DiseQ

[Gordon Corbett]

16904.1
Dear All,

I am sorry to bother you with this, but I have just discovered something that I should have learned as a newbie.

I have a Pansat 9200HD. I have "slaved" it to our DSR-920. The Pansat's Antenna Setup window has several controls. One is the "DiseQ" control. There are four. Acting on prior advice, I had always left it on, "OFF."

Another is the 22 Khz. control. As with the DiseQ control, I had left this one on, "OFF."

On one fine evening last week, I was trying to find the new settings for my new Norsat LNBs. I was disgusted because my efforts to find quality readings on one particular satellite were failing. Curious, I decided to move the DiseQ control from "OFF" to "No. 1." Zingo! All of a sudden, the frequency at which my machine was looking sported a very nice green quality reading.

Even more curious, I changed the 22 Khz. control to, "ON." The quality-bar gauge's reading increased.

How should I use these tools? For instance, should I dedicate No. 1 DiseQ to C-Band and No. 2 to KU-Band? Should I run each satellite through both for both bands? Or, do you have better suggestions? I am mystified. My 9200's manual did not suggest what procedures to follow, which is vexatious because suggesting procedures has always been a reason for writing manuals.

Someone should write a series of manuals called, "FTA Receivers for Dummies." I will be among the first to buy.

I am perplexed and abashed. I bought my Pansat 3500s in 2007. I bought my Pansat 9200HD in late 2009 or in early 2010. I thought that by now, I had a basic grasp of how Pansat receivers' controls work. Baloney.

Anyway, please let me know how I should use my DiseQ and 22 Khz. controls.

And, thanks.

Sincerely,

Red-in-the-Face
Gordon F. Corbett

 

[FaT Air]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/fta-mpeg2-faqs/134124-switch-setups-simplified.html may answer some questions. A description of all the equipment, switches, feed/lnb's and their connections, you are using, would explain what's going on there. Is the Pansat slaved to the 922, or actually, the other way around? [922 lnb input connected to the Pansat's Loop Out]

 

[Gordon Corbett]

Dear FaT Air,

Sadly, there is little I can tell you.

We bought our ten-foot mesh dish in 1994, but we do not know its brand. With it came a General Instrument 550i receiver. Together, the salesman from Salmon Harbor Inc. told us, they made up the "Ultimate" package. We used the 550i until 1997, when we bought a DSR-920. In July last, I bought a Norsat 3220C LNB and a 1507HA LNB, both to fit inside our new Chaparral Corotor II Plus feedhorn. They replaced two 14-year-old Eagle Aspen LNBs and a similarly aged feedhorn of indeterminate ancestry which the repairman told us was a Chaparral knockoff. They are connected with our DSR-920 and our Pansat 9200HD, but indirectly through an amplifier installed some years ago to boost the signal.

The ten-foot antenna, through the amplifier, is connected to our DSR-920 and, via a splitter, to the Pansat 9200HD. The DSR-920 is connected to a video source selector. The DSR-920 directs the dish and sends a feed to the video source selector, which forwards it to the television set. When I want to watch FTA, I use the video source selector to send the 9200HD's feed to the television set.

Most of the time, as C-SPAN and Nebraska PBS are our only 4DTV sources, we do not watch much 4DTV these days. So, we watch a lot of pre-recorded DVDs via our DVD recorder, which is also connected to the video source selector.

So, that is about all I can say: the brand names and numbers of our receivers and our LNBs. I know that you are trying to help me, and I wish I could give you more information.

Please let me know if what I have said has been of any use.

Gordon

 

[FaT Air]

I am at a loss as to why the diseqc and 22khz settings do, what they do, for the Q reading. But if it works, it works. That's the whole desired result. (Kinda similar to my diode fix for polarity selection on my c band LNBF.) Getting the Part Number's of the switch(s)/"splitter" and anything else in the system would help to figure out how the Pansat9200HD should be programmed. A diagram of the wiring would(include labels of the port numbers/name) also be of great help, as this satellite equipment can be hooked up a great number of ways, and work.

 

[Gordon Corbett]

Dear FaT Air,

Thanks for your reply.

I am gradually seeing that experimentation and empirically derived results are the keys to using my outfit.

The splitter to which I refer is not a small, silvery gadget, but a boxy plastic thing. The repairman had a specific name for it, but when I told him that it looked like an outsize glorified splitter, he agreed.

What do you think of my eventually buying another pair of Norsat C-Band and KU-band LNBs, and housing them in a new Chaparral Bullseye II? I have had people tell me that orthogonal feedhorns are wonderful and that they have many advantages over my Chaparral Corotor II Plus. I disagree, not only because the Bullseye is almost four times as expensive as the Corotor, but because the Corotor will let me control skew with our 920.

Skew, say the Bullseye fans, is vastly over-rated. One said that the orthogonal feedhorn would show me everything and that the skew fans lack the instrumentation to substantiate their idea that satellites broadcast at different angles. As I have had to use skew to tune in different broadcasters' transmissions on the same satellite, I cannot understand why the orthos' fans would say that.

What do you think?

Thanks.

Gordon