If I wanted to set up a Free to Air System?

[AcWxRadar]

I am getting a signal strength of 80, and a quality of 50. I think I am on Satmex 6.
I am not finding any channels.

roland

Hi Roland,

At least you are getting a glimpse of a signal, so that is good progress. There aren't many FTA channels on this sat, I only pick up four: DA-AI, HWAZAN, MACTV and BVN-TV which are all on TP 12079 H.

I am not personally familiar with the GEOSATpro DSR100C receiver, so I cannot tell if the 50% quality level is above or below the threshold for pulling in the channel. My Coolsat usually loses the channel near 63% but my AZBox seems to read 30-33% before it drops out. Your receiver might be doing really well at 50% - hard to say. Need to have someone else who owns one inform us if that is a good quality level or not.

Actually, the true signal (quality level) from the sat is the same, but the meter scaling within various receivers don't display it the same. Therefore you cannot directly compare the signal and quality readings between different makes and models.

You may want to take some extra time to peak the signal to bring in these channels. Since this sat is going to be your closest due south sat, you will want to get your dish fairly well aligned here. Then you can select a sat off to the east and one to the west and set these up to use USALS motor positioning and drive the dish to them. Then check your dish alignment and tweak it for best signal on these sats.

Refer to "The List" for the first closest sats off to your east and west that you should select.

Personally, I would NOT use 119 or 110 as they are circular DBS satellites. They have a strong, easily detectable signal and therefore do not provide a good resource for aligning the dish. The dish may be off by quite a margin and still pull in these signals. Sats like 121, 123, 105 and 103 would be better to start with and they are quite equal in distance to either side of 113, so a good thing for you to use to get the dish aligned well.

RADAR

 

[piperut]

Hi Radar,

Thanks. I am getting someplace with this. It looks like the vent pipes on the neighbors house are in the middle of this satellite. (I am just shooting over their roof...).

I might have to figure something out to get me another foot or so off the ground.
(Run a pipe down the center of the other pipe? or my brother said I could get something from a fence store...)

Thanks.

roland

Hi Roland,

At least you are getting a glimpse of a signal, so that is good progress. There aren't many FTA channels on this sat, I only pick up four: DA-AI, HWAZAN, MACTV and BVN-TV which are all on TP 12079 H.

I am not personally familiar with the GEOSATpro DSR100C receiver, so I cannot tell if the 50% quality level is above or below the threshold for pulling in the channel. My Coolsat usually loses the channel near 63% but my AZBox seems to read 30-33% before it drops out. Your receiver might be doing really well at 50% - hard to say. Need to have someone else who owns one inform us if that is a good quality level or not.

Actually, the true signal (quality level) from the sat is the same, but the meter scaling within various receivers don't display it the same. Therefore you cannot directly compare the signal and quality readings between different makes and models.

You may want to take some extra time to peak the signal to bring in these channels. Since this sat is going to be your closest due south sat, you will want to get your dish fairly well aligned here. Then you can select a sat off to the east and one to the west and set these up to use USALS motor positioning and drive the dish to them. Then check your dish alignment and tweak it for best signal on these sats.

Refer to "The List" for the first closest sats off to your east and west that you should select.

Personally, I would NOT use 119 or 110 as they are circular DBS satellites. They have a strong, easily detectable signal and therefore do not provide a good resource for aligning the dish. The dish may be off by quite a margin and still pull in these signals. Sats like 121, 123, 105 and 103 would be better to start with and they are quite equal in distance to either side of 113, so a good thing for you to use to get the dish aligned well.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

Hi Radar,

Thanks. I am getting someplace with this. It looks like the vent pipes on the neighbors house are in the middle of this satellite. (I am just shooting over their roof...).

I might have to figure something out to get me another foot or so off the ground.
(Run a pipe down the center of the other pipe? or my brother said I could get something from a fence store...)

Thanks.

roland

Roland,

Unless your neighbors house is 20 feet or less away from your dish, you are probably not experiencing any signal problems due to their structure. I guarantee that your dish is aimed much higher than you think.

Try this... Stand in front of your dish with your head and eyes about the same level as your LNBF. Then, do a hiel hitler salute (please excuse the reference to hitler) so that your right arm is straight and your right shoulder is aligned with the middle of your right ear and your hand and fingers are all in a straight line with your arm. Look where your fingers are pointing and this will be roughly where the satellite is.

This is a very rough approximation tool, but it will give you a fair sense of how high the sat really is in the sky. If your neighbors house is well below this line, then their house is not occluding your signal.

RADAR

 

[piperut]

I think I am clearing his house.
I am wondering if I am on Satmex6, Satmex5, or the Anik bird that is right there also?
(I move the dish back and forth and find three signals... but haven't found anything on the birds.)

I was in Ace hardware over the weekend, and they had a "satellite amp". Said it was supposed to go between the dish and the receiver if you had a weak signal. I wonder if this would help, or cause problems?

roland

 

[piperut]

It started snowing here this morning. I might be able to work on this sometime this weekend (weather forecast is rain/snow most of the week... Friday and Sunday are only supposed to be mostly cloudy.)

I have moved the dish back and forth, and I see the signal strenght meter peg out fairly okay. So I think I am on the arc ok.

I would actually just like to get one satellite tuned in so I can see what is out there. It might be fun to get either White Springs Television, or RTN. The other thing that I would like is sports feeds... with the World Cup in 2010.... also, I like to watch hockey. I have NHL Center Ice through Directv. Our local team is on B2 networks. I think that is only on the interent. Some of the college games would be fun to watch.

So, I wonder which satellite would be the best for me to try and tune in before the weather gets to nasty to work on this outside?

thanks,

roland

 

[Mr Tony]

I was in Ace hardware over the weekend, and they had a "satellite amp". Said it was supposed to go between the dish and the receiver if you had a weak signal. I wonder if this would help, or cause problems?

unless you're running like 300 feet of cable, the amps actually cause more issues then helping

 

[AcWxRadar]

I think I am clearing his house.
I am wondering if I am on Satmex6, Satmex5, or the Anik bird that is right there also?
(I move the dish back and forth and find three signals... but haven't found anything on the birds.)roland

SatMex 5 at 116.8W will be difficult to pick up. I have never detected a channel here that was viewable for long. If you see a strong signal on TP 11740 V SR 30000, then it is likely HughesNet's internet feed channel. This is the strongest signal that I can detect from this sat. You should try to pick up on TP 12.174 for BYU (refer to "The List").

Anik F2 may prove difficult, too. But, you may get three channels from TP 11848 V, SR 3270. These from the Sakatchewan Ministry of Education.

I have moved the dish back and forth, and I see the signal strenght meter peg out fairly okay. So I think I am on the arc ok.

So, I wonder which satellite would be the best for me to try and tune in before the weather gets to nasty to work on this outside?

thanks,

roland

The receiver that you are using, it does not have any sort of an identification banner to indicate which satellite you are on?

Does it have any sort of PID scan mode or a method to enter a channel manually?

If you can do a PID scan of the sat you think might be 113 SatMex 5, try selecting TP 12.080 GHz, Horizontal, SR 25635 and enter VPID of 322, APID of 323 and PPID or PCRID-PCRCLK of 322 (if you can select the FEC, use 3/4) and then scan. These are the parameters for BVN-TV.

I was in Ace hardware over the weekend, and they had a "satellite amp". Said it was supposed to go between the dish and the receiver if you had a weak signal. I wonder if this would help, or cause problems?

roland

unless you're running like 300 feet of cable, the amps actually cause more issues then helping

I definitely agree with Ice on the issue of a signal amp. Notice that he has stated that if you are using a long cable run -i.e. over 300 feet. This is normally the only reason to use an amp. The amp will normally not improve a signal that is already too weak to pull in. It only helps to reduce the attenuation losses of your cable.

If you need to, switch over to DBS and locate 110W and 119W, which should be easy to find. If you make tick marks on your mast for these two then you will know that you must stay between 110W and 119W to pick up sats 111, 113 and 116.

RADAR

 

[piperut]

Right now I have the RG-6 cable hooked up:

Lnb - switch (for combining polarity) - motor. I wonder if once I have a strong signal from a satellite if I bypass the switch and the motor and run the cable direct from the LNB into the receiver if that would help.

We are supposed to have a storm for the next few days... so it might be the weekend before I get to do much more.

roland

 

[piperut]

I am getting really close - I managed to move the dish a little bit, and get the signal up about 80, and the quality up to 55. I then tried another satellite, and same sort of signal strength, except the quality is bouncing between 55 and 60.

Still not finding any channels. I wish I new someone locally who had set up a free to air system in the past...

roland

 

[Lak7]

and get the signal up about 80, and the quality up to 55

Quality is what you should focus on.

Still not finding any channels.

Which Sat & Transponder are you getting Quality on?

 

[piperut]

Quality is what you should focus on.


Which Sat & Transponder are you getting Quality on?

I think I was on Satmex 6, then i changed to what I think was AMC2/4.

If it was a bit warmer here, I might want to play around with the thing a little more.

roland