Hi,
I am having trouble getting this thing set up. I had one satellite, but then tried to go to another and it was not tracking properly. I then started looking, and did not have due south right. I think I have due south set (had my brother check my compass readings) and now I am not able to get anything.
also, I seem to be unable to move the dish west of what I thought was the 0 setting on the motor. There is not really a pointer on the part that moves, just the marking where the shaft is put together. 90 degrees from there, is where the bolts holding the casing together are. I set this using the marks on the casing where is it held together. should I have used the bolts?
Thanks,
roland
Roland,
You earlier stated that your location is near 112W longitude and 41 north latitude. This will put your nearest true south satellite at 113.0W - SATMEX 6. There are several channels on this bird that provide a fairly strong signal for you to align to. Check "The List" here on our site, it is a great reference tool!
I would recommend BVN-TV on TP 12.079 H symbol rate 25.635 MS/s.
For your dish elevation, try setting the angle to 28.6 degrees and the motor latitude to 41 degrees. These are rough numbers since you gave only rough coordinates in your earlier post, but these should be fairly good for you to start with. Are you near Syracuse?
Rather than get involved in informing you how to determine the east/west angle or azimuth using a compass, the simplest approach is to set your dish and motor angles as stated above and then "paint" your horizon near due south.
The term "paint" is a weather RADAR term or jargon which means to pan the antenna back and forth across the horizon in order to paint a picture on the monitor screen. Therefore, set your known angles as accurately as you can and turn the entire motor assembly from right to left, left to right in a slow, methodical fashion while monitoring the signal and quality levels on your TV monitor.
Have your receiver setup to monitor the signal from satellite 113.0W, TP 12.079 H symbol rate 25.635 MS/s (or another TP that is listed in "The List").
It is best if you can haul a small, portable TV and the receiver out to your dish site so that you can watch the screen while you are adjusting the dish. You really need that immediate feedback while you are adjusting your dish and motor as opposed to trying to yell back and forth to someone in the house monitoring your signal on the TV.
Turn the entire dish and motor on the mast from east to west and back in very small increments. Stop and wait a few seconds to allow the receiver time to lock onto any signal that may be present.
Your motor tube should be at zero degrees or dead center. You stated that you bought the DG-280B motor, this has a degree scale and a pointer to show you this. If your motor is missing the pointer, then just use the seam that runs up and down the motor tube as you stated in your previous post. When the seam is straight up and in line with the scale marking for zero degrees, you are at the home or zero degree position. You can use the manual position buttons on the motor to drive the motor there.
You are probably having a hard time seeing this scale and markers with the dish attached to the motor tube, so it might be best if you use the GO TO REFERENCE or GO TO ZERO function on the receiver to position the motor tube properly. Then you won't have to try and peer around a corner from behind the dish to see if the motor tube is home or not.
If you don't pick up on a signal from a known good TP on sat 113W after a few pans east to west and back, then adjust your dish elevation a degree up or down and pan again. Repeat this and eventually you will pick up a signal along the way.
Fine adjust on 113.0W but don't spend too much time peaking it to perfection as you will likely adjust the dish elevation and motor azimuth more later to track the arc precisely for sats to the extreme east or west of you.
RADAR
