Getting Ready to loose Virginity....

[crawfrdb]

Hi there,

I'm also in the process of aligning a Toroid. I still couldn't find which one you had from your posts- was it T90? That's the one I've been working on this week.

I first put a M20 feed dead center and aimed for 110W. Easy. Next, replaced the M20 with a Invacom linear feed and got T5 no problem.

When you get your Toroid up and running, I'd really like to know how well you're receiving G10R. That's of interest here but not receiving it well at all.

I'm having significant problems getting a measurable signal peak when I put the linear feed off centre.

Are you having the same problem?

From what you write, I'd be first suspect of the receiver. You've swapped out cables.

I've got mine set up in the back yard and hope to get it mounted rooftop tonight (thank GOD I don't have an HOA ).

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

C vs Ku is easy. 4 digit frequency is C-band. 5 digits is ku.

Duh....if it were an 18 wheeler coming down the road

I hate stepping out of my comfort level!

the DVB World software has been kind of flakey with the signal meter. It seems to stop sampling after a while. I just start and stop the meter often while looking. I figure it's a software / driver thing that'll get sorted out.

I'll put a PC together on the patio tonight if the nightly storms we've been gettign all week dont' blow in and see if I can't get PBS-HD dialed in.

fwiw, i dont see IA8 in the drop down list for whatever reason. I assume there is nothing there on Ku Band maybe?

I am just trying to figure out how to find AMC3 i the signal meters will always show a signal whether there is anything there or not. The spectrum analyzer would be nice, but thats over kill for this I think.

Now that I have a rough reference of what is where on my Toroidal bar, i just have to figure out can I get 87W on it or do I need to move everything over several degrees before I fine tune it.

Of course, the setting from Toroidal are never close to correct, and the peeps saying they had their's set up in 5 minutes are so full of it, but regardless.....

My Elevation is suppoed to be 49 degrees and its about 44 degrees

My Skew is supposed to be 59 degrees and its closer to 53 now.

Azimuth is supposed to be 219, who knows what it is, lol.

129W is supposed to be at R20.5 and its right there

119W is supposed to be at R12.7 and its about there.

110W is supooed to be at R5.2 and its at about R0.8

101W is supposed to be at L5.1 and its at about L9.2 - thats why I didnt think that was AMC4 and either IA3 or IA6 in the beginning.

91W is supposed to be at L16.9 and its at about L20.2

89W is supposed to be at L19.6 and I have no idea where it is, lol.

87W is clearly supposed to be further out than 89W...and I am not sure it will be on the bar....which is why I might have to adjust accordingly. I just need to figure out how to find out where it is without a signal meter I guess as the signal meters are giving readings with or without birds.

It goes without saying, if I were not on the arc, I could not get what I am getting.

And the wierdest of the the whole experience- the Toroidal Linear lnb is giving me the same reading in signal quality as the 0.3 Xtreme lnb...even though one is 0.6 and one is 0.3. If not the same the Xtreme is a point or two lower!

I figured there should at least be a difference in the 0.3 favor?!?!?!?

 

[Shawn95GT]

Actually IA8 is fairly new satellite and it just isn't in the list. There are a few missing satellites and it doesn't look like there is a way to add any . I just recycled one of the Asian sats that I'll never hit. I deleted the transponders and added my own.

If I remember right the satellite list is sorted alphabetically vs their east to west position. It's annoying but I deal with it.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Hi there,

I'm also in the process of aligning a Toroid. I still couldn't find which one you had from your posts- was it T90? That's the one I've been working on this week.

I first put a M20 feed dead center and aimed for 110W. Easy. Next, replaced the M20 with a Invacom linear feed and got T5 no problem.

When you get your Toroid up and running, I'd really like to know how well you're receiving G10R. That's of interest here but not receiving it well at all.

I'm having significant problems getting a measurable signal peak when I put the linear feed off centre.

Are you having the same problem?

From what you write, I'd be first suspect of the receiver. You've swapped out cables.

I've got mine set up in the back yard and hope to get it mounted rooftop tonight (thank GOD I don't have an HOA ).

That was my first Toroidal that is being adjusted for this project....too bad I don't have the spectrum analyzer here now...thats the think in the background.

I really didn't worry about Linear back then.

This was 80W to 120W

White RG6 Quad is BEV 82W and 91W

Black RG6 Quad is Dish 110W and 119W.

I now have 2 up there and spent more hours than I want to think about with them.

It is being shifted to 129W to 87W now....which is all i am concerned about at the moment.

Every single zinc metric screw, washer, nut and bolt has been changed out to a stainless steel metric counterpart. Believe me, its not easy finding those in the USA - and stainless metric carriage bolts in the USA - FORGET ABOUT IT. Had to do it as the rust was incredible even after 30 days on the salt water. It took me a week of scouring the internet and 3 different suppliers to finally get everything I needed in stainless.

I suggested to Torroidal they upgrade hardware to stainless and increase price $10 to handle it instad of it costing me $80 aftermarket to find all the metric needed from 2 sources on the net (actually $80 for both T90s). They said it is primarily made for Europe - and even $10 rise in price there can kill them.

 

[SmityWhity]

HDTVFanAtic,

As someone else had said, "What type of Toroidal do you have, the T-55 or T-90?"

The T-90 is bigger, but I don't exactly remember the specs on either model. However, I do believe that the T-55 only had a range of 40 degrees across the horizon, and possibly the T-90 also. In other words you can pick-up various birds located at the following degrees longitude:

(1) 108W through 148W
(2) 87W through 127W (but not 129) or
(3) 88W through 128W (but not 87 or 129)
(4) 89W through 129W (but not 87), or
(5) 82W through 122W, or
(6) 61.5W through 101.5W, or
(7) any other 40 degree range.

I always believe you can squeeze a little more out of specs, so you may want to make sure that you adjust your disk so that the center of the disk is in the center of the range you plan on picking up, or tune in using the furtherest desired bird west as far over on the dish as possible, then try for the furtherest desired bird east.

However, it looks like you have settings from the vendor for birds you gave them from 89W thru 129W, and 87W wasn't one you requested. Therefore, I would just start completely over using the settings they gave you.

Changing your elevation from 49 to 44 will change the imaginary arc in the sky that you are looking at, and changing the skew will make things worse except for possibly correcting the signal for one bird. It would be like an x in the sky; one line is correct, while the other is too high on one end and too low on the other end.

Since 108W is about the center of what you are looking for, I recommend you set the dish up like the instructions, start with skew, then elevation. Then if you have a dish receiver, connect it directly to the 110 LNBF (no switches), and use the "built-in point dish program" to find sat 110, by moving the dish left to right, but not too fast, it will take a few seconds to display new results. Once the receiver shows you have it, peak it left to right, and up and down, but DO NOT touch the skew.

I believe you will find the rest of the birds that they gave you the settings for. You may have to fine tune them, but you will probably at least get a signal to start with.

If you are successful, and then can not receive the 87W past the 89W, then you may want to call the vendor and ask for settings from 88W to 128W, and you possibly may be able to pick up 87 and 129 on each end of the arm. If they can not give you 88W thru 128W, then ask for 87W thru 127W. Hell, just ask for both ranges so you can play some more.

I don't have a toroidal or the other equipment mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but the process I described should work.

You also asked about secret handshake and password. If you are talking about hacking, I don't think you'll find anthing in the forums at this site.

Good luck!

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

It's technically 40, but since I have 2 Toroidals and have done multiple runs. I have learned is there is NOT 1 ANSWER.

You can accomplish the same difference ways on a Toroidal by changing the ele/azm/skew and lnb spacing. It has REALLY been an eye opener.

I have actually gotten 50 degrees out of a Toroidal - even though they will tell you it can only do 40 - apparently if you google enough you will find that they push 50 in Europe.

And let me tell you, when i had 2 side by side - with 1 doing 40 and 1 doing 50, even the best satellite experts just looked at it and said its impossible....saying there was no way both could be on the arc of the clark belt - until they saw it.

Again, unless you have seen it in action and understand it can be done - then reverse engineer to understand how the heck it worked, you would swear it would never work.

Just remember, when you are on the arc, you are on the arc.

You can change your elevation and skew to compress the lnbs on the bar....or expand them out on the bar.

Obviously, the further out on the bar you go, the more aiming is HYPER CRITICAL....but if you have enough time or experience it can be done.

They would prefer everyone to be within say L15 and R15 as it makes it easier to to tweak....but the bar does go out L25 and R25 for a reason.

And the person who said on another thread they got it up and operational in 5 minutes is the person who is a certified liar.....I cannot put it any other way. One cannot even mount 1 lnb and tweak it in 5 minutes on a Toroidal, much less hit the arc and tweak every lnb in 5 minutes.

These should help you.....3 different runs....for same location:




AND THEY ALL WORK.

Notice the major difference is the spacing on the bar for the lnbs.

The azimuth/elevation and skew is adjusted to compensate for the lnb placement.

And do not forget, if 2 are on the arc - and you have it well tweaked, that the arc continues past the last one listed.

Thus if you shift 148W slightly to the end......and then have the spacing past 110 you will find 101W on the other end of the bar.....and that is 50 degrees.

So if you take the last run for example, modify it to put 148W out at R24 instead of R22......adjust the skew, elevation and azimuth ever so slightly to compensate, so 110W is below L15, then you will find 101W out on the L25 end of the bar - and there is your 50 degrees.

But to do it, you have to be so dead on the arc in the center its not funny....and it will take literally days to get it right exactly on for a 50 degree arc.

AND YES, I have changed what I am doing with my 2 Toroidals about 6 times...so I have far too much experience setting these up.

 

[crawfrdb]

I want to thank the T90 owners for describing their alignment techniques.
I can picture what Smitywhity wrote about the case where, in the case where WF gave you 49° Elevation in their calculations and then you set it to 44° (by mistake, right?) but used the skew to align with a single satellite anyway how that would cause problems for the rest of the arc. That may be what has been happening with me.

I've just spent last weekend and several hours after work every night this week trying to make this work. It took all of ten minutes to get the the circular M20 feeds that came with my dish mounted across the bar and getting a very strong quality indications
(>90%).

Linear feeds, however, have proven to be much more of a headache. Earlier in the week, I placed a Invacom feed at zero and peaked T5 to somewhere around 50-60% on a Pansat but was unable to set the feed past the rail anchors at six without substantial signal attenuation of the peak.

Tonight, I just spent several hours unable to get much of a reading on T5 at all with an Extreme II LNBF before finally moving the feed back to the centre of the rails. Even then, the most I could peak (for example) Tp 7 was 30%. I VERY carefully adjust Az, EL and the skew to even get that high of a peak. It seemed fractions of a degree deviation of any of the three directions degraded the signal down to as low as 10-15% (unusable).

What kind of signals are you folks getting on T5? I'm in the southwest US and am VERY disappointed with performance so far. I would really like to know this is an issue with alignment somehow and that I just need to keep working at it. If not, this antenna is of no use for linear reception. I certainly hope that's not the case.

If the advice here is correct, I'll set the skew sent by Wave Frontier and just leave it alone.

Fortunately, the center of the 26° arc I asked Wave Frontier to calculate is 110W which I find VERY easy to peak well above 90%. The problem is when I attach a linear feed at 15.2, as directed for T5, I have yet to find any signal at all there. This is why I eventually started setting the LNBF at the center, move the antenna to T5 and then slowly move it out to 15.2 a little at a time while re-aligning the dish along the way. This method has been disappointing, losing the signal entirely by the time the LNBF reaches 10 on the rails every time.

Should I expect better performance on T5 with better alignment or have I peaked all I'm going to get?

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

I'll put a PC together on the patio tonight if the nightly storms we've been gettign all week dont' blow in and see if I can't get PBS-HD dialed in.

5:30am and I have found AMC3. It's virtually hanging off the right side, but its there.

I can scan and I can get Bloomberg on 11723H. I get the stuff on 11736V.

Those are the only two it finds, which is wrong apparently.

But I can't get PBS-HD no matter what I do????? I have even tried to add the transponder manually.....but then you can only scan it- and if it doesn't find anything it doesnt add it.

Any suggestions.


87.0 West AMC-3
H-11714 0964 7/8 04.855 0033 0034 TIP TV
0049 0050 THE PATIENT CHANNEL
H-11723 0973 3/4 03.676 1160 1120 BLOOMBERG feeds
H-12110 1360 3/4 14.025 0049 0052 PBS FEED 1 AC-3 Audio
0065 0068 PBS FEED 2 AC-3 Audio
0081 0084 PBS FEED 3 AC-3 Audio
0097 0100 COLOR BARS AC-3 Audio
H-12128 1378 3/4 14.028 0049 0052 PBS HDTV AC-3 Audio
H-12164 1414 3/4 04.340 0033 0038 MONTANA PBS
V-11736 0986 1/2 06.100 4130 4121 MUSLIM TV AHMADIYYA Multiple language Audio on various APIDs
4134 0037 MTA INFORMATION CHANNEL
V-12140 1390 3/4 02.222 4130 4131 WYDN-TV Boston, MA Religious

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

Again, I can tell you about Toroidal and Circular lnbs all day - but I have not had a linear operational on mine until the last 36 hours - so I am not the best to answer the linear questions - in fact not at all, lol.

I want to thank the T90 owners for describing their alignment techniques.
I can picture what Smitywhity wrote about the case where, in the case where WF gave you 49° Elevation in their calculations and then you set it to 44° (by mistake, right?) but used the skew to align with a single satellite anyway how that would cause problems for the rest of the arc. That may be what has been happening with me.

As I noted with the above settings from Wave Frontier, there are more than 1 solution. Right now my settings for skew and elevation are really far off what they suggest.

In fact, I have never had a run which was close to perfect.

I've just spent last weekend and several hours after work every night this week trying to make this work. It took all of ten minutes to get the the circular M20 feeds that came with my dish mounted across the bar and getting a very strong quality indications
(>90%).

Linear feeds, however, have proven to be much more of a headache. Earlier in the week, I placed a Invacom feed at zero and peaked T5 to somewhere around 50-60% on a Pansat but was unable to set the feed past the rail anchors at six without substantial signal attenuation of the peak.

Tonight, I just spent several hours unable to get much of a reading on T5 at all with an Extreme II LNBF before finally moving the feed back to the centre of the rails. Even then, the most I could peak (for example) Tp 7 was 30%. I VERY carefully adjust Az, EL and the skew to even get that high of a peak. It seemed fractions of a degree deviation of any of the three directions degraded the signal down to as low as 10-15% (unusable).

What kind of signals are you folks getting on T5? I'm in the southwest US and am VERY disappointed with performance so far. I would really like to know this is an issue with alignment somehow and that I just need to keep working at it. If not, this antenna is of no use for linear reception. I certainly hope that's not the case.

As I stated, I am no expert on linear, but if I can get 101W at L9.5 and AMC3 hanging literally off the side of the rail, I would say it can work with linear. I have also managed overnight to get 107/111 working for starchoice, though those were very close to the middle of the dish.

If the advice here is correct, I'll set the skew sent by Wave Frontier and just leave it alone.

I never said that - just the opposite. It's never been close.

Fortunately, the center of the 26° arc I asked Wave Frontier to calculate is 110W which I find VERY easy to peak well above 90%. The problem is when I attach a linear feed at 15.2, as directed for T5, I have yet to find any signal at all there. This is why I eventually started setting the LNBF at the center, move the antenna to T5 and then slowly move it out to 15.2 a little at a time while re-aligning the dish along the way. This method has been disappointing, losing the signal entirely by the time the LNBF reaches 10 on the rails every time.

Should I expect better performance on T5 with better alignment or have I peaked all I'm going to get?

OK, you asked for a 26 degree arc and 110 is in the center. One can assume that means you want 123-97?

Here's my suggestion.

Use 3 circular lnbs as they are much easier to find a singal and get an arc going.


Set them for 119/110/101

using multiple meters get 110 dialed in while you adjust skew/elevation/azimuth so you do not loose 110.

When you get those tweaked - at least you know you are on the arc.

Then and only the, move to the linears.

Quite frankly, after the last 36 hours, I am clueless how you even begin to set on of these up with linear only.

Also, you are talking about a INVACOM QUAD at one point. You do know that this isnt going to work with BEV or Dish at 110 if that was your objective.

And for the love of god, please someone figure out have to modify a Quad Invacom.

 

[iammike]

And FWIW, if anyone has a Nextcom R5000 running with the WorldDVB USB (I know Mike has one), I am getting BSOD after about 10 seconds with "Bad Pool Caller". Googling that seems to indicate a problem witha USB device, so I assume the 2 units have a conflict.

I doubt either will try to fix it, so just a heads up - especially you IamMike.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm using a Twinhan 102g board in the PC connected to the r5000 and fortunately there haven't been any conflicts. Shawn is far better suited to help you with the WorldDVB box than me, but I can say that finding sat's with a PC is a lot more difficult than using a regular receiver. I started out with only the PC card to save money, and it probably took me a month or more to lock in that first signal. I finally used a software program, I think it's called Progfinder, that really helped. It's a poor man's signal strength and quality meter. It had a lot of bugs but I eventually found that first signal. Now days, I'm using one of the Invacom quad lnbf's, so I just let my Coolsat receiver find the sat first and then use the PC.

Mike

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

This thing has me befuzzled. I have the bird. I can get the channels on 11736 - which i think is a bunch of terorrist.

Earlier to day I have a shakey signal on Bloomberg on 11723 but it has since disapppeared.

I have tried to manually ad the channel and i guess either 1) I don't get how or 2) they don't suppport.

Any ideas how i can get PBS-HD in?

And again, what size dish should be needed for this. I was told a 1.2 was needed.

What size motor would be good for a 1.2M dish>?

 

[crawfrdb]

OK, you asked for a 26 degree arc and 110 is in the center. One can assume that means you want 123-97?

Exactly. The idea with sending these three birds into WF was that there was a very nice strong signal at the centre, and the two main linears at equal points on each side.

Here's my suggestion.

Use 3 circular lnbs as they are much easier to find a singal and get an arc going.


Set them for 119/110/101

using multiple meters get 110 dialed in while you adjust skew/elevation/azimuth so you do not loose 110.

When you get those tweaked - at least you know you are on the arc.

Then and only the, move to the linears.

Good idea. When I started and had the quick success, I had only tried 119 and 110. Maybe it was beginner's luck but it was very easy. The peaks on circulars are VERY broad compared to linear reception.

Should go back and peak all three circulars and then attach something at 97. If successful, I'll get really cocky and give G10R a try.

Have you tried receiving G10R with this? I've yet to get much at all on that one- and have never been able to receive Tp 1 and 5 at all (where all the Equity Broadcasting locals are).

Also, you are talking about a INVACOM QUAD at one point. You do know that this isnt going to work with BEV or Dish at 110 if that was your objective.

Yes, I'm aware of the need for reverse sensing circular feeds.
I only paid $40 for the feed and will use it on a large motorized antenna when this T90 deployment is complete.

And for the love of god, please someone figure out have to modify a Quad Invacom.

I wonder why we can't just use the RC port for LC and LC port for RC.

 

[crawfrdb]

And the wierdest of the the whole experience- the Toroidal Linear lnb is giving me the same reading in signal quality as the 0.3 Xtreme lnb...even though one is 0.6 and one is 0.3. If not the same the Xtreme is a point or two lower!

I figured there should at least be a difference in the 0.3 favor?!?!?!?

Do you have an Invacom? Didn't get any of WF's linear feeds. I can only compare my Invacom to the ExtremeII and have found them to be about the same. I'm not sure the ExtremeIIs really do have 0.3dB NF. They seem more like 0.5dBNF.

I just ordered two of the Sadoun KUL2s (http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Products/S/KUL2-Sadoun-Standard-Dual-LNBF.htm) earlier in the week. I'll let you know how well they work.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

i can tell you with 100% certainty that the Toroidal Z20 with its 0.6 rating outperforms the Xtreme 0.3 that I have here. Tried it again overnight.

I tried 10R for maybe 2 minutes with no luck and decided not to waste laptop power on my roof with it as it wasnt my focus.

I still do not understand how on is supposed to find proper lobes with the linear as they are lit up like a Xmas tree as soon as you apply power.

 

[PSB]

please Use Thumbnails When Posting Pictures

 

[crawfrdb]

After spending a few more days of alignment of my T90, I'm a just a little closer to finding the right groove.

For those that have had their T90 for over a year, it appears that W Frontier changed the design of the elevation. A friend here in town who has owned one for two years has an older design with a single bolt that he loosens to make the dish adjustable over elevation and then tightens the bolt. It has an elevation scale. The current design has a large carriage bolt with two large nuts that you tighten together with an attached plate. Unless I'm mistaken, this newer design does not have an elevation indication. Instead, the instructions say to put a device called an Elevation Finder ($12, Ace Hardware) on the Back Mount Tilt to adjust align the elevation. Does anyone know if the indication on the elevation finder matches the elevation of the dish? It may be as much as 5° off on my dish, if I go by the co-ordinates given to me by W Frontier. WF calcs say to put the dish at 51° but when I centered the satellite that elevation is meant for, the angle finder indicates 56°. Close enough probably. My tripod mount is plumbed perfectly straight.

Linear transponders are a BEAR to align. So far, I'm only getting a 15% signal on T5 and 10% on (what I think is ) AMC4- not strong enough to watch anything at all- but I think I'm getting closer. I had hoped to use the beacons on circular-polarized transponders to align the dish such that the LNB bar is dead on the geostationary arc but so far, the signal peaks on circular signals aren't sharp enough to find the arc exactly so I'm using circulars to for the first approximation then switching to linear polarized signals to fine tune. Still working on it.

I moved it all to the roof sunday night. I bought a cheap $15 black and white TV from Amazon and have it, my sat receiver and a power strip on the roof. Most of the work is done at night when it isn't 100+° outside.

 

[crawfrdb]

So far, I am unable to receive G10R on my Wave Frontier T90 unless I place the linear feed at the centre of the LNB bar and aim the antenna directly to 123°W. Even then, I only receive the strongest transponders on the sat- such as UWTV, Research Channel and the two Fort Smith locals on Tp21. The only problem with this method is 123° is so far west, I am unable to watch other eastern sats like T5 further off from the centre.

I still haven't worked out how to watch linear-polarized sats with a linear feed beyond -6.5 (where the LNB bar attaches to the antenna and feeds can't be placed).

Has anyone on this forum successfully loaded up linear feeds onto this antenna across at least 25° of the geostat arc?

Thanks,
B