I started playing with my new 5' mesh last night
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Yes on bothpro-96 said:Just wondering if you were able to get any C-BAND channels at Sol 2 and Satmex 5. ?
Cause I've been told that Sol2/Satmex5 both need an 8ft or higher.
Let me know Shawn..
I definately saw content on Sol 2 (I used it for my true South!), Satmex 5 was weak but I did scan in a couple channels - I'll PM you specifics next time I fire it up (I haven't run the ribbon cable yet).
Shawn
More pics
I got the Norsats on the C/Ku feedhorn and I can't wait to fire 'em up.
I tested that the servo motor is indeed good on the feedhorn and it works perfect.
I need to get to trenching that Ribbon cable and put this dish to good use! I can't get over how huge that 8115 is vs the CalAmp one I took off - lol.
I got the Norsats on the C/Ku feedhorn and I can't wait to fire 'em up.
I tested that the servo motor is indeed good on the feedhorn and it works perfect.
I need to get to trenching that Ribbon cable and put this dish to good use! I can't get over how huge that 8115 is vs the CalAmp one I took off - lol.
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The boring part of the install is just crawling along.
Yesterday I strung the ribbon cable and a 10ga solid copper ground wire all the way around the yard and up to the demarc box.
I think I got hosed on my 200' spool of ribbon cable as it's only a tad longer than my 150' length of 10ga wire I just bought.
I still need to trench the wire but I'm going to hold off doing it near the house since I have a termite treatment happening soon. I did tunnel under my poured in concrete edging in the back yard. This went a lot quicker than I expected.
Today I got up the nerve to drill a hole in the side of my house and I installed the wall plate for the ribbon cable. I talked with the cable guy who has to do something similar for my VDSL install and he gave me some pointers which workedout pretty good.
I did just drill through the stucko. He reccomended siliconing the cable where it comes through - and that is the current game plan. On the inside he showed me these really cool mounts for low voltage wiring in drywall. They install just like a box you'd put in for a 110v outlet only its just the frame that goes through the drywall. This gives you a good sized hole to work with on the inside, it gives you a solid mount for a wall plate and makes the accuracy of your exterior hole less important. I picked up a wall plate designed to pass ribbon cable and it looks good installed. Now I just need to get the cable coming through
.
I'm debating whether I should bother trying to do a ground rod out at the dish. I think for now I'm going to leave it as something I can install later if I decide it's needed.
The NEC code is kind of vauge on grounding the mast. I know for SURE I need to bond it to the house's ground. The soil here is dry as can be (water wells are 100's of feet deep) so I kind of doubt the effectiveness of a ground rod in this dry soil. I guess I could water it with my drip system - lol.
I'll get this project done one of these days...
Shawn
Yesterday I strung the ribbon cable and a 10ga solid copper ground wire all the way around the yard and up to the demarc box.
I think I got hosed on my 200' spool of ribbon cable as it's only a tad longer than my 150' length of 10ga wire I just bought.
I still need to trench the wire but I'm going to hold off doing it near the house since I have a termite treatment happening soon. I did tunnel under my poured in concrete edging in the back yard. This went a lot quicker than I expected.
Today I got up the nerve to drill a hole in the side of my house and I installed the wall plate for the ribbon cable. I talked with the cable guy who has to do something similar for my VDSL install and he gave me some pointers which workedout pretty good.
I did just drill through the stucko. He reccomended siliconing the cable where it comes through - and that is the current game plan. On the inside he showed me these really cool mounts for low voltage wiring in drywall. They install just like a box you'd put in for a 110v outlet only its just the frame that goes through the drywall. This gives you a good sized hole to work with on the inside, it gives you a solid mount for a wall plate and makes the accuracy of your exterior hole less important. I picked up a wall plate designed to pass ribbon cable and it looks good installed. Now I just need to get the cable coming through
.I'm debating whether I should bother trying to do a ground rod out at the dish. I think for now I'm going to leave it as something I can install later if I decide it's needed.
The NEC code is kind of vauge on grounding the mast. I know for SURE I need to bond it to the house's ground. The soil here is dry as can be (water wells are 100's of feet deep) so I kind of doubt the effectiveness of a ground rod in this dry soil. I guess I could water it with my drip system - lol.
I'll get this project done one of these days...
Shawn
Well, I go the cable trenched and put the C/Ku feedhorn on - great fun!
I was rewarded with about the same performance on C-band.... and absolutely nothing on Ku.
This Pansat is downright infuriating to operate coming from the Coolsat. I was hoping I could share position numbers between C and Ku but it won't let me assign the position number on the Ku side. I set it and I changes back to Null.
I'm going to try dialing in and storing the position the Ku side and see if it yanks the position number form the C-band side. If so, this VBOX/Pansat combo is useless and I need to slave it to a 'real' c-band receiver.
I was rewarded with about the same performance on C-band.... and absolutely nothing on Ku.
This Pansat is downright infuriating to operate coming from the Coolsat. I was hoping I could share position numbers between C and Ku but it won't let me assign the position number on the Ku side. I set it and I changes back to Null.
I'm going to try dialing in and storing the position the Ku side and see if it yanks the position number form the C-band side. If so, this VBOX/Pansat combo is useless and I need to slave it to a 'real' c-band receiver.
I felt sorry for myself. Left the 7.5' dish behind and moved to here, where do everything over 3' will need permit. The worst part is, leave the 6' solid ku dish and now I missed some good program from the Atlantic. However, still had a 7.5' dish has not sold and 1 10' dish took apart, two 5' mesh dish and one 6 section metal dish in the back yard storage. If anyone interesting, I will sell one or both the 5' mesh dish and keep the 7.5' and 10' dish for future use.
Did you do it via the receiver or via gtools or similar?drhydro said:
How did you assign the position number? Just store the position on the C-band 'sat' and again on the Ku side?
I need to do some testing to see why I'm not getting anything on Ku.
I found a C-band sat that'll peg the meter on the Pansat... 121w. It's crazy. I still don't see ImagineAsian though
.I was on a sat I couldn't identify last night. I was gunning for G10R and I think I was slightly West. What I saw was UPN Arkansas and a half dozen scramble channels marked Volkswagon. It was wierd.
I'm hoping to get the Ku side figured out - it could be that my tracking is off just enough to miss Ku... or maybe the feedhorn is slightly off center. I'll do some measuing again tonight.
Shawn
shawn,
i assigned the ku sats with same position number as the c band sats, ie g10 cband and g10 ku had the same number, 28 i think. That worked fine for me with the 2700.
The volkswagon channels are on g10, as is upn arkansaw. You should also be able to pick up the outdoor channel on cband. My guess is your not getting enough signal on the ku side to get the weaker transponders. Play with the skew settings in the pansat, it can make a HUGE difference.
i assigned the ku sats with same position number as the c band sats, ie g10 cband and g10 ku had the same number, 28 i think. That worked fine for me with the 2700.
The volkswagon channels are on g10, as is upn arkansaw. You should also be able to pick up the outdoor channel on cband. My guess is your not getting enough signal on the ku side to get the weaker transponders. Play with the skew settings in the pansat, it can make a HUGE difference.
I did the tweak and save to same position number last night - and got G10R dialed in.drhydro said:
Interesting on the skew. Might the skew setting for c-band not be optimal for Ku? I'll give that a shot tonight. The Ku side is VERY weak. I'm barely getting spikes up to 30% on Ku. C-band seems happy as can be. I'm going to double check my focal length and maybe adjust the feedhorn in and out of the scaler ring until the signal peaks. I just put it in till the F/D mark matched what I calculated for the dish. I bet moving it around helps.
Thanks for the insight. I'll try the skew and move the feedhorn some. Can't hurt! This thing is close to being right.
Shawn
Shawn95GT said:
C band newbie here , but is it possable to get the Ku LNB mounted so the skew is 90 degrees incorrect ? If so , manually add a duplicate set of Trans-Ponders with the opposite polarity ? Does the same polorotor ( on a dual C & Ku feedhorn ) function for both LNB's ?
How large are the holes in the mesh ?
My guess is you may decide to do Ku from the PrimeStar dish ? With the pansat , use a Diesqe switch or a 22 khz switch to change between sats ?
By the way , I am testing C band on a 90 cm offset Ku dish . I would like to ask a favor . You have the prime star dish ? You have an ectra C band LNBF ? If you get time , would you please consider testing the Prime Star dish on C band ? Is it a 48" Prime star ?
Thank you ,
Best of luck ,
Wyr
I've verified that the feedhorn is setup correctly. I think my problem is / was that I didn't have the feedhorn perfectly centered. I've since corrected this (just the other night).WyrTwister said:
The holes are oblong i nthe mesh - about 1/16" at the widest parts. It's the exact same mesh as is on my 8' Winegard that I recently picked up.
I 'may' end up using the P* for Ku but only if I have to. I'd like to have a single dish that does it all if possible
.My P* dish is one of the small ones. It's a 36x26 oval. I had an ASC421 on it for a little while for the heck of it. I never was able to lock onto anything DVB but I did see some analog channels (QVC, HSN, Jewelry TV). It was all pretty snowey.
The Five footer just keeps on impressing me. sinceI tweaked the feedhorn, I'm going to take some time to re-check how it's tracking the arc. C-band is pretty forgiving but Ku seems finiky on these bigger dishes.
Shawn95GT said:I've verified that the feedhorn is setup correctly. I think my problem is / was that I didn't have the feedhorn perfectly centered. I've since corrected this (just the other night).
The holes are oblong i nthe mesh - about 1/16" at the widest parts. It's the exact same mesh as is on my 8' Winegard that I recently picked up.
I 'may' end up using the P* for Ku but only if I have to. I'd like to have a single dish that does it all if possible
My P* dish is one of the small ones. It's a 36x26 oval. I had an ASC421 on it for a little while for the heck of it. I never was able to lock onto anything DVB but I did see some analog channels (QVC, HSN, Jewelry TV). It was all pretty snowey.
The Five footer just keeps on impressing me. sinceI tweaked the feedhorn, I'm going to take some time to re-check how it's tracking the arc. C-band is pretty forgiving but Ku seems finiky on these bigger dishes.
Glad you are making headway on Ku .
I have a dish about the same size as you describe the PrimeStar , black plastic / fiberglass , made by ChannelMaster w/ Hughs printed on it .
Have not tried it for C band ( but it works OK for Ku ) , since the 90 cm is larger .
Latter ,
Wyr
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