Last year late November I ordered myself a satellite system from PSB, a 36" Dish, Stab Motor, LNB and Fortec Lifetime Ultra receiver.
When I received I I set it up so that I could see one bird, and I was happy, the ground was too frozen to try planting the Dish. But again I was happy getting the one satellite I could get.
I have been watching stuff off of this bird for awhile now and was happy then spring came and I planted me a pole in the ground and mounted the motor and was able to see 3 satellites from my location, I was happy again then came VOOM to 61.5 I took the LNB off of the FTA dish and put on a DishPro LNB so that I could watch VOOM I was missing FTA but was happy to have VOOM... Then I went to the 2005 Satellite Expo in Memphis, and thats where I met a lot of great FTA folks, including the good folks from Sadoun Satellite Sales and SatelliteAV.COM.
At the show the folks form SatelliteAV gave me a award winning (It won two awards at the Expo!) Invacom Quad Polar LNB's to try out. Now I really needed to have my FTA dish working.
I got back home with it and was waiting to set it up, when the weather was clear I went out and gave it a shot. First I took and old DirecTV dish and mounted it to the base of my SuperDISH and now had a dedicated 61.5 dish.
I setup the old Fortec LNB and put it back on the FTA Dish and lined it up with IA5, had a nice signal of about 54 - 60, I then removed the lnb and put on the Invacom quad - NOTHING no signal whatsoever, went through all kind of settings, still nothing. I was getting razzled of why this new LNB wasnt working. I took apart the dish, made sure the pole was level, put the dish back on again and still nothing... I spend a good 12 - 14 hours out there the first weekend with it trying to get it to work. I finally got it to work on 61.5, here I got a nice strong signal. I gave up last weekend.
This weekend came and I was determined to get my FTA setup working. While I have done many satellite installs this was my first motorized one, I wanted to get it working on my own.
Saturday rolled around and I removed the Invacom and put back on the Fortec LNB and quickly again was watching the slides on UONTV. Put the Invacom back on and again it could not find any Linear KU. I gave up and called a friend who is a professional satellite installer who dropped off his Birdog meter. Of course when he gave it to me the battery was dead so I needed to wait all night for it to charge.
Sunday Morning woke up and went out there again, with the Birdog in hand, I was easily able to find all the DBS birds on the Circular polarity but again no libear and this was even with the professional Birdog meter. I called my friend and he came over and he was stumped as well.
We took off the Invacom LNB and put the Fortec Universal LNB back on again I was on IA 5. I was fustrated. My buddy took his Birdog meter and told me I probably had a band Invacom LNB.
This morning I contacted the folks from SatelliteAV and immediately got a reply back from Brent who asked me if I set the Linear LNB to STANDARD on the Fortec. I left work and came home and popped off the old LNB and popped the Invacom back on, took the Lifetime Ultra Receiver and my laptop which has a TV tuner outside, plugged it all in went to the setup screen and changed the setting from a Unversal LNB to a Standard and JOY OF JOY I had a GREAT signal off of IA5! I went from a 54 - 60 to a 71 - 80!
I then tried seeing if I could see the arc, I could find some of the nearbye birds but none of the further birds. I then acidently leaned on my dish and noticed I had signal from a bird I could not get before.
I thought I had it tightened down but the dish had play, so I got out the tools and REALLY tightened it down after I got the strongest signal possible on the satellite I was on. I mean I REALLY tightened it down, now there was no play in it at all.
I then scanned across the sky and was now pulling in stuff I was unable to see before, I was AMAZED at what I could get which I could not get before, I now can receive the (Late) Good Dr, Dr Gene Scott. I can pick up loads of News Wildfeeds and more!
So far I have 6 satellites programmed in and am blindscanning them all one by one.
Below are some photos of the setup now with the Invacom LNB setup. You will notice that I have it set to use a Disecq switch. I am able to get the FTA channels off of Dish and ExpressVu.
I am very surprised how much of the arc I can see considering whats in the way, I took a photo of the sky from behind the Dish so you could see my view.
Thanks to Pete (PSB) for the great setup and thanks to the guys at SatelliteAV.COM for the excellent LNB!
When I received I I set it up so that I could see one bird, and I was happy, the ground was too frozen to try planting the Dish. But again I was happy getting the one satellite I could get.
I have been watching stuff off of this bird for awhile now and was happy then spring came and I planted me a pole in the ground and mounted the motor and was able to see 3 satellites from my location, I was happy again then came VOOM to 61.5 I took the LNB off of the FTA dish and put on a DishPro LNB so that I could watch VOOM I was missing FTA but was happy to have VOOM... Then I went to the 2005 Satellite Expo in Memphis, and thats where I met a lot of great FTA folks, including the good folks from Sadoun Satellite Sales and SatelliteAV.COM.
At the show the folks form SatelliteAV gave me a award winning (It won two awards at the Expo!) Invacom Quad Polar LNB's to try out. Now I really needed to have my FTA dish working.
I got back home with it and was waiting to set it up, when the weather was clear I went out and gave it a shot. First I took and old DirecTV dish and mounted it to the base of my SuperDISH and now had a dedicated 61.5 dish.
I setup the old Fortec LNB and put it back on the FTA Dish and lined it up with IA5, had a nice signal of about 54 - 60, I then removed the lnb and put on the Invacom quad - NOTHING no signal whatsoever, went through all kind of settings, still nothing. I was getting razzled of why this new LNB wasnt working. I took apart the dish, made sure the pole was level, put the dish back on again and still nothing... I spend a good 12 - 14 hours out there the first weekend with it trying to get it to work. I finally got it to work on 61.5, here I got a nice strong signal. I gave up last weekend.
This weekend came and I was determined to get my FTA setup working. While I have done many satellite installs this was my first motorized one, I wanted to get it working on my own.
Saturday rolled around and I removed the Invacom and put back on the Fortec LNB and quickly again was watching the slides on UONTV. Put the Invacom back on and again it could not find any Linear KU. I gave up and called a friend who is a professional satellite installer who dropped off his Birdog meter. Of course when he gave it to me the battery was dead so I needed to wait all night for it to charge.
Sunday Morning woke up and went out there again, with the Birdog in hand, I was easily able to find all the DBS birds on the Circular polarity but again no libear and this was even with the professional Birdog meter. I called my friend and he came over and he was stumped as well.
We took off the Invacom LNB and put the Fortec Universal LNB back on again I was on IA 5. I was fustrated. My buddy took his Birdog meter and told me I probably had a band Invacom LNB.
This morning I contacted the folks from SatelliteAV and immediately got a reply back from Brent who asked me if I set the Linear LNB to STANDARD on the Fortec. I left work and came home and popped off the old LNB and popped the Invacom back on, took the Lifetime Ultra Receiver and my laptop which has a TV tuner outside, plugged it all in went to the setup screen and changed the setting from a Unversal LNB to a Standard and JOY OF JOY I had a GREAT signal off of IA5! I went from a 54 - 60 to a 71 - 80!
I then tried seeing if I could see the arc, I could find some of the nearbye birds but none of the further birds. I then acidently leaned on my dish and noticed I had signal from a bird I could not get before.
I thought I had it tightened down but the dish had play, so I got out the tools and REALLY tightened it down after I got the strongest signal possible on the satellite I was on. I mean I REALLY tightened it down, now there was no play in it at all.
I then scanned across the sky and was now pulling in stuff I was unable to see before, I was AMAZED at what I could get which I could not get before, I now can receive the (Late) Good Dr, Dr Gene Scott. I can pick up loads of News Wildfeeds and more!
So far I have 6 satellites programmed in and am blindscanning them all one by one.
Below are some photos of the setup now with the Invacom LNB setup. You will notice that I have it set to use a Disecq switch. I am able to get the FTA channels off of Dish and ExpressVu.
I am very surprised how much of the arc I can see considering whats in the way, I took a photo of the sky from behind the Dish so you could see my view.
Thanks to Pete (PSB) for the great setup and thanks to the guys at SatelliteAV.COM for the excellent LNB!
