Getting Started with FTA

[SatelliteAV]

If you have a smart phone definitely get the DishPointer App! No guessing with that App!

If no smart phone, print the "All Common Satellites" PDF on the http://www.GeoSatFinder.comView attachment Char_Co_VA.pdf website. Grab a compass and an angle finder and go outside. In a few minutes you will know the perfect spot to place the dish to receive the most desired satellites.

The last thing you want to do is drag equipment around a yard and keep temporarily installing to see if you have line of sight. Tedious at best, but you would get real good at aiming!

See attached PDF for Charlotte Co., VA

View attachment Char_Co_VA.pdf

 

[Trip]

I've forgotten, do you have your motor already?

Not yet. I've been holding off on ordering it until I have some idea if it's even feasible. I've been looking at a SG9120B listed on eBay.

If so, you could do what I did to survey locations before I chose a permanent place for my dish: fasten the wall mount (you have a wall mount, right?) to a plank (you may have to put it together upside-down / backwards), put the motor on the wall mount, and then use stones or wood pieces to shim up the plank til the mount is level. It should get you close enough to let you check out most if not all of the arc, assuming that your receiver has a decent USALS implementation. (I never used diseqc 1.2, so I can't help you there. All I know is, if the pole is plumb and if the angle scales on your dish and motor are good enough to let you find one satellite, I never had any huge problems setting up USALS on something other than the southmost satellite. If your signal drops as you get away from the one you aligned with and you KNOW you're not looking at a tree, adjust the dish elevation til you get locked on, then go back to where you started and see if you still have it there. If you've lost it, it means that something isn't level.)

trip, JImS has a good idea there. I was going to suggest a mobile mount in a bucket or something placed in your possible locations , take a tv and receiver out in the yard, to test which satellites you can find, without the motor for now. Once you get the hang of manually locating the sats, it wouldn't take long to check which ones you can "see".

I'm actually thinking about this. My current setup looks like this anyway:

So it's easy enough to move around as needed. It's supposed to be really hot and sunny next week, so if I'm not on my way to a job next week, I might try it out in at least one of the locations.

Also, I'm not familiar with USALS. I own the Coolsat 6000 Premium which I've seen listed with that feature online. Would this allow me to aim my motorized dish without looking at the southern-most satellite? That would be helpful if I pick a compromise position that preserves 125W and 97W at the expense of some of the more southern ones like 79W.

From pic 11,12 I think that would be a workable location, but looks can be deceiving.

It looks workable to me, too, except for the huge cable run to bury and my father won't be happy.

Remember the dish is receving at an angle that is higher than it 'appears' to be aimed.

It took me a while to figure it out, but once I did, things started making more sense.

Congratulations on graduation!!

Thanks!

If you have a smart phone definitely get the DishPointer App! No guessing with that App!

Nope, I don't waste my money on such things.

If no smart phone, print the "All Common Satellites" PDF on the http://www.GeoSatFinder.comView attachment 66115 website. Grab a compass and an angle finder and go outside. In a few minutes you will know the perfect spot to place the dish to receive the most desired satellites.

I love this document. Thanks!

The last thing you want to do is drag equipment around a yard and keep temporarily installing to see if you have line of sight. Tedious at best, but you would get real good at aiming!

Haha, I'm not too awful at it right now. I managed to get Al Jazeera in at school on a mast that wasn't even close to plumb!

- Trip

 

[AcWxRadar]

Tripinva,

USALS will allow you to more easily set up your motorized system without looking at the most truest southern sat, you just need any sat with a good quality signal. If you are able to utilize the true southern satellite or one very close to true south, it does make the process much easier for both USALS and for DiSEqC 1.2. It makes things simpler to follow if you are setting up a motor for the first time, but it is not a mandatory practice and it doesn't make the finished product (the final alignment) any more accurate.

Having the Coolsat 6K at your disposal is a really great advantage for getting accustomed to setting up a motor using USALS (or DiSEqC 1.2). The (4K, 5K) and the 6K Coolsats are really user friendly in this matter. You can actually get creative and play around with all the different motor setup parameters and it won't "throw-up" on you. Some other receivers I have played with seem to freak out if you mess with certain settings or with too many settings at once. With these Coolsats, you can fool around with anything and everything. Even if you might be doing something wrong, it won't scramble the receiver. These are just one of those designs that were done very well, if you know what I mean. Of course, you already understand the limitations (being SD only), but that does not detract from the overall experience, in my opinion.

RADAR

 

[Trip]

Thanks for the informative description of USALS.

Well, today I went out with my extension cord and receiver and moved my satellite dish out to the preferred location nearest to the house. After getting the mast as level as I could, a half hour's worth of fighting with it got my signal on 12.080 GHz on what I can only assume is 125W up to 18%. Now, any other time I've used this box, I've gotten it to go to 10% and skip right up to 60%, though I know I've seen flashes of 15% before on its way up or down, so I'm not sure what to make of this 18% number. Could I be looking through the very top leaves of the tree? When I lost 97W to the tree last month, it dropped from 67% all the way down to the 4-6% it shows when there's no signal at all, which is what has me confused.

I tried for 97W briefly without seeing anything, though I didn't put a whole lot of effort into it before going back to 125W again.

I've decided that either tonight or tomorrow I'm going to order the motor and about 125-150 feet of RG11, unless RG6 would be just as good at those lengths. I suspect it's more length than I need, but I'd rather have too much than too little if I might be moving it around. When I get the coax and the motor, I'm going to move the dish back and a bit to the right, back in case I have a tree problem with 125W, and right in case I have a tree problem with 97W. (Based on where I am aimed for 125W, I can move right a little bit. Not a lot, but maybe a few feet.) I'm going to have to find a satellite with a strong TP somewhere around 110 I think in order to do my aiming on something that I know for sure isn't obstructed.

Thoughts are appreciated.

- Trip

 

[Jim S.]

Did you get any other transponders? I'm not sure if 12080 is on 125, I can't find a listing for it. There's one close to that on 123. What was the polarity and symbol rate?

 

[Trip]

Gah, I was looking for 12.080 when I MEANT to put in 12.180. I guess I'm going back out in the grass tomorrow.

EDIT: Is the difference in symbol rate the reason why the signal wouldn't climb above 18%? Lyngsat says the 12.080 on 123W is at about 3600 versus the 30000 I had entered. Does that mean my aim might be spot on 123W if I adjust the symbol rate down to match?

EDIT2: Just fired up the box without anything hooked up and it seems that I have two things in here, both of which are wrong. I have a 12.080 at a 6111 SR, and 12.180 at 16278 SR. I KNOW I set one of them at 30000, and I suspect it was the former, rather than the latter.

- Trip

 

[SatelliteAV]

You may be exactly aimed and not have a Signal Quality reading if the symbol rate was incorrectly entered.

The LNBF LO frequency, transponder frequency, polarity and symbol rate must all be correctly set for the receiver to lock onto the satellite signal and display a Signal Quality reading. Out at the dish the skew must be close as well as the elevation and azimuth setting within a fraction of a degree.

A compass and an angle finder would have provided all of the visible satellites information in 15 or 20 minutes. You really are taking the difficult route to verify line of sight!

 

[Trip]

I used a compass and a protractor and string with a weight and while the compass was pretty precise, I saw that 25° elevation was right near the top of the tree for that direction. I couldn't tell with enough precision whether or not I actually cleared it. I also lack a smart phone and do not know anyone within half an hour who has one so I can't use the recommended app (which does look really nice). So I figure this is probably the best way to be 100% sure.

Plus, were it not for the bugs resulting from the unpleasantly hot weather, I'd say this is fun.

- Trip

 

[Trip]

The answer is, yes, I am clearing the tops of the trees for 125W!

I went outside with my box and whatnot again, this time pre-programmed for 12.180. Hooked it up, got into the menu, moved the dish right a bit, down a bit, and it popped right in. Took less than 15 seconds to lock it in. Tuned to 12.140 and it wasn't quite coming through, so I adjusted it down a bit more. I've never seen this box get up to 91% quality before, but it did so on several of the PBS transponders. The HD feeds scanned with garbled video since the box doesn't support HD, but the SD feeds looked good! Got in all the DVB-S TPs, 12.140, 12.151, 12.163, 12.169, 12.175, and 12.180. There was also signal around 61% on 12.080 / 3680 but not strong enough for a decode.

Sadly, my box is growing ever closer to its end. The menus and whatnot are starting to look glitchy, and there are a few lines on the screen in certain places all the time now. I'm going to have to decide whether to get a new box or a USB receiver some time soon I think.

So today I'm going to order a motor and when it arrives, I'm going to set the thing up and see how it works. With any luck, I'll have a nice array of satellites to enjoy!

- Trip

 

[turbosat]

You got the bug now! Once you get that first signal, you're hooked! HAHA
With the motor you'll find plenty more, (once you get the motor set up, you will have learned a whole new wrinkle to the hobby also)

 

[AcWxRadar]

Tripinva,

Just a little supporting information regarding the symbol rate value. You don't need to match what is shown on Lyngsat or SatBeams or other sources precisely when you enter this value manually or when it scans in if blind scanning is used. Let's say that the Symbol Rate is officially 4444 Ks/S. If you enter a SR of 4440 or 4448, it should still operate so you have some degree of error that can be applied. If you enter 5240 as the SR in this case, that is obviously too much error and it won't lock on.

I don't know how far away from the legit SR you can go (is it +/- 4 KS/s or is it +/- a % of the actual SR - I don't know for certain). There is obviously a limit, but what that limit is depends on the original broadcast signal and your receiver's ability or inability.

Back several years ago, there was some trouble with RTV on 83.0°W with interference from another signal. When the interfering signal was broadcasting, I would lose lock on RTV and pick up the other channel (although I couldn't view it). The RTV signal was so much weaker than the other signal that it would be buried or ignored as if it were simply cluttered background noise. I found that if I altered the SR far enough away from the interfering signal's SR, but still stay within the RTV signal's SR limits, I could maintain my signal lock on the RTV channel. So, you see you have some wiggle room here and sometimes it can be advantageous to you. Obviously, you should understand that you may only go so far with this concept and then you will begin to lose your lock on the intended channels.

It is the same with the TP frequency. Here you can be off by as much as +/- 5 MHz (i.e TP 12.180 could possibly lock in between 12.175 to 12.185 GHz). Whatever your system (LNBF + tuner combination) like the best is what you should select. Determining this is subject to experimentation.

Try to stick with what is officially reported for SR and TP frequency, but if you have troubles, remember that you may play with some of these settings to help improve your results (within limitations).

Now, a bit of advice regarding the motor setup. Before you begin, be sure that you have mastered the single point fixed dish alignment. Much of the info that is learned through the practice of setting up a fixed point dish is a prerequisite to setting up a motorized dish. If you master the fixed point dish alignment for many sats across the arc, you will be a good beginner with a motorized dish. Some of the things that you learn through dialing in the fixed point dishes is how the arc lays out from your viewpoint (your home). You will develop a second nature sense of where the satellites are located in the sky for you. How far west or east they are and how how elevated they are. Dial in all the sats available to your location with a single, fixed point dish and you develop a really good sense of direction that you can apply to your motorized dish. Trust me on this item. When you eventually get your motorized dish aligned, you will look back and understand the reasons why. You will think to yourself: "Oh, that makes sense! That's much easier".

And, as Turbo stated, you got the "BUG" now! LOL It's just so "cool" what you can accomplish. Originally, I was not much of a TV watcher, but now I realize what I can do with a few dollars and a few pieces of junk and it's awesome! Many people I know have cable TV or use the OTA channels. I have watched their stuff and I don't see that they have any great advantage regarding channel availability. Remember, when I was growing up, there were only 3 channels that were accessible. You really cannot watch more than one channel at a time anyway, so what's the point in paying $30 - $70 a month for cable? DN and DirecTV are different, more channels that you cannot watch all at once, but they cost even more. Since I am not much of a TV wacher by nature, I feel that it is a no-brainer for me to dial in to FTA TV. It's a great hobby for my winter months and I get a few channels that I like to watch and some really interesting things come along once in a while... And it is all FREE! Except for the equipment. It's just perfect for me. Biggest advantage is that you learn to do it all on your own. That's what makes it so much fun.

RADAR

 

[Trip]

I want to respond to your message in full, but I'm busy screwing with my antenna at the moment as the tropo is really good. For now I just want to say: I'd try aiming at more satellites if it wasn't so unbelievably hot/unpleasant outside this week.

- Trip

 

[Trip]

My motor and coax both arrived today. This afternoon, once I've eaten and my father's finished cutting the rest of the grass, I'm going to go out there and try to get it all set up.

- Trip

 

[Trip]

Well, the job is done. I'm pleased to report moderate success!

This position is pretty good. I can see from 91W to 125W with it. I actually moved it forward and right as far as I could without losing 125W in order to try to gain back things like 91W that I was losing by trying to get it and I almost succeeded. I was hoping to salvage 89W as well, but no dice. Didn't try anything above 125W, and I scanned eastward to see if there are any holes in the tree that signal might be able to get through, but didn't find any.

So here's what happened. You can see in the pictures that I used the existing mast to deal with it. As you might imagine, it's not the most durable thing in existence. As a result, even though my father and I went through a lot of trouble making the pipe completely level, as soon as the motor and dish were attached, it leaned slightly toward the south. As a result, there is not a single position at which I can receive both 125W and 97W. So what I decided is that since I don't currently have audio on the 125W feeds anyway, I tweaked 97W until the Al Jazeera feed just touched 70%, and so I can get the strong TPs on 123W and 12.180 on 125W just barely reaches 60% (65% needed for decode).

I may go out there at some point and try to compensate for the tilt by elevating the southern corner slightly, but right now, I'm not complaining. So much to check out! If only 103 wasn't skewed so badly...

- Trip

 

[turbosat]

You could probably get better results if you'd sink a pole and mount the dish, lol. You can get a post at the hardware store (corner-post for chain link fence is fine) for about 12 bucks, 3 or 4 bags of quickrete and put your dish on it the next day. And, if you don't like the spot, or move later, it's not too hard to pull up the post , fill the hole back up and move it again. I've done that a few times, trying to find a spot where I could see 63W thru the trees!

 

[AcWxRadar]

Trip,

Is your house sitting lengthwise from E to W? Is the one pix of your dish taken from the North side of the house? If it is, I would like to see a few pix from the other side of the house looking south. Sorry if I am mistaken, it's not always easy to get the true perspective from a picture if you don't know the layout. But, I'd say you are doing very well thus far. I wouldn't worry about going much further west than 125W. For Ku band, only 127W remains and it doesn't provide anything of much value for FTA. You are as far west as you need to be.

I think you are getting a very positive grip on this, keep it up!

RADAR

 

[Trip]

You could probably get better results if you'd sink a pole and mount the dish, lol. You can get a post at the hardware store (corner-post for chain link fence is fine) for about 12 bucks, 3 or 4 bags of quickrete and put your dish on it the next day. And, if you don't like the spot, or move later, it's not too hard to pull up the post , fill the hole back up and move it again. I've done that a few times, trying to find a spot where I could see 63W thru the trees!

The problem is that I don't know how long I'm going to be here. When I find a job, I'm 99.99999% sure I won't be able to live at home. I'll want to take my setup with me. So I'm trying not to put in a pole that will just have to be mowed around that will only be in use for a few weeks (I hope).

Trip,

Is your house sitting lengthwise from E to W? Is the one pix of your dish taken from the North side of the house? If it is, I would like to see a few pix from the other side of the house looking south. Sorry if I am mistaken, it's not always easy to get the true perspective from a picture if you don't know the layout. But, I'd say you are doing very well thus far. I wouldn't worry about going much further west than 125W. For Ku band, only 127W remains and it doesn't provide anything of much value for FTA. You are as far west as you need to be.

I think you are getting a very positive grip on this, keep it up!

RADAR

Looking out of the front door of the house is looking almost exactly northwest. So the picture where I'm looking at the side of the house past the dish, I'm looking in the southwesterly direction. In addition, the motor itself is on the south side of the pole. This picture from my original setup shows the view from near the front porch where I had the dish originally.

http://www.rabbitears.info/blog/public/FTA-Home/.P1010004_m.jpg

That setup (aimed at 97W) stopped working when the leaves came out. I'll try to get you other pictures of it tomorrow. I had considered putting it there, but I pretty much concluded I had a better chance if I looked over the roof of the house rather than trying to put it beside the house on the southwestern side due to the proximity to the trees. Of course, I would love to hear outside opinions.

Other than maybe trying to bring up that southern corner, I think my next step is going to be a tuner to either replace or compliment my dying Coolsat 6000 Premium. I'm kind of thinking about a USB receiver since I would think one of those should be cheaper than buying a stand-alone box. Does anyone have any recommendations? Linux compatibility preferred, TSReader compatibility mandatory. I was recommended the Tevii S660 by a friend, but that receiver is nearly impossible to get in the US without importing, at which point the price exceeds that of the Openbox S10 and about matches the S9.

- Trip

 

[AcWxRadar]

If your front door that looks NW is on the right side of your picture in your previous post, I am wondering what the view looks like from the base of the big tree that is to the south or southeast of the house. If you can stand at the extreme SE corner of your house and take a pix looking due south, I would like to see what the veiw is from that vantage point.

My cabin is laid out about NW to SE, so that is how I am gathering that your house is laid out, too. For me, there is a tree to the SE of the cabin and I set my dish just a few feet to the south of that tree. It is perfect for me. I can't say that will be true for you, but my initial notion might be good. I will need to see a few more pix from you of course (I may have my bearings off).

RADAR

 

[Trip]

The big problem is that the other side of the house has the driveway on it, so I would have to bury the cable under the driveway unless it was put right against the side of the house. I found a really nice spot out there that would have been beautiful except for that and the fact that it would be yet another obstacle in grass-cutting, making my father unhappy.

I'll get you some pictures in the morning.

- Trip

 

[AcWxRadar]

Trip,

It isn't that difficult to run a line under an existing driveway. If the view from that position is exceptional, you might want to think about this option (or maybe running the cable overhead if it is just temporary). Let's look at your pictures first, though. If this is your folk's home, I understand that they may not want certain things put up there so I don't want to press the issue, I am just looking at all your options. I know that you understand as well as I understand your situation.

RADAR