Dish Elevation VS Hight off ground

[adwan001]

zero signal

Well, after a long wait, I have put my FTA system together. Details: M1 system from Sadoun (80cm Fortec Dish, Fortec star ultra, .4 universal LNB, and a satcontrol SM3D12 motor. Location: Saint Paul, MN, Lat: ~45, Long: ~93. I set the motor at 45 degrees, the dish elevation at 38 degrees and it's pointed to the south (I am assuming AI6 is my south satellite).
OK, guess what, I had zero signal quality on the screen and the sat finder reading is 1/10 no matter where i turn the dish or change its elevation. Talk about a frustrated first timer
One point should be mentioned here. 2 trees sit to the SE and SW but the sout is clear.
I know I'll get perfect clearance from trees and electric cables, etc if I mount it on top om my roof, but since this is my first attempt I thout the garage roof will do.
A desparate who is in desparate need for help. Thanks

 

[PSB]

Any chance of a picture to show us what you are up against!

 

[adwan001]

gotta run to work now. Will post some pictures tomorrow.
Thanks PSB

 

[Mr Tony]

Well, after a long wait, I have put my FTA system together. Details: M1 system from Sadoun (80cm Fortec Dish, Fortec star ultra, .4 universal LNB, and a satcontrol SM3D12 motor. Location: Saint Paul, MN, Lat: ~45, Long: ~93. I set the motor at 45 degrees, the dish elevation at 38 degrees and it's pointed to the south (I am assuming AI6 is my south satellite).

if you are using the motor, the dish elevation is 23

38 is for a fixed dish

 

[ken2400]

I don't know your background but if you want to start slow try this.

Get a 18" dish and LNBF or just the LNBF and put it on the dish you have. DTV/Dish Network, they are the same. LO of 11250 Now DON'T use the motor yet. Just aim it by hand and find 82W, 91W, 110W, 119W. Note where this dish is pointing each time and you will get an idea where the sats are.

Now use the universal LNBF you have and try to find IA6, 93W? It will be right next to 91W. after that move the dish to IA5 97W.

OK you now have a start and know your receiver is working. Now read some of the motor postings to see what needs to be done. Find YOUR true south sat and go from there. It might be worth your while to get a standard LNBF and signal meter to make things go faster. You can use the receiver's meter but a stand alone meter get you close to where you want to be and the receiver's meter gets you right on.

Good luck

Well, after a long wait, I have put my FTA system together. Details: M1 system from Sadoun (80cm Fortec Dish, Fortec star ultra, .4 universal LNB, and a satcontrol SM3D12 motor. Location: Saint Paul, MN, Lat: ~45, Long: ~93. I set the motor at 45 degrees, the dish elevation at 38 degrees and it's pointed to the south (I am assuming AI6 is my south satellite).
OK, guess what, I had zero signal quality on the screen and the sat finder reading is 1/10 no matter where i turn the dish or change its elevation. Talk about a frustrated first timer
One point should be mentioned here. 2 trees sit to the SE and SW but the sout is clear.
I know I'll get perfect clearance from trees and electric cables, etc if I mount it on top om my roof, but since this is my first attempt I thout the garage roof will do.
A desparate who is in desparate need for help. Thanks

 

[adwan001]

Here are some pictures I took this morning. Unless I don't know how to insert images you will see 4 pictures from different angels. Please note that there is a tree behind the dish and it could get confused with the 2 trees on the sides.
By the way, I hooked my 18" dishnotwork to the Fortec when I first got it and it picked up goltv and another christian evangelist channel in addition to a ton of subscription channels, which I wasn't able to view, obviously
I have a sat finder and the signal with the new setup was 1/10 no matter where I pointed the dish, which made me think something was wrong with my cables. I checked the cables and all connections and they seemed to be working find. I mean the connection between the received and the motor is working because I am able to move the dish using the remote.
My ultimate test would be putting the entire thing on the house roof not the garage but it's not a very appealing idea going up there at this time.

 

[PSB]

Line of sight looks OK for True south and to the east!

 

[Rick in MD]

The sat finder will not work with a universal LNBF. Once I got a standard LNBF, I was able to start dialing in sats almost right away, still took a little bit of patience.

Rick

 

[CharredPC]

The sat finder will not work with a universal LNBF. Once I got a standard LNBF, I was able to start dialing in sats almost right away, still took a little bit of patience.

Rick

My SF-95 works fine with my Universal LNB.

I think it just depends on the type of meter.

 

[adwan001]

I have an SF95 meter as well. But It doesn't seem to register any signal. Is better to hook it up to the LNB directly and bypass the motor?

 

[adwan001]

Do-over today

I will take the current system down this afternoon--temp supposed to hit 90 in the twincities today, but that's OK!!

I just received a 90 cm dish replacement for the previous smaller one which was shipped in error originally.
Here is what I will do--of course, wife and kids permitting

1- Redo all calculations for a fixed dish
2- Remove the motor
3- Recheck the position of the mast to see if it's still plumb as it was before
4- Install the 90cm dish and position it to hit my true south
5- Try to get the Telstar 6 as my standard for positioning, even though I am more interested in the Telstar 5 because it has about 20 Arabic channels.
6- If this works, then I will reinstall the motor and reposition again relying on the settings I saved in the receiver from the previous install.

Question: when I use the location calculator at Sadoun.com it gives me a lat of 44.9 but when I use the satfinder software and enter the same zipcode (55108) it gives me 44 only. Does that make a big difference?? Just wondering because that affects the motor's elevation.
Any suggestions or tips are highly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Mr Tony]

I will take the current system down this afternoon--temp supposed to hit 90 in the twincities today, but that's OK!!

at least someone likes the 90's....65 and sunny is OK with me
(I'm here in the Twin Cities too)

I just received a 90 cm dish replacement for the previous smaller one which was shipped in error originally.
Here is what I will do--of course, wife and kids permitting

1- Redo all calculations for a fixed dish
2- Remove the motor
3- Recheck the position of the mast to see if it's still plumb as it was before
4- Install the 90cm dish and position it to hit my true south
5- Try to get the Telstar 6 as my standard for positioning, even though I am more interested in the Telstar 5 because it has about 20 Arabic channels.
6- If this works, then I will reinstall the motor and reposition again relying on the settings I saved in the receiver from the previous install.

remember that the elevation for the dish will change when you add the motor. IA6 (and actually IA5) are at abvout 38 for fixed and 23 for motorized

Question: when I use the location calculator at Sadoun.com it gives me a lat of 44.9 but when I use the satfinder software and enter the same zipcode (55108) it gives me 44 only. Does that make a big difference?? Just wondering because that affects the motor's elevation.
Any suggestions or tips are highly appreciated. Thanks

some systems don't round. Elevation on the motor is the same as latitude. For Twin Citians, its 45 on the motor

 

[adwan001]

Thanks Iceberg for the tips. My original home town is Gaza, Palestine and over there 90 is only the spring warm up. When July comes, we don't use our water heaters any more

 

[adwan001]

It worked... But!!

Hi folks,
I was set to get this done no matter what. After spending the good part of the hot afternoon relocating the entire thing to give it better chance of avoiding the trees' effect, I came back empty handed. No signal whatsoever.

At around 8:30 PM I went back at it again. And I relaized what I was doing wrong. My compas was the culprit. It was giving me false reading because I was setting it on top of the mast to see where I should point the dish and it always gave me an error by at least 10 degrees west. I beleive this happened because the needle was attracted to the metal and it just went over my head. I felt ashamed because physics was my favorite subject in high school.
To make a long story short, I remembered PSB once telling me that IA5 is more south than where my current D*Network dish is pointing. So, I looked at the little dish and started moving my setup more towards the east. And voila, I ACTUALLY SAW THE GREEN SIGNAL. I couldn't belive it. After some twaking and fine tuning, it got an 85-93% signal and in an instant I got a 93 channel line up. It was so euphoric, I didn't even care about the countless mosqueto bites I got

I was done by about 10 after hooking up the long cable, threading it into the house, and doing all other connection. In minutes I was surfing IA5 and watched it till 1 AM. And now here is the bad news. I lost the signal again and because it was 1 AM I didn't want to go out there playing with it again and decided to go to sleep and to wait for today to do that. I am thinking that the dish has moved or the elevation slipped but it wasn't a windy night and I tightened all bolts needed to keep it in place. What else could have gone wrong?? Any input!!

 

[adwan001]

My new set up is working well now, I repositioned it after it had apparently turned a tad. But I had to adjust the dish elevation to 35 degrees (without motor). My calculated elevation is 38 degrees. If I go a hair up or down I lose the signal.
Every thing else being correct, such as the mast is 100% vertical and the LNBF is in the right place, Does the hight of the dish off the ground affect the final elevation angle of the dish?

 

[PSB]

No the elevation to the satellite never changes!

Well done!