should the lnb have been set to (rotational position) when aiming at true south?
I was able to get four channels on this one. Three color bars and a news feed. All shown on lyngsat as being 72W. So, yep I hit 72, but should I be getting more?
Unfortunately I get nothing when scanning this TP. Doing a Satellite scan of TP in the database (probably stored from the blind scan) I only get one channel: The AMC-16 TP 24 color bars. I don't know how to jog the motor right or left with the 9200 HD. Perhaps I am not quite aligned right, and the farther away from 97W (closest to true south for me) I get, the further off I am???
Thanks for the help, I am open to more suggestions. When I aimed the dish the first time, I did so using the quality meter for a transponder in the antenna menu after moving the motor to 97W (0.6 degrees east for me), not an actual channel. Should I have done this with a channel? Also, what should the lnb have been set to (rotational position) when aiming at true south?
that transponder wont scan in anything (its a data TP) but will log a very high quality that works great for aiming a dish
when you are on 83W do a smart scan and see what channels it logs...both channels and transponders
OK I just scanned both
83...11775 dang near blows the meter..shows the NBC test card
85....12182 is the AMC16 test card.....again almost blows the meter
the 3rd TP you logged is a feed on 83W...shows as 72 quality on the Coolsat.
So you're off by a smidge. I would manually add the RTV transponder (11735 H 4440) and see what that shows for quality. Should be very high. Shows as 80-85 quality on the 1500/36" combo
83...11775 dang near blows the meter..shows the NBC test card
85....12182 is the AMC16 test card.....again almost blows the meter
the 3rd TP you logged is a feed on 83W...shows as 72 quality on the Coolsat.
So you're off by a smidge. I would manually add the RTV transponder (11735 H 4440) and see what that shows for quality. Should be very high. Shows as 80-85 quality on the 1500/36" combo
I looked at that TP and got 0 for quality on the 83 TP's but 50-60 on the 85W TP. So I decided that since all the other sats have been working alright, I just went into the menu and changed it to 82W and moved the motor. Wham! TuffTV at 84%, RTV at 80%, the test card at 99%. So, I don't know if my alignment is just that far off or what. But I get the channels I wanted now, so thanks for the help.
Perhaps there is still a problem with my set-up though. Anything you can think of that I should check? Or just be happy with it?
Perhaps there is still a problem with my set-up though. Anything you can think of that I should check? Or just be happy with it?
I think he needs to tweak the tracking a little bit. Put 83 back at 83degrees, call it up on the receiver, then loosen the motor bracket bolts on the pole, and slightly twist the motor/dish over to the east a little, to get away from 85w....
Elliswr,
I am near Omaha and my longitude is 96.4°W, so I am quite close to your longitudinal position. I have always had troubles locking the RTV TP (11.734/11.735 with 4440-4444 SR) on 83.0°W and generally do so manually (none of my receivers blind scan and log this TP easily - including the Coolsat 5K and the AZBox Premium using a few different models of dish antenna). This has been a troublesome TP for me ever since RTV moved from 123.0°W to 83.0°W. Keep this information in the back of your mind as you will want to understand that not all of this trouble is your personal (human) error. There is just something odd about this particular transponder on this particular satellite. It has a long history of being ellusive for many FTA'ers.
I would recommend that you do NOT alter your dish and motor alignment (physically) to attempt to improve this situation. At least not at this stage. If you are confident with your dish and motor tracking of the entire arc, excluding this one particular satellite and transponder, then leave your alignment as-is for now. It is probably just fine.
I would recommend that you drive your dish to each of your main desired satellites across the arc and monitor the signal quality, record the readings, and then gently flex the dish ? ? ? ? . If you can improve the signal quality from the majority of all the other satellites by adjusting the dish aim in the same direction for every sat, then it would be beneficial to make a permanent adjustment. If by flexing your dish this way only results in a diminished quality from all the other satellites across the arc, then do not change your dish and motor's physical alignment. It is fine and you will then need to concentrate on other parameters to succeed in pulling in the RTV TP.
Here are some tricks that you can apply: Manually entering the TP data and adjusting the TP downlink frequency by 1 MHz steps up or down, adjusting the SR by 1 KS/s up or down. You can eventually find the "sweet spot" for your receiver using this method. With my Coolsat 5K, I was able to make even larger adjustments than a person would think were acceptable and I still retained the signal lock (or obtained the lock if I was seeking it). In other words, you have a large margin to play with and there is no set rule of thumb to apply here as there are just too many variables (slight differences in the LNBF's local oscillator frequency, the receiver's tuner, the downlink frequency, the angle of attack for the signal, the physical geometry of the dish reflector, the focal distance of the LNBF, a slight adjustment of the polarization of the LNBF, etc etc etc). You may also be able to alter the orbital position of the satellite in the menus, thus affecting only 83.0°W. You could re-enter this satellite as being located at 82.9°W or 83.1°W and serve the same purpose without affecting any other satellites in your list. Unfortunately, you cannot make a similar adjustment for the dish elevation without affecting the other satellites. The elevation adjustment is a purely physical adjustment to the dish and would affect ALL the satellites in your arc.
Currently, I am pulling in the RTV TP with a signal quality of 76%~82%. I have achieved up to 90%+ once, but that was a result of something that THEY did with their transmission signal and not anything that I have been able to reproduce since.
RADAR
I am near Omaha and my longitude is 96.4°W, so I am quite close to your longitudinal position. I have always had troubles locking the RTV TP (11.734/11.735 with 4440-4444 SR) on 83.0°W and generally do so manually (none of my receivers blind scan and log this TP easily - including the Coolsat 5K and the AZBox Premium using a few different models of dish antenna). This has been a troublesome TP for me ever since RTV moved from 123.0°W to 83.0°W. Keep this information in the back of your mind as you will want to understand that not all of this trouble is your personal (human) error. There is just something odd about this particular transponder on this particular satellite. It has a long history of being ellusive for many FTA'ers.
I would recommend that you do NOT alter your dish and motor alignment (physically) to attempt to improve this situation. At least not at this stage. If you are confident with your dish and motor tracking of the entire arc, excluding this one particular satellite and transponder, then leave your alignment as-is for now. It is probably just fine.
I would recommend that you drive your dish to each of your main desired satellites across the arc and monitor the signal quality, record the readings, and then gently flex the dish ? ? ? ? . If you can improve the signal quality from the majority of all the other satellites by adjusting the dish aim in the same direction for every sat, then it would be beneficial to make a permanent adjustment. If by flexing your dish this way only results in a diminished quality from all the other satellites across the arc, then do not change your dish and motor's physical alignment. It is fine and you will then need to concentrate on other parameters to succeed in pulling in the RTV TP.
Here are some tricks that you can apply: Manually entering the TP data and adjusting the TP downlink frequency by 1 MHz steps up or down, adjusting the SR by 1 KS/s up or down. You can eventually find the "sweet spot" for your receiver using this method. With my Coolsat 5K, I was able to make even larger adjustments than a person would think were acceptable and I still retained the signal lock (or obtained the lock if I was seeking it). In other words, you have a large margin to play with and there is no set rule of thumb to apply here as there are just too many variables (slight differences in the LNBF's local oscillator frequency, the receiver's tuner, the downlink frequency, the angle of attack for the signal, the physical geometry of the dish reflector, the focal distance of the LNBF, a slight adjustment of the polarization of the LNBF, etc etc etc). You may also be able to alter the orbital position of the satellite in the menus, thus affecting only 83.0°W. You could re-enter this satellite as being located at 82.9°W or 83.1°W and serve the same purpose without affecting any other satellites in your list. Unfortunately, you cannot make a similar adjustment for the dish elevation without affecting the other satellites. The elevation adjustment is a purely physical adjustment to the dish and would affect ALL the satellites in your arc.
Currently, I am pulling in the RTV TP with a signal quality of 76%~82%. I have achieved up to 90%+ once, but that was a result of something that THEY did with their transmission signal and not anything that I have been able to reproduce since.
RADAR
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Thanks for the insight Radar, I will have to wait until I have another pair of eyes to try out your suggestions. For now, though, here's another data point for you. The other satellite I am immediately interested in is 125W to get PBS. I have been having trouble with this one as well. This morning thinking about what radar and trubosat said, I thought I would jog the motor a little bit east from 125 and see where I could get the highest quality on 12180 V 3000 on 125W. Turns out the best results were at 124.7W and I was able to actually scan and save the PBS stations into my lineup (which had been impossible before). The signal quality is now 25-33% where it was only 10% before. So looking at 125 being east of where it should be (on my receiver) and 83 being closer to 82, I am thinking I will need to adjust my motor mount to the east a bit. I'll have to go back and check 101 & 97 as well.
What is the typical signal quality for the PBS stations? I am worried that my motor mount may be slightly cocked to one side or the other and that would cause the sats further away from 97 to be more and more misaligned, harder to get a signal.
Thanks again for all the help.
Wes
What is the typical signal quality for the PBS stations? I am worried that my motor mount may be slightly cocked to one side or the other and that would cause the sats further away from 97 to be more and more misaligned, harder to get a signal.
Thanks again for all the help.
Wes
Elliswr,
If your motor is tracking OK, you could just bump your dish east or west using Diseqc 1.2 and save that position if you lock 83.0W. My CS6100 has issues with 83.0W; even though the channels are in, when changing to Tuff or RTV, the sound comes in right away, but I might have to wait as long as 25 seconds for the video. I can see that in a situation like that, you might be scanning for channels that aren't locked yet, and a little patience might allow time for them to lock; just a thought. It lags by only 3-4 seconds on another of my receivers and no lag at all on another. There really is something strange about this tp.
ss ><>
If your motor is tracking OK, you could just bump your dish east or west using Diseqc 1.2 and save that position if you lock 83.0W. My CS6100 has issues with 83.0W; even though the channels are in, when changing to Tuff or RTV, the sound comes in right away, but I might have to wait as long as 25 seconds for the video. I can see that in a situation like that, you might be scanning for channels that aren't locked yet, and a little patience might allow time for them to lock; just a thought. It lags by only 3-4 seconds on another of my receivers and no lag at all on another. There really is something strange about this tp.
ss ><>
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but he also is having issues with 125W.
Those PBS transponders on a Pansat are around 70-75 quality or higher.
Those PBS transponders on a Pansat are around 70-75 quality or higher.
Dunno about Texas, but in the northeast 125W is huge. I've been able to get the 5-channel mux (HD, SD, V-Me, Create, and World) reliably on an 18" dish, and sometimes a few other of the non-S2 muxes as well.
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