Back to the Basics - Please Help!

[linuxman]

Tweaking the 10' BUD for Digital

Before I get on the roof and destroy what time I have spent peaking this dish already, I wanted to describe what I have, and ask what I might do to make it better.

This is all digital C-Band and Ku. Here's what I am able to receive:

AMC-10 at 135W, C-Band only G4 is at 30% quality and shopping is at 60%

G-11 C-Band 91W my true South, TP's range in 30-40 quality. I can't get EWTN or The Word Network for some reason, and they are big boomers. Had them on Saturday, but not yesterday or today.

G-11 Ku the TP's range from some at 60%, some at 45% and some at 30% quality.

From SBS-6 at 74W a Ku only satellite, I have the ONN at 30%

From the Far East in Intelsat 805 C-Band at 55.5W, I have a TP at 28-30%

It appears to me that I am tracking the arc pretty well from West to East, just need to get the signal quality up a little.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I would have never gotten this far without the aid and assistance of Al, Shawn, Doc, Iceberg, and all the rest of you and for that I am deeply grateful.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[dashaund]

What kind of LNBs are you using? Are they old or new? Some of the cheaper ones might work for analog, but be really bad for digital. If they're older one, they might be bad and you need new ones.

 

[linuxman]

Hi dashaund,

I am using the orignal C-Band Cal-Amp 25K C-Band Lnb, and a new Aspen Eagle .6 KU LNB.

The Chaparell CoRotor II Plus is brand new too. I bought the Aspen Eagle at the same time as the CoRotor.

Fred

 

[fayrich]

Don't forget about the focal point. Feedhorn must be perfectly centered and the correct distance from the center of the dish.

 

[linuxman]

Hi FAYRICH,

I am pretty sure I have the Focal point set correctly and the F/D ratio set properly. That can be adjusted, but is a pain in the but to do. I spent a good amount of time working on that before, but it is possible that it needs to be fine tuned.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[voomvoom]

Fred, you might want to adjust the feedhorn inside of the scaler ring. You can turn it a little, one way or the other, and see if it will improve signal. Sort of like fine tuning the polarotor.

Al

 

[linuxman]

Hey Al,

I have thought about that too. I have it set to what the paper template suggested, but I have read here, that sometimes you have to tweak that a little too.

I am going to wait a little while before going up on the roof and get everyone's suggestions before making any changes.

Thanks,
Fred

 

[linuxman]

Ok Houston!

We have a problem, and I think I know where it lies!

The Vbox II seems to be flaking out on me. This morning earlier it has been raining and heavy cloud cover so I just left it on The Learning Center on G11-KU. The quality there has been ranging from 45 or so all day. Whenever it would start raining the signal would be lost completely, and not come back on at all. I would have to unplug both the Vbox and the Pansat to get the signal back. I have done that about 4 or 5 times now. Also I have noticed that after a long switch back and forth between satellites, the same thing would happen. It would switch positions okay, but then the signal wouldn't be there. I would unplug the Vbox and the Pansat, plug in the Vbox first, and then the Pansat and the signal would come on.

I am going to change my setup, put the Drake back in place. even though the picture is having problems, it is the easiest to move the dish with. I will use the Vobx to setup all currently programmed satellites into the Drake and see what happens to that for a while.

That is part of the reason I haven't touched the dish yet. Also while I am thinking about it, the question asked by dashaund above might just be that the old Cal-Amp C-Band LNB might solve the picture problems on the Drake.

Thanks to all who are helping.

Fred

 

[voomvoom]

Fred, I hate to say it, but that sux. I was really looking forward to you getting the VBOX II to work with a good review for those of us who are interested. I want one of these and now you've just made it very optimistic. I guess now I'll wait and maybe someone else can convince me to get one. Or maybe I'll break down and get one to see for myself, cause I sure want one, or something simular that will work to satisfaction.

Al

 

[linuxman]

I want to tell you Al, I wanted it to work more than you know.

I wanted to make this setup as easy for my wife and family as possible, and I thought I was going about that the right way.

Just from my uneducated mind, I think the problem lies not so much as to where the position is stored, because it moved it to the right place, the feedback to the Pansat such as in, "okay we are here, you can turn on the picture" because every time I would reset the Vbox and the Pansat, the picture would be there so it remembered the position ok, just not how to tell the pansat "we're home".

So I have the Drake hooked back up and putting in the positions for it.

One piece of good news is that with the Vbox out of the scenario, there is one less object and 2 less connectors that soak of quality strength.

I'll get back on here a little later with an update.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[linuxman]

Allrighty then!

Let me bring you up to date on what I have done since I last posted. I just got off the roof with the last adjustment.

This is all digital C-Band and Ku band adjustments.

Setting on G-11 KU my true South sat, we pulled up slightly, and pushed down slightly with no change.

Swung to the West to AMC 10 which is all C-Band, pulled up, and pushed down with little change. the HSN is at about 45, and G4 is about 15-20 quality.

Moved to SBS--6 all Ku and pushed down, and ONN went from 45 - 80 quality signal.

We moved the dish 1/16 of an inch to the East and now am enjoying 80-85% signal with Ku there.

After making the adjustments, I went back to the center, and the Ku there had gone up from about 45 - 75 -80 % quality.

Unfortunately the C-Band remains unchanged. I think that dashaund is correct. I need a new C-Band LNB.

I have read good things about the Aspen Extremes, and the Norsats on this site, but I don't want to have to spend an arm and a leg if I don't have to. The Aspen Eagle Ku LNB I am using seems to be working fine, could probably be better, but when I started, I didn't even know if the equipment would work or not.

You guys that are reading this, give me your opinion on less expensive C-Band LNBS.

This is for you Al. I am about to revise my opinion on the Vbox. As I said earlier, the Vbox didn't forget where the positions were, but the Pansat was freezing up after it lost signal during the move.

Well the Pansat is still freezing up after losing signal during the move. I don't know whether a bios upgrade will help or not. The current version is dated in January 2006. Maybe someone else has had this problem. If it turns out that this is a Pansat problem, the Vbox goes back on. It is by far the eastiest way to move the big dish.

If someone can give me instructions, or point them to me for flashing the bios on this Pansat, I would be grateful.

Thanks again for all of your help everyone. I am finally beginning to see light at the end of this tunnel.

Thanks, Fred

 

[dfergie]

Thats what I have on both my BUD's the 25 degree Cal Amps I was able to get some channels on G4 with the DVB World box and my 8' mesh dish awhile back but no luck yesterday with my Coolsat 5000... have not tried the 10' fiberglass yet but it will need alot of tuning as it is getting west sats good and no east's. I will watch to see what Lnb you get if you do get a new one closely...

 

[linuxman]

Thanks Dfergie,

I'm still waiting for some opinions, I can get an Astrotel PMJ-LNB-C 17 degrees here locally, but can't find much info about them, so I haven't bought one yet.

Fred

 

[voomvoom]

Fred, I have 2 BUD's in operation. The older one, a 10' fiberglass, been around since about 1979, although these lnb's were upgraded in the mid 80's, are used exclusively with my 4dtv subscription service, has a 40k Drake C-band lnb and a 6db Toshiba ku lnb. My newer BUD, a 10' Unimesh, purchased in late 80's to early 90's (not sure when), has a 25k Cal Amp C-band lnb and a 7db Cal Amp ku lnb. All of these are flawless in my opinion. You can get an idea of what's available here:
http://www.sepatriot.com/LNBs.htm
After you look at these, you should have an idea of what's out there, and may be able to find the one you decide on cheaper somewhere else. I would reccommend getting the lowest degree or db you can afford, with the lowest +/- stability rating.

Al

 

[MrMars]

Right now I use all Norsat's. I had a 25k Cal amp before that on my c-band. It worked really well, but it died on me it did last a long time tho so I would certainly recommend it too.

 

[fayrich]

I too would recommend the Cal Amp. Have had very good performance from them over the years(since about 1980). Also would suggest that you check Ebay. Could possibly find a good buy there.

 

[linuxman]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for responding.

For now at least, I am probably not going to spend a great deal of money, so may pick up what I can get local and continue with the setup. At a later point in time perhaps I can get a Christmas present or something. :0 I still have to get my family a receiver and get their dish up in the near future and get a receiver for them. Who knows what it might need.

I contacted Pansat about the freezing problem with my unit. They suggested that I upgrade the firmware. Hope that works.

Thanks, Fred

 

[linuxman]

Okay,

So I followed the advice of Pansat and upgraded the firmware on the 3500SD, and played with it for a while moving the dish with the Drake which I have back in use until I can find another Drake like it. (Hint-Hint)

So I just put the Vbox back in place, and went to set up the Satellites. I parked the dish right where it was when I took the Vbox out, and hooked up the motor wires to the Vbox, went into the install menu for each satellite, and turned on the 1.2 for dish movement, and the dish took off to land right where it is supposed to. Go figure.

Another thing, since I upgraded the firmware, the C-Band side has now come alive with the same kind of signal the Ku side has been getting. I just went down and bought a C-Band LNB, but now I don't think I need it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Besides I shudder to think if I loosened that feedhorn, and had to go through that setup again.

So all seems to be well, will continue with the setup.

Thanks for all your help once again,

Fred

 

[voomvoom]

That's good news Fred. Puts a positive perspective back in me wanting one. Or I should say, it increase's my eagerness and desire. Still not quite ready to jump, so I'll give you another chance to maybe talk me out of it.

Al

 

[linuxman]

I like you Al,

You and everyone else puts up with my noobieness and with good humor.

I really think there was a bug in the Pansat firmware, but I associated it with the Vbox because of all the bad publicity the original Vbox got.

Right now the thing is working flawlessly. I even got White Springs TV coming in pretty good. I also think the bug was causing problems on the C-Band side. Remember back when I talked about all the double channels on both C-Band and KU?

When I get all the Satellites programmed in position wise, I am going to delete all the channels except one on each satellite, and then rescan all the sats and get a fresh start. I will have to learn how to use Channel Master or the other one, to reclaim the first 26 postions in the Pansat. While I am thinking about it, what are those first 26 positions? And what are they used for?

I may go ahead and put on the new C-Band LNB since I already bought it. I can always keep the other for a spare.

You are a good man Al.

Hang in there with me.

Fred