arc set

[B.J.]

Right, I hadn't thought of that, but instead of turning the volume up, you could hook the audio directly into the wireless headphone setup. ...
....
And you won't feel in a rush to get it done before the neigbors call the cops, since your tv room would be dead quiet.

Re wireless headphones, we've owned I think 2 or 3 sets of those things, all name brands like Sony, and none of them worked worth a darn. They would sort of work, if you were maybe 10' from the transmitter, but only if you kept your head tilted at the right angle, and if you got more than 10-15' away, you lost everything. We've also tried those video repeater things too, and same thing, ie limited to about 15'. About the only wireless things that have ever worked in my house are the wireless routers, and the UHF remotes for a couple old analog receivers I used to use. I don't know if it's because I have so many different types of computers, scanners, radios, TVs running 24/7 and the interferrence messes things up, or what, but none of those things work in this house. Even the wireless network seems to have poor range, in that it works INSIDE the house, but if I walk more than 10' from the house, I lose it. I guess this is a good thing, security wise, but it means that I can't take my computer out to the dish, and view the output of my PCI card receivers connected to the network inside, although I was able to do that once, by setting up an external WAP via wired network, but having two access points kind of confused the rest of the network. But that was a neat way of getting around taking a TV out to the dish. Ie just take the laptop out there, and using a VNC program view the desktop of the computer running the receiver inside.
It's possible that it's due to the fact that we have a metal roof, and get reflections off it messing up phasing, etc.

Re neighbors calling cops, not too likely. We do have one house that's only a couple hundred yards away, but that's just a weekend/vacation home owned by some rich people from Boston, and they aren't there most of the time, so the only people there are their caretakers, who make more noise than I do. Next nearest neighbors are a half mile away. ALTHOUGH, we live on the side of a circular valley, and it seems to focus sound like an elliptical reflector, and there are times when we can hear minor sounds coming from one particular house that's about a mile away. We drove around once trying to find who was playing music real loud, and found the place, and the sound was lower when right at the end of their driveway than it was a mile away. Weird.

Boy did I get off topic......

 

[Lone Cloud]

Re wireless headphones, we've owned I think 2 or 3 sets of those things, all name brands like Sony, and none of them worked worth a darn. ...Weird. Boy did I get off topic......

Funny. I have an ultra cheap set that I use when I set my dish or go mow the lawn and want to stay up on the show I'm watching. I get a signal in every corner of my property and on my roof.

I don't know

 

[B.J.]

Funny. I have an ultra cheap set that I use when I set my dish or go mow the lawn and want to stay up on the show I'm watching. I get a signal in every corner of my property and on my roof.

I don't know

Like I said, I'm starting to suspect that it has something to do with my metal roof. Either that or one of my dozens of electronic gadgets has gone beserk, which has happened on several occasions. To get WAY off topic, one of my hobbies is listening to military jets on my scanners (since they fly over my house at low altitude all the time), so I have scanners tuned to the military aircraft bands all waking hours. Well one day, one of my scanners squelch lit up, and I was hearing this chirp chirp chirp sound, loud and clear. I thought what the heck is going on, does some F-16 have birds on board or something? Then I remembered that a couple months earlier, I had received a gift, which was a "bird sound transmitter", which is an egg shaped gadget that you hang out by your bird feeders, and it's supposed to transmit a signal to your FM radio, which is the sound of the birds coming to your bird feeder. Well that thing didn't work worth a darn either. Only worked for a couple minutes then stopped working. I just left the thing out there. So months later, I found out that it was actually still working, but it's frequency was just drifting all over the place, and every now and then one of it's harmonic freqs would align with one of the air band freqs I was tuning, so this particular day I was hearing the very low power birds instead of the high power birds.
But this type thing happens all the time in my house. Ie I'm ALWAYS encountering some kind of interfering signal, and can't figure out what's causing it. I usually walk around the house with a hand held scanner, listening to the interference, trying to find where it's coming from. Some times I can find it, but usually I can't, particularly because all the reflections off our metal roof make signals seem to be coming from all different directions. I pretty much have to turn things off one by one listening to see if the interference goes away. The most common interferrence is that coming from one of the 6 or 7 computers I generally have running every day.
But relative to those headphones, seems like the ones I had have a switch to allow you to try different freqs. I would have thought that one of the freqs would have worked, but we tried all of them, and none of them worked.

 

[skysurfer]

I can vouch for the fact that it's possible to perfectly align a dish with a pole that is tilted significantly. Also, back in the 90s, the TVRO forum I was on had some members who were apparently at a demonstration where the Gourmet fellow (I forget his name) aligned a dish on a pole that was tilted by something like 30 degrees.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the procedure for aligning a dish without an arcset that is on a non-plumb pole? I don't think that is discussed on the geo-orbit dish tracking page, but someone is welcome to correct me if they want.

Is it exactly the same as if a pole was plumb or does your "extreme satellite" in normal alignment procedures become some satellite that is closer to your due south sat?

 

[B.J.]

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the procedure for aligning a dish without an arcset that is on a non-plumb pole? I don't think that is discussed on the geo-orbit dish tracking page, but someone is welcome to correct me if they want.

Is it exactly the same as if a pole was plumb or does your "extreme satellite" in normal alignment procedures become some satellite that is closer to your due south sat?

I'm not completely sure of a step by step procedure, but from sitting in my recliner, playing with my wooden model of a polar mount, I came up with a general idea, and I don't know for sure that it will work.

I think that the first goal is to get the rotation axis correct. If your pole is sloping south, there is no problem, as you add more inclination to account for the extra tilt. However, if the tilt is also to say the southwest, then, to get the polar axis pointing toward the north star, you need to do two things, both adjust the elevation setting AND rotate the whole mount around the pole. I did this once using the ARC-SET, but any inclinometer should help you do this. Ie FIRST, I used the sun to find my exact true south using shadows, and put the arc-set or an inclinometer on the rotation axis, and keep rotating the mount around the pole until the axis was parallel to the north/south line, and with each adjustment then re-adjust the inclination so that the elevation is proper. Basically, when you have a tilting pole, and rotate the mount on the pole, it also changes the rotation axis elevation, so you have to make two adjustments at once, making it a bit more complicated. But with my models, it seemed apparent that it should always be possible to get the rotation axis aiming at the north star by using these two adjustments.

I THINK, that once you have done this, you will then have to run the motor to get the dish to it's highest point, which will NOT be where the parts of the mount are square to each other, but I think will be run a bit more to the east, if the pole is sloping to the southwest. Once the dish is at it's highest point, then make sure that the declination is set properly in the normal manner (whatever that is for the particular dish in use, perhaps by comparing the inclinometer reading of both the rotation axis and the dish face. (This gets VERY confusing if you happen to have an Orbitron Spinclination dish as I found out).

Hopefully, once the axis elevation and declination are set, you should be very close, and at the point where you would normally be peaking on your south satellite. The only question here, however, is relative to how to do the final peaking. Assuming that the pole tilt wasn't too great, you can probably just do this using the normal elevation adjustment on the mount, however the problem is that again, this is really a two step process, since making that adjustment also changes the azimuth adjustment of mount around pole. If only minor adjustments are required, the elevation adjustment may be enough, however if the tilt was substantial, you may have to do bit of back and forth here. I've never tried this, but I THINK that I would probably try to do the elevation peaking on the south sat, then go to a west sat, and tweak the mount on the pole, and then go back to the south sat for additional elevation peaking. Anyway, that is my untested theory.

I did it once with a dish mounted on a young tree that was tilting, but I only had a view across maybe 20-30 degrees due to other trees, and the tree I was mounted on wasn't tilted very much, so I'm not positive that the technique would work as well across the entire arc, but I think that with 2 or 3 back and forths between south and west sats, that it should get you aligned well, provided that you got the polar axis pretty close in the first step.

 

[shankle]

I received the analysis from the Arc-set gentleman in California.
I already have my axis set to 29.72 and the declination angle set to 4.22 degrees.

Here is his data for G14 at 125.0 degrees.

Orbit Satellite Freq True Elev Extem Skew
Long Designatn Band Azmth Angl Slope Twist

125.0 Galaxy14 C 242.0 32.8 57.19 50.5

I have no idea how to measure the True Azmth of 242.0. So it is more of a move
the dish east and west thing looking for signal on the Pico-Peaker.
I ran the dish west till the face of the dish read 57.19 degrees.
Have no idea how to set Skew twist. I set the lnb when the dish was facing straight up.

At this point I feel that I will never watch bud tv any more.
All this still gave me no signal

 

[B.J.]

.....
Yes I did put the dish at true south facing straight up on Nimik4.
This sat has nothing on it I can use.

You never did say what your exact longitude was, but AMC9 is pretty close to Nimiq4, at 83 instead of 82. You can probably tune your dish to that, if you still have your analog receiver. I CSPAN on channel 4.

I received the analysis from the Arc-set gentleman in California.
I already have my axis set to 29.72 and the declination angle set to 4.22 degrees.

Here is his data for G14 at 125.0 degrees.

Orbit Satellite Freq True Elev Extem Skew
Long Designatn Band Azmth Angl Slope Twist

125.0 Galaxy14 C 242.0 32.8 57.19 50.5

I have no idea how to measure the True Azmth of 242.0. So it is more of a move
the dish east and west thing looking for signal on the Pico-Peaker.
I ran the dish west till the face of the dish read 57.19 degrees.
Have no idea how to set Skew twist. I set the lnb when the dish was facing straight up.

At this point I feel that I will never watch bud tv any more.
All this still gave me no signal

You said above "axis set to 29.72". I may be forgetting part of the previous posts, but where did the 29.72 angle come from, and how is it being measured? I thought you said that your latitude was 29.6, in which case it might be what you're setting your rotation axis at, but it doesn't correspond to either the conventional (less accurate) value equal to your latitude (and measured as the angle of the rotation axis relative to the ground toward the northern horizon, nor does it correspond to the more accurate modified declination method, which you SHOULD be using, since you're using modified declinations if you're using 4.22. If this is what you're trying to set, then it should be set at ~30.2 , not 29.72. But in any event, I'm not sure where the 29.72 came from.

I would go back to your south sat, aiming straight up. Try to find CSPAN with the analog receiver. get that tuned in, THEN go for your far west sat, looking for them by minor movements of the whole mount on the pole.

 

[shankle]

Thank you much for replying B.J. and coming down to my level.

I got my Latitude/Longitude from "satsig.net/ssazelm.htm"
and then clicking on "Longitude and Latitude finder".
This gave me a Latitude of 29.1 and a Longitude of -82.48.
The analysis from California gives the same Latitude with an Axis slope
of .62 degrees totalling 29.72 degrees. These are the words from the gentleman
in California: "Your Axis slopes .062 degrees more than your local Latitude".
I have no way of making such fine adjustments with an inclinometer. It's just guesswork between degrees.

I do have an analog pusher (Uniden sq530) and will try to find Cspan on
Channel 4 (amc9).

 

[B.J.]

Thank you much for replying B.J. and coming down to my level.

I got my Latitude/Longitude from "satsig.net/ssazelm.htm"
and then clicking on "Longitude and Latitude finder".
This gave me a Latitude of 29.1 and a Longitude of -82.48.
The analysis from California gives the same Latitude with an Axis slope
of .62 degrees totalling 29.72 degrees. These are the words from the gentleman
in California: "Your Axis slopes .062 degrees more than your local Latitude".
I have no way of making such fine adjustments with an inclinometer. It's just guesswork between degrees.

I do have an analog pusher (Uniden sq530) and will try to find Cspan on
Channel 4 (amc9).

OK, I see. {I assume the your axis slopes thing is 0.62 deg, not .062}.
When I said 30.2, I was adding 0.6 to 29.6, and you're adding 0.6 to 29.1. I guess it might help to find out what your latitude REALLY is, ie 29.6 or 29.1.... what town are you closest to????

But also, how are you measuring the 29.7? It should be relative to the ground, so that if, while doing the measurement, if you pull the inclinometer away, and hold it horizontal, parallel to the ground, it should read zero. But relative to guesswork, right, but the important thing is that you round off in the right direction.

But anyway, if you still have the analog receiver, now is a good time to use that CSPAN channel, as it might not be there in another month. It's probably just temporary while AMC-11 is being attacked from the west.

 

[shankle]

Thank you so much B.J. My hat's off to you.

I got the Cspan analog channel clearer than when I had a lot of analog.
I then went west until I found the Shepards chapel on G16 ch 16 analog.
It must have been the Shepards chapel but it was all about farm equipment.
Was not able to get it very clear as I must have something set a little off.
I was using a piece of wood on the back circle of the dish to check slope
and I think it has a slight bend in it. So tomorrow I will use a level and the
inclinometer and check the settings again.

The axis thing. It is set as close to 29.77 as I can get it.
It is .62. Sorry it was a typo error.

I actually think I will solve this in about 6 months.

I had a man helping me with aligning the dish but he changed the declination
and I didn't know it. Wasted my money on him.

 

[shankle]

Thanks for any help.

I can get Cspan analog on amc 9 TP4 very clear.
I can get the Shepard's chapel analog on G16 TP 16 fairly good.

If I set the dish face to 57.19 degrees for G13 (127 degrees) c-band,
I get nothing.
I have the Pansat 2800a programmed to the following:
3800 V tp5 Bethel TV 27690
3960 V tp13 Tennis Ch 30000
4076 H tp18 LCN 3076
Is the Pansat programmed incorrectly or am I just flat out of luck?

 

[Lak7]

3960 V tp13 Tennis Ch 30000

You will not get that TP with your Pansat, it's "DVB-S2" (the DVB Standard Version 2)

 

[shankle]

Thank you for answering Lak7.
I'm still having problems understanding the format of Lyngsat.
3800 v tp5 Bethel TV 27690 is free to air I think. It is coded with an "F".

Then there is the color code at the bottom: two shades of beige.
One is "HD Clear" and the other is "digital Clear".
Does this mean they are clear ONLY for DVB?

So what Sat. can I use from 129 degrees and less for c-band alignment
purposes?

I have a bsc621-2d lNB. Should I leave the insert in the LNB for testing for
C-band or take it out?

 

[Lak7]

Should I leave the insert in the LNB for testing for C-band or take it out?

Remove the Insert.

Lyngsat can be a little hard to read at first, you'll get it though.....
For "regular DVB" you need 3 pieces of info to get a lock
Frequency, Polarity, Scan Rate, commonly written like:
3800 V 27690

Lyngsat is a Free Service, and is not always accurate, so if you have any doubt - ask.

One is "HD Clear" and the other is "digital Clear" Does this mean they are clear ONLY for DVB?

HD "is" Digital.
This Pic may help....

 

[shankle]

Today I was able to get Cspan on AMC 9 (83 degrees W) Analog very ckear.
I then tried AMc9 KU and got nothing as I expected.

Then I went down to G16 (99 degrees W) and was able to pick up the
Shepard's Chapel (analog) very clear. Then tried the C and KU bands and got nothing.

Then I went down to my lowest sat. at 127 degrees G13 and the Pico Peaker said that I had a good signal but the Pansat 2800a found nothing. I had the dish face set at 58.88 degrees from the analysis of the maker of the ARC-SET. Moved it up 1 and then down 1 and still nothing. Moved E/W and still nothing.
The 2 tps there are FTA and I should be able to pick them up.
3800 V tp5 Bethel tv 27690
4076 H tp18 LCN 3076

I removed the device that supposedly let you view circular C-band from the
LNBF bsc621-2d.

 

[Lak7]

Then I went down to G16 (99 degrees W) and was able to pick up theShepard's Chapel (analog) very clear.

Did you Blind Scan?

 

[shankle]

Thank you Lak7 for replying.
Not sure if I "blind scanned" or TP scanned.
Will try again today with "Blind Scan".
The Pansat 2800 with the factory bin in it does a thing
called a smart search and is slow as blazes.

Tell me if my reasoning is right. If I can get 2 analog channels
clear then I should be able to pick C-band at least?

This should also mean that my LNB (bsc621-2d is positioned somewhat
correctly? My Focal Point is 37.1 inches. What is FC? I didn't bother with it.
Focal Point divided by the width 120"

 

[Lak7]

Tell me if my reasoning is right. If I can get 2 analog channels clear then I should be able to pick C-band at least

Not necessarily, but you should be very close. C Band Digital Signals need a more precise alignment, Dish and Feedhorn.

called a smart search and is slow as blazes.

That's the Blind Scan

What is FC?

You mean F/d ratio?
Your Focal Point is from the deepest part of the Dish to 1/4" inside the Feedhorn (where the Cap is)
F/d ratio is the positioning of the Feedhorn to the Scalar Ring.
You set the F/d first, then adjust the Scalar Ring / Feedhorn as a single unit to proper Focal Point.

 

[B.J.]

....
F/d ratio is the positioning of the Feedhorn to the Scalar Ring.
You set the F/d first, then adjust the Scalar Ring / Feedhorn as a single unit to proper Focal Point.

Boy, that's the most annoying thing about MY dish. If I set the F/D first, it's virtually impossible to change the focal distance, since it needs to be done at the rim of the dish, where each of the 4 feed support arms are attached (one reason I prefer the old button hook shaped feed supports that came from the center of the dish, although the quad supports are a lot more sturdy). The only way for me to even GET to the top support is is to loosen the hub on my spinclination, and rotate the whole dish 180 deg, which I'm not about to try. I think that mine COULD have had a bit of range of adjustment right at the scalar, IF I had thought ahead when I first installed it, but the way I installed it, there isn't any adjustment range left.
What I end up doing, is generally either (1) basically ignoring the F/D setting, and just adjust the focal distance by sliding the feed in/out in the scalar, ie using the F/D adjustment _OR_ (2) adjust the F/D to the proper setting, then TWIST the whole feed assembly, so that the 4 support arms, instead of coming in at right angles to the scalar, toward the center of the feed, instead come in more tangential to the scalar. What this does, is kind of have a shortening effect on the support arms, and it reduces the focal distance (and unfortunately changes my polarity ever time I do this). So I can move the focal distance in and out by twisting the whole assembly.
Option (2) seems to work fairly well, except that I'm starting to think that it MIGHT be somehow putting some extra stress on the dish, perhaps changing the shape of the dish a bit.

Anyway, I'm curious relative to how the focal length is adjusted on other dishes that use quad support arms?

 

[shankle]

Thanks guys for replying.
1st I have a button feed in the center of the dish.
Width of dish is 120 inches.
Depth is 24.125 inches.
120x120/16X24.125 = 37.3 inches

f/D= .31.
I have never set anything to .31 as I don't know how.
Since I have never been able to get any C-band I must have the
LNBF set incorrectly. Even though I can pick up a couple of analog
signals. The button hook arrangement measurement is difficult
because the scalar ring is fastened to a plastic funnel which fits
on the pole coming from the center of the dish.
Could use some very simple detailed intsructions on how to
make this adjustment.
Can send a picture if it would help.