Hi! New to FTA, looking for advice!

[Rawmotion]

Hey guys! I'm totally new to FTA and am looking for a little guidance. I've been lurking on the forum for a while trying to gather as much education as possible, and finally bought some gear to play around with. I'm a very techy guy when it comes to video (I actually own my own post production business), but this is the first time I've really delved into the satellite world. I must admit, I'm not one to watch TV, but as someone who regularly works on many Los Angeles based productions, many have suggested I "jack in" to kind of see what's out there, if only to say up to date with the latest trends in media.

First off, let me thank many of you for your reviews and wisdom. I decided to start out by buying a Pansat 3500SD, a Winegard 76cm dish and a Techsat Tracker II LNB. I also bought a used DirecTV dish from a guy off Craigslist. It has a California Amplifier 150517 LNB, which works with what I assume to be the "upper" Ku band (as opposed to the linear LNBs that work from 11.7 to 12.2 GHz). I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about.

I've played with both dishes, and gotten good results. Everything seems to work as expected, based on info I've read here and in other forums.

Now on to some questions for you experts:

1. I've noticed that pulling lower Ku signals (using the Techsat LNB) is much trickier than pulling the Dish Network, etc. signals using the 18" dish. For example, I can get around 90% quality (according to the 3500SD) when using the 18" dish and the circular LNB. However, the Winegard dish and the Techsat never seem to get past 60-70%. And this takes VERY fine tweaking -- I mean, you move that dish 1 or 2 mm and the signal's gone! Is this normal, or is something wrong with my setup?

2. The Techsat LNB (linear, 10750), has markings on it, ostensibly for fine tuning the rotation (the Winegard has markings on the LNB mount as well). I've tried rotating it, but it seems to work best at 0. Would there ever be a reason to rotate it? Is location a factor? I'm in Los Angeles, if that helps.

3. On my Pansat 3500SD (which is NOT a clone, I already verified this), I am having trouble deleting satellites. I realized that it will not allow you to delete a satellite if that particular sat's channels have already been stored. You can TRY to delete it, but the name of the satellite is just grayed out, not gone. I figured out that you need to switch the receiver to "radio" mode in order to delete the radio channels as well, and it seems you need to delete the transponders from the TP list too. Well, when I first started playing around with it and didn't really know what I was doing, I created several satellites that I would now like to delete. I've deleted all their channels (using the delete all function) for both picture and radio channels, AND deleted all the transponders. However, while I've had luck deleting SOME satellites, others still remain in the list grayed out. It seems completely arbitrary which ones stay and which ones go. I don't really know what else to do to get rid of them. Any ideas?

4. When I got my Winegard dish, all the foam was busted inside the box and parts were floating around. Although everything seemed in order, there were a few small dents on the dish, originating from the back (small lumps when you look at the face of the dish). I'm sure this was caused by the mounts, etc. floating around in the box during shipping. Should I be concerned about this? Overall it looks pretty much perfect, but I don't know how this will affect focus of the radio signals. If it's an issue, I'll definitely contact Winegard and try to get a replacement.

Well! Sorry for the long post, but I figured I'd just lay it all out for you FTA geniuses. I don't know how much of you are into video post production, etc. but I would be more than happy to help out with any video editing, compression, or format questions. Thanks guys!

 

[gabshere]

Welcome to the group

1. I've noticed that pulling lower Ku signals (using the Techsat LNB) is much trickier than pulling the Dish Network, etc. signals using the 18" dish. For example, I can get around 90% quality (according to the 3500SD) when using the 18" dish and the circular LNB. However, the Winegard dish and the Techsat never seem to get past 60-70%. And this takes VERY fine tweaking -- I mean, you move that dish 1 or 2 mm and the signal's gone! Is this normal, or is something wrong with my setup?

this in fact is normal... DBS birds are stronger and easy to find hence the ability to use a 18 inch dish.... the linear birds are a bit harder to hit and have slightly lower signal levels hence the need for a 30 inch dish. the weaker signals of linear birds does take a fine tuning and very slight adjustments makes a big difference.

2. The Techsat LNB (linear, 10750), has markings on it, ostensibly for fine tuning the rotation (the Winegard has markings on the LNB mount as well). I've tried rotating it, but it seems to work best at 0. Would there ever be a reason to rotate it? Is location a factor? I'm in Los Angeles, if that helps.

depending on the satellite your aimed at the rotation of the lnb ( orrotation of some dishes) is called skew. skew varies from satellite to satellite depending on your location. also on a motorized system you set it up at zero skew when pointing to your true south satellite and then the movement of the motor handles the skew for the rest of the satellites in the arc.

On my Pansat 3500SD (which is NOT a clone, I already verified this), I am having trouble deleting satellites

I'm not a pansat person but you can use a channel editor to delete transponders and satellites via your pc and then push it back to the pansat. i find this method easiest to add and delete satellites to my FTA receiver. someone else i'm sure will chime in and let you know about the greyed out sats...

4. When I got my Winegard dish, all the foam was busted inside the box and parts but I don't know how this will affect focus of the radio signals. If it's an issue, I'll definitely contact Winegard and try to get a replacement.

i suspect if you are receiving signals then you shouldn't have any problems. but you can remove the dish via the mounting bolts and lay it down on a flat surface and it should touch all the way around. if not any warping or slight ding should most likely pop or twist right out with a little pressure.

 

[Anole]

If you could lay your dish face-down on a flat floor, or up against a flat door, and it touches all around the edges, then the dish isn't tragically warped and is probably okay.
A few small dings aren't terminal.
If they're grapefruit sized, that's another matter.
If you can capture some pictures, we might get you a 2nd opinion.

Satellites pretty much directly to the south of your location will require the linear LNB to be set near zero.
Ones well off to the east or west of you will require more and more twist or skew of the LNB.
That is, unless the dish's mount has skew, in which case, you can dial it in there.
See any of the many satellite calculators for aiming directions and required skew.
Circular LNBs as used by DirecTV and Dish, are not sensitive to rotation.

Often, we recommend a 36" dish, as it's about the largest you can ship before the cost gets ridiculous.
I'm sure you'll be fine.

Large dishes have narrower beamwidth, and the satellites are closer together than the Dish DBS satellites you get on the 18"
The DBS sats also put out much more power, which helps a bit.
Direct Broadcast Satellites are generally located every 9º, while the FSS fleet can be on 2º stations.
Of course, there are always exceptions.

I can't help you with the Pansat 3500, but it seems well regarded here on the forum.
I'd certainly put it on my top three list of new receivers to get.

Congrats on your success so far.
You seem to be off to a good start.
And welcome aboard at SatGuy's.

edit: looks like George beat me to the punch.
note what a friendly bunch we are, even in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

 

[iafirebuff]

WELCOME to the wonderfull world of FTA!

 

[Tron]

Welcome, Rawmotion! I, too, am in the video business, mainly as a freelance videographer and post person. Have plenty of equipment in my home studio for broadcast work, and I find that satellite reception compliments my video interests very well. It's kind of like internet for your video gear

The reason the linear Ku satellites are harder to pick up (and weaker) is that they are not intended for reception on such small dishes. Most of what we are receiving is intended for broadcast and cable operations, where larger (1.8 meter or six foot, or more) dishes are used for reception. We can get by with the 30" and 36" dishes, but it results in lower performance in many cases. Dish Network and DirecTV, on the other hand, are meant for consumers who cringe at anything larger than a pizza pan on the side of their homes This is why the signal from those circular birds is so much more powerful.

 

[Mr Tony]

welcome to the forum

 

[Rawmotion]

Thanks for the advice and the warm welcome!

I did manage to work out the channel editing on the 3500SD. There is a copy of gTools included with the latest firmware from Pansat's web site. It's a sweet program and did the trick. I do have a couple of issues with it though:

1. You have to connect the receiver to a PC via the RS-232 port. I have a new motherboard that lacks a serial port, which means I had to move the receiver over to another PC to play around with it. A better solution would be for Pansat to release a tool that will edit the CH Backup file directly, then re-upload it using the SD card. That way you wouldn't have to connect the receiver at all.

2. As someone else on this site mentioned, the "Upload" and "Download" buttons are labeled incorrectly (they're reversed). This isn't a big deal, but you can make big mistakes by "downloading" stuff you didn't really want to "upload" and overwriting the data in the receiver. I took the liberty of fixing this problem with the 1.87 version. I've attached the fixed EXE (no install necessary). If anyone would like to test it, that would be great.

Anyway, thanks again! I'm having a lots of fun spinning a 30" wok.

 

[qwert1515]

You can use Channel Master directly with the SD card (No need to connect the receiver with the serial port).

 

[Rawmotion]

Perfect! I just downloaded it and tried it out. Works great! Thanks for the tip!