Finally!

[Magic Static]

you're right. it's still 30° off. Now its pointed the same as a KU dish next to it. The prime focus dish has to look directly at sats and would appear 30° higher than the KU dish next to it. There is no place on the dish to measure the elevation angle directly. You measure at the AXIS of the dish because it's perpendicular to the elevation line. You are still setting elevation when measuring the AXIS angle. It's just the opposite angle and you do the 90°-lat=elevation thing.

 

[dougruss]

Leave that Angle finder where you have it that pic...then using that long threaded adjuster bolt, crank in downward until that gauge reads 30.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Like this??

I'm still confused by that loopy instruction pdf, add 60 from 90 or if horizon is zero subtract 60 from 90 or whatever..

So I tried the above suggestion and moved the dish to like the example and it LOOKS like it's aimed up a LOT more than the ku dishes. THIS seems to make more sense to me considering the satellites are at a higher angle than the ku dishes APPEAR to be pointing.

BUT, the tree limb is a very serious problem here. My dad said he would see about getting someone over to trim the limbs down. He didn't like my idea of breaking them off with ropes and my lawn mower. He said "H*ll, that sounds like a red neck chainsaw! What's wrong with you?"



I guess I'll have to wait on dad to get someone over here to do that now.

There's also the issue of the lnb being way too high for me to mess with now. Is it possible to set the stupid thing properly then tip it up? Or do you have to adjust the lnb while it's tipped up?

I'm thinking this may be getting a little closer. Only problem I see for the long term, the dish is going to hold water like a bird bath at this angle.

So, am I headed in the right direction now or no??

Thanks so much guys, I know I'm a pain in the rear.
I'm not as bright as I wish I was.

 

[dougruss]

That looks better..............now to set your Declination...........

put that Angle Finder on the Ring opposite side than in the Pic below ( since the magnet is only on one side of that finder), then using the smaller adjuster,crank it in until it reads 35 on the scale.

That should put you close.

 

[Dee_Ann]

That looks better..............now to set your Declination...........

put that Angle Finder on the Ring (Pic below) then using the smaller adjuster,crank it in until it reads 35 on the scale.

That should put you close.

Woo hoo!

Ok, cool beans! I'll try that later on. I've been up all night so I need to get some sleep. I'm a night owl and keep weird hours.

MAN! This stuff is hard core tuff stuff! Whew! I do NOT like these things! You have to hire someone to plant the things then you go insane trying to figure out how to aim the stinkers! This stuff is NOT for beginners or the faint of heart. NOT fun....

The little ku dishes are child's play compared to this stuff!

 

[Anole]

just so long as the dish is at the top of the arc

You could aim the dish through your neighbor's kitchen window.
That'd put the LNBF close enough to the ground to set it to zero.
Then, crank the elevation back to where the LNBF was way up in the sky again.
You just have to do the adjustments in the right order, and they all become much easier.

 

[Phottoman]

I said earlier, and I'll say it again, it's STILL not too late to cut part of that pole off and lower your dish. THAT would make it much easier to work on/with your lnb, plus the lower to the ground, the less wind resistance. Did you miss that?

Photto

 

[Dee_Ann]

I said earlier, and I'll say it again, it's STILL not too late to cut part of that pole off and lower your dish. THAT would make it much easier to work on/with your lnb, plus the lower to the ground, the less wind resistance. Did you miss that?

Photto

No, I didn't miss that. I think it would be a great idea. But it's not something I can do, I will have to ask my dad about it. There's also the problem that he drilled holes in the top of the pole and threaded bolts into them because he modified the whole head mount thing to work with american pipe, the bleepin thing was made to fit on Chinese poles and is a weird size. So my dad took the thing home and made some major changes to it. Then he drilled holes in the pole, threaded them and put bolts in them to clamp the modified mount in place.

To cut the pole down he would have to re-drill the holes and re-thread them. I do not know if he did that on a machine or what. He has all kinds of big scary machines in his garage for making things. I haven't had a chance to talk to him today about cutting the pole down or not.

The good news is however, I can reach the lnb when the dish is tilted all the way up. It's not easy and I have to stand high on the ladder. I really need to buy a GOOD ladder, a SAFE ladder. That flimsy piece of junk I have is pretty much an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Dee_Ann]

That looks better..............now to set your Declination...........

put that Angle Finder on the Ring opposite side than in the Pic below ( since the magnet is only on one side of that finder), then using the smaller adjuster,crank it in until it reads 35 on the scale.

That should put you close.

Ok.. So I set the dish to 30 via the big bolt.

Then I stuck the angle meter on the dish ring and adjusted the little bolt on the front bottom to read 35.

Right?

Sorry, didn't take pictures of when I did that..

The lnb.... Arrrrrgh! I saw some insane math formulas for figuring out how to set it. NOPE.... Can not process. Sorry..

On the WS website I found some details about the dish. It said that the focal something is .38

.38? Whatever.. So I look at the lnb and it's marked with numbers.
I see the number 38 on it. I ASSUME that would be related to the .38 number on the dish details. So I turned the lnb so that the zero on the back of it points straight up while the dish was tilted to point at the horizon where I could easily get to it. I then slid it to line up the 38 on the side of the lnb with the edge of the ring.

I am ASSUMING here that that's what I should do.

So now the dish it tilted to the 30 and 35 degrees as mentioned in previous posts. The lnb is pointed up so the zero on the back of it is in the 12'oclock position. The marks on the side of it are at the 38 mark, assuming that relates to the .38 focal thing per the specifications.


Then I hooked my birddog and squealy meter to it.

Loosened the bolts to turn it east/west and turned it until the squealy went off. I worked it back and forth until the squealy meter showed the strongest reading then sat there on the birddog and went through the entire list of C-band satellites. It would not lock on to any satellite.

It's for sure aimed at one. But I have no idea which one.

As for the motor, I do not have it adjusted or connected in any way. It's just there, holding the dish from flopping around in the wind.

I have no idea what to do about the motor, yet.

I think that the first thing is to find a satellite, ANY satellite. And from there, start worrying about the motor.

I am totally open to suggestions at this point.

 

[turbosat]

If you found something-hookup receiver and blind-scan it (call it any satellite you want to) be sure to set the LO freq correctly for a c-band sat though, 5150 )
Then let us know what you scan in , we can figure it out.

 

[Dee_Ann]

BINGO!

It seems that my dumb luck landed me on the satellite with the Pentagon channel. Yeah, I need that...


I hooked my coolsat 6000 in line, in between my dishes and my pc. So the signal passes through the coolsat before it gets to the pc. When to coolsat is on it kills the signal to the pc. When the coolsat is off, the signal passes through to the pc. I don't see any problem with that for now as I wouldn't be using both at once. The coolsat is really just for testing and figuring things out because the pc will not blindscan.

So, I turned on the coolsat and went to the menu and configured for a C-band satellite. It was fairly easy to figure out what options to select.
Then I selected this new satellite and hit the blind scan button.

It found a bunch of channels named AFN ~something~ and a tvguide channel and the Pentagon channel.. Ugh..

BUT, the thing is, I am actually on a satellite. I dug through The List and discovered that I am on the satellite at 89. I want to be on the satellite at 87! OMG I am sooooooooooo close!

What do I do now?

I have the Gbox where I can wire it to the motor. The motor is NOT adjusted or setup, at all. It's fully retracted as much as it can go, which is the position I assume it would be if I told it to move to the extreme west. BUT, the dish is not in the extreme west position. It's aimed straight forward.

Somehow the motor needs to be extended about half way out then adjusted back to this satellite. Or something like that..

What should I do now?

I really would LOVE to be watching MeTV this weekend!

Thanks guys!

 

[Anole]

If you want the quick fix, just twist the dish-mount on the pole (maybe a pencil-width?), and fine tune the elevation.
Shouldn't be hard to bring it back to 89° later on down the line.
That prevents you pulling any hair out over your motor or your Gbox.
Instant gratification. Give yourself the weekend off and watch your shows!

 

[Dee_Ann]

Moved the dish and found something new. Nor sure what, birddog will NOT tell me what it is.

Blind scanned with the Coolsat and it found ONE channel.

Is this the Galaxy 3C satellite at 95?




I'm thinking this is 95. I see in the list a whole bunch of horse racing channels on 95 and the screen I found on this satellite very much appears to be horse racing related.

If so, this is the satellite I was thinking was as close to true south from where I am as can be found.

I think that HERE, IF I am on 95, I should lock the dish down here then start trying to monkey with the motor. Right?

 

[turbosat]

Dee, that looks like the Roberts horse racing channels on 95C, if its around 3907mhz I believe you are right. (most of them are scrambled now, but they open up every now and then). Since you're west of me a ways, I would think you will need a bit more 'throw' to the east than I do, to see the eastern satellites. The actuator has a clamp holding the tube , what you need to do is figure out how far you want it to go, the eastern-most satellite that has anything of interest on it. Drive the dish as far east as it will go, then if it won't go far enough to hit your last eastern-bird, loosen that clamp a bit and force the actuator tube further out. Check your western satellites, find the last one you want to watch in that direction, see if you can drive the dish to it. If it won't go far enough due to the tube being too far out-loosen clamp and shove it back in toward the motor-end a bit more. Just an inch will get you several more degrees of travel.. That's an over-simplification of it, but should give you an idea of adjustment. That v-box thing will probably have limits you can set also, so you can't go too far west or east.. Be careful when loosening the motor-tube clamp-the entire dish's weight will be on that, and it can cause the dish to suddenly flop one way or the other, so you might want to use a helper.

 

[Dee_Ann]

I am going to assume that I do not have the dish aligned properly. I hooked the motor up to the Gbox and extended the arm then reclamped the motor. Now, using the remote control of the Gbox I can move the dish quite a bit to the east and west.

There was nothing precise or calculated about what I did. It was a desperate move made by a very uninformed person.

So. I can move the dish all around now. But guess what? Finding anything? HA! Not so much.

I thought I had the dish locked down when I had it on 95 earlier. Well, I didn't. So when I went to mess with the motor, I moved the whole bleepin thing. Grrrrrrrrrreat move! NOT........

So I aimed it as best as I could guess at true south (HA!) and tightened it up.

I sat for hours pressing the remote moving the dish an fraction of an inch at a time and re blind scanning it, over and over and over until I fell asleep in my chair with a Gbox remote in one hand and a Coolsat remote in the other.

At 3:22am I think I am going to have to say that tonight, I won't be watching MeTV.

Something is wacky on this thing. I still don't have it right. But, every once in a while I will stumble across ~something~ then I'll lose it and can't find it again.. Very annoying this is....

But, I believe that I'm within reach of getting this stupid thing working. OMG this is NOT easy....

 

[Dee_Ann]

I ~THINK~ I have found 87 AMC 3 !!

On a blind scan with the coolsat I found the following SIX (and only SIX) channels,

HQ1 - HQ4, HQ105 and "TV 1 - 3979H"

The HQx channels only give me like blocky broken up squares that are scattered around the screen. Nothing that is even close to a recognizable picture.

The TV 1 channel, is black.

Those are the ONLY channels that come in on that satellite.

 

[stanleyjohn]

Bingo! looks like you may of found AMC3. The HQ (nasa) channels should scan in at around 4000h28112. looks like you may still be alittle off on your setup if thats all that scans in.Your verrry close though!! MeTv is on that satellite at 3855h5924 plus RTV can be found on that sat also.

 

[Dishman Dan]

Great job! :up :up

Stay tuned for the next part of your saga!

Perhaps the sequel should be titled "Staying Tuned"!



I am sure someone can help walk you through the rest of this! I know how I did mine

but I just cannot explain it in writing for you.

Do NOT give up now!!!...

 

[PopcornNMore]

Looks like you will be watching "Me TV" tonight. Good job!

As a bonus "My Family TV" is on that satellite which airs "Ozzie & Harriet", "I married Joan" and other old B&W sitcoms. Also, "WPIX" is currently ITC.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Awesome!

Ms. Nightowl however is shutting down for the day.. I'm sure my neighbors are trippin out over me being out in my yard at 3am standing 10 feet in the air fiddling with a giant satellite dish... My reply is, it's cooler at night, I sleep through the hot part of the day. And I'm a bit of a kook.

Anyway.. So I just powered it all down and I'm not about to touch anything until I get up later.

So, I tried bumping the dish east and west, with no success there on 87. All I can get are those Nasa channels and they don't really come in, they just show up on the scan.

So, I am thinking it's the lnb. Perhaps the skew is off on it. I don't know. But I'm thinking that maybe that should be what I fiddle with next, rotating the skew on the lnb. Or the focal setting. One of the two.

Or, and this one scares me, is it possible that the 6' dish is just plain and simple too small?

TTFN for now.. I'll get back on it this evening when I get up...

Thanks guys for your support! This has been very, very difficult and challenging! Whew!