I got the HTS System 70 up and running tonight

[Shawn95GT]

I can now see why the C-band guys find the DVB recievers to be a pain.

'MASTERTRAK' is the next best think to USALS .

You manually point to three sats and it scans and fills in the blanks. Pretty cool.

Anyways, while some of the analog is snowy, some looks great. I am able to lock on the VC channels with the little 5' dish .

some examples:

AMC 3 TP 22 is giving me 143 Signal.
Galaxy 12 TP 3 is showing 127 Signal
Galaxy 1 TP 5 is snowy, 127 Signal
AMC 10 TP 9 - 131 Signal (snow but watchable) TP 10 - 138 signal (snow but watchable)
AMC 8 TP 2 118 Signal

I'm still figuring out how to enter more sats into the box but so far so good. At this point I think the snow is due to the small dish / interfeerence but for now it's making for a pretty elaborite dish pointer. All I need to do now is make up a 'what it's called on this receiver' vs the current name of the sat chart.

 

[dfergie]

Fixed your title... I need to get my bud back up and running ( a horse got into the coax and broke the scaler ring loose... )good crimp

 

[Shawn95GT]

Thanks .

Shawn

 

[Shawn95GT]

I call NPS and subscribed to The Starz analog pack for a month. The channels are on G9 (Galaxy 13 / Horizons 1 @127W).

The video looks good. I can see where I'd benefit from a bigger dish but the fact that I was able to subscribe pay channels with my little dish is pretty cool in my book .

Comes in nice:
G9-8 Starz West
G9-12 Starz Edge
G9-20 Encore Westerns

Slight snow, VNR masks it:
G9-16 Encore East

Absolutely nothing:
G9-6 Starz East

Shawn

 

[Shawn95GT]

I figured out why G9-6 Starz East was coming up with nothing... there is nothing there!

NPS's site is out of date. Lyngsat showed it on TP4 and low and behold it's there and I'm authorized.

Shawn

 

[dfergie]

Sparklys? been so long since I had my VCII activated I dont remember...

 

[1inabillion]

Slight snow, VNR masks it
G9-16 Encore East

billion here

None on mine Bud all the Starz analog pack are clear no snow

at all including (G9-16 Encore East)

The Starz analog pack will soon go black

billion

 

[Shawn95GT]

billion here

None on mine Bud all the Starz analog pack are clear no snow

at all including (G9-16 Encore East)

The Starz analog pack will soon go black

billion

You have more than twice the dish though .

If I get serious with my C-band doings and decide to get a 4DTV I'll put my bigger dish up. This 5' dish doesn't do half bad for what it is.

I did some fine tuning of the skew and I've all but eliminated the sparklies on all but one channel. VNR does wonders for me and this little dish. the only side effect I've noticed is that many of the computer generated logos get distorted / smeared with VNR enabled.

 

[drhydro]

I am glad to hear you are doing so well with the 5 footer Shawn, that makes me anxious for spring so i can get my 6' up and running.

 

[WyrTwister]

I call NPS and subscribed to The Starz analog pack for a month. The channels are on G9 (Galaxy 13 / Horizons 1 @127W).
The video looks good. I can see where I'd benefit from a bigger dish but the fact that I was able to subscribe pay channels with my little dish is pretty cool in my book .
Comes in nice:
G9-8 Starz West
G9-12 Starz Edge
G9-20 Encore Westerns
Slight snow, VNR masks it:
G9-16 Encore East
Absolutely nothing:
G9-6 Starz East
Shawn

I am testing C band on a 90 cm dish . Get just enough signal for the VC 2 module to wake up . That is with a 30 degree LNBF . The new 15 fegree LNBF was somewhat better , but it died .

Would love to have a 5' dish . What size mounting pole is it designed for ? 2" Inside Diameter steel pipe or the 3-1/2 " ?

Thanks ,
Wyr

 

[iammike]

This 5' dish doesn't do half bad for what it is.
I did some fine tuning of the skew and I've all but eliminated the sparklies on all but one channel. VNR does wonders for me and this little dish. the only side effect I've noticed is that many of the computer generated logos get distorted / smeared with VNR enabled.

I've spent a lot of time getting rid of sparklies on my system. I watch a lot of TV on a 100" front projector screen so the smallest defect in the picture is really magnified. I'm also very picky. I found that very small elevation changes can greatly improve picture quality. I had a lot of sparklies on ESPN and Fox news, especially with VNR active, but a few turns of a wrench on the elevation turnbuckle did wonders. The biggest problem I've had is finding the perfect setting for all of the sats. I'd get G5 perfect and then GB (G11) would be off and vice versa. I don't think I have VNR turned on for any channels now, as its no longer needed and causes the distortions you mentioned. The other tweak that helped a few channels was adjusting the frequency. The 4dtv receivers let you make frequency adjustments for each channel. If your HTS has this setting it may be worth playing with.

Mike

 

[drhydro]

I'd get G5 perfect and then GB (G11) would be off and vice versa. Mike

Mike,
Sounds like you need to loosen your mount and swing it a little east or west. Elevation changes to various sats should not be necessary if you are properly tracking the arc. Here is a good link to explain fine tuning a BUD and will help you visualize what I mean.
http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp4.html#anchor797917
Thomas

 

[tdti1]

Yes it may be a polar axis adjestment.

 

[iammike]

Mike,
Sounds like you need to loosen your mount and swing it a little east or west. Elevation changes to various sats should not be necessary if you are properly tracking the arc. Here is a good link to explain fine tuning a BUD and will help you visualize what I mean.
http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp4.html#anchor797917
Thomas

Yep, I already kind of figured that one out but I really appreciate you letting me know. I moved it probably less than a millimeter yesterday, but it did help. I suspect most people wouldn't even complain about the issues I'm seeing though. On a 20 inch set or even my 36" the sparklies are pretty much invisible. There's only a couple channels, mainly the ones like Shawn mentioned with a lot of computer overlays(ESPN, Fox News), that have any problems. I'd already turned off the noise reduction on all of the channels, as it was introducing more artifacts than it was helping. Again the problem with the noise reduction was computer overlays. By the time I finished yesterday, I was getting around 94% quality on digitals on C4, and in the 70's on GB. There were still a few sparklies here and there on ESPN though. The digitals on G5 were pretty strong. Since it's right in the middle, I'm not sure there's much else I can do. A higher dollar LNB might fix the problem, but it's not worth the money as the picture was still pretty good. As it is, I haven't watched Dish network in over a week and am not missing it.

 

[drhydro]

Mike,
If the middle of the arc is off you may have too much or too little declination set. Take a look at the graphic towards the bottom of the page on the link i posted, it is titled "Philosophy of tuning dish to satellite arc". It shows how various adjusments affect the tracking of the arc. This graphic helped me a huge amount in visualizing how different changes to polar axis, elevation and declination affect how your dish tracks the arc.

 

[Shawn95GT]

Wyr - I have it on a 2" Schedule 40 pipe. It isn't as sturdy as I thought it was going to be, but it does the trick. I really couldn't go much larger and still get it on the mount (2 1/2" u-bolts).

Mike - I just started playing with the frequency adjustment. I needed it on my far West sats G1 / C4. It helped a lot. I found that re-tuning the dish position after fine tuning the skew made for some very nice improvements.

Tuning this dish to track the arc was interesting. lift / pull on it and see where the signal goes. I fon a East sat and the signal went up when I lifted the dish, motor West alittle, swing the whole mount East... start over. I know it's close now. I want to tune it again using the Ku side. I'm sure you're found that C-band is pretty forgiving.

 

[iammike]

Mike,
If the middle of the arc is off you may have too much or too little declination set. Take a look at the graphic towards the bottom of the page on the link i posted, it is titled "Philosophy of tuning dish to satellite arc". It shows how various adjusments affect the tracking of the arc. This graphic helped me a huge amount in visualizing how different changes to polar axis, elevation and declination affect how your dish tracks the arc.

Thomas,

I wish I'd seen that diagram a few weeks ago, it would have saved a lot of trial and error. I'm still probably off by just a hair, but it's pretty darn close now. I just checked my quality rating on a few sats, and I had 69 on GB, 88 on G5, and 98 on C4. I don't know what kind of numbers you guys are getting, but it seems like those are pretty decent.

Mike

 

[WyrTwister]

Wyr - I have it on a 2" Schedule 40 pipe. It isn't as sturdy as I thought it was going to be, but it does the trick. I really couldn't go much larger and still get it on the mount (2 1/2" u-bolts).

How deep did you bury the pipe & how much concrete ? Did you concrete fill the pipe ?

Thanks for the info .


Wyr

 

[WyrTwister]

Thomas,
I wish I'd seen that diagram a few weeks ago, it would have saved a lot of trial and error. I'm still probably off by just a hair, but it's pretty darn close now. I just checked my quality rating on a few sats, and I had 69 on GB, 88 on G5, and 98 on C4. I don't know what kind of numbers you guys are getting, but it seems like those are pretty decent.
Mike

I have found on Ku DVB-S , the numbers vary widly from receiver to receiver , on the same dish / sat / LNBF .

Would not be supprised if the same happens on C band ?

Makes it difficult to make meaningful comparisons . :-(

Wyr

 

[iammike]

I have found on Ku DVB-S , the numbers vary widly from receiver to receiver , on the same dish / sat / LNBF .
Would not be supprised if the same happens on C band ?
Makes it difficult to make meaningful comparisons . :-(
Wyr

Those are all 4dtv numbers, so I don't know if the receiver difference will be that big in this case. I think you pretty much have to be using a Motorola 922, 920, or 905. In my case it's a 922.