It's finally all here . . .

[Mr Tony]

Inclination for TS is highest compared to other satellites. Does this has a relationship to adjsuting the satellite dish for TS? I do not have a motor setup, but curious to know!

dont understand what you are asking, but if you have a true south (like in MN its IA6 at 93), that is the highest satellite location for my area.

This is the same for both fixed and motorized. If I aimed a fixed dish at IA6, the elevation is higher than say SBS6


9 posts to 10K

 

[digiblur]

So, as long as I motor to the correct motor shaft position first with USALS I can use any satellite I want to set up my system. Is that a valid statement? If that's true, then why do people even bother with trying to find true south?


Thanks!

I found it was easier to tune in on the nearest TS satellite. Something that doesn't peak out your quality meter. Make sure you have the motor set to the right bird and you also verify via lyngsat that you are on the right bird. Then I swung the motor over to G10R, this one is picky due to the hot 121 bird next to it. Then I swung over to my farthest east satellite and tweaked it a little. Once you do that everything else should fall in. Make sure you have a TV and the receiver next to the dish and have plenty of time and patience.

 

[dogstar1313]

Ok. So I have my dish and motor mounted to the pole and have manually found Galaxy11 by moving the whole rig on the pole with the motor still at zero. Now I know that I need to motor to the correct position for G11 using USALS and then line it back up with the bird to properly orient my rig, but I can't figure out how to get the motor to move. In the configuration for G11 I told it to use USALS in the positioner settings and it says it's moving, but it doesn't really move. I have a green light on the motor so I think it's OK. I'm fairly certain that my issue stems from the fact that I have not yet input my lat and long into the receiver to set up USALS. I would do this, but I cannot find the proper menu in the receiver to let me input this information. I have read the 3500S manual and it never really says outright where the lat and long entry menu is (or maybe I missed this somehow it was 3:30 AM when I got to that point so my logic may not have been the best then). I am going to go read the manual again and poke around to make sure I didn't do something stupid. Can anyone point me in the direction of how to enter my lat and long into the receiver?

 

[voomvoom]

3500s

I have not yet input my lat and long into the receiver to set up USALS. I would do this, but I cannot find the proper menu in the receiver to let me input this information.
Can anyone point me in the direction of how to enter my lat and long into the receiver?

Menu
Installation-OK
Password-Enter Password
Antenna Setup-OK
Satellite of choice-OK
Go down to Positioner Setting
USALS-OK
Go down to My Longitude-Enter correct Longitude
Remember there will be a decimal point (such as 83.0W or 82.3W) and you'll need to hit one of the right or left arrows to get the W
Go down to My Latitude-Enter correct Latitude
Go down to Store
Store-OK

This should work.

Al

 

[dogstar1313]

Thanks Al!

I wasn't hitting OK once I was on USALS. I now see where to enter the lat long info. I'm going to go give it a shot!

 

[dogstar1313]

Well, I made some progress. I was able to enter the coordinates for my location and the motor moved to what I assume to be the correct position for G11. I then re-aligned the whole dish/motor setup to G11 by moving it on the pole. I peaked it for best signal quality and then tightened it down. One thing to mention is that when adjusting the dish declination for best signal it varied quite a bit from what was listed in the motor manual. It was higher - best quality was around 35-40 as opposed to 24.2 dish angle shown in the SG2100 manual. My motor elevation angle is set per my latitude as the manual states. Now when I move to another sat position using USALS and scan I find no transponders. My pole is plumb. The motor is actually moving. What have I overlooked/done wrong? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[digiblur]

Well, I made some progress. I was able to enter the coordinates for my location and the motor moved to what I assume to be the correct position for G11. I then re-aligned the whole dish/motor setup to G11 by moving it on the pole. I peaked it for best signal quality and then tightened it down. One thing to mention is that when adjusting the dish declination for best signal it varied quite a bit from what was listed in the motor manual. It was higher - best quality was around 35-40 as opposed to 24.2 dish angle shown in the SG2100 manual. My motor elevation angle is set per my latitude as the manual states. Now when I move to another sat position using USALS and scan I find no transponders. My pole is plumb. The motor is actually moving. What have I overlooked/done wrong? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Keep playing.... small adjustments. You'll get it.

 

[dogstar1313]

I'm still pecking away at it, but haven't gotten anywhere yet really. I think I'm going to take a break for a while to ease the frustration factor. That 10lb sledge hammer over in the corner of the garage was looking mighty appealing a few minutes ago.

Could it be that I have tweaked the signal so much for G11 that I have knocked it out of alignment for the other sats? Should I settle for medium quality levels on G11 and then see what happens with the other sats?

I knew I should have bought more beer. . .

 

[Arion]

If I use a different sat for my TS won't that throw my whole arc off?

Not if it's within a degree or two of your True South. I would go for Galaxy 11 it's at the same spot as N1 except it uses linear polarization H/V vs L/R of N1. A good mux for that one is the Primedia Mux 12060 V sr 26700 fec 3/4 There are several 24/7 channels. Most are encrypted but one video channel and the audio channel is always ITC.

 

[dogstar1313]

So far I'm doing a great job getting Galaxy 11, I just can't seem to find anything else.

That's what puzzles me. I can get 75% quality on galaxy 11, but absolutely nothing anywhere else. I'm going to get back out there at it in a couple of hours and see what damage I can do. . .

 

[Shawn95GT]

It sounds like you might have set your dish elevation using the wrong scale.

One side of the SG2100 bracket has your elevation angle. The other has a latitude scale.

You should be able to USALS to G11, peak the dish and call it a day if the motor elevation is right and the pole is true.

Shawn

 

[dogstar1313]

No, my motor elevation and dish declination were ok (I checked them a lot the last two days ). Thanks for the advice though.

I figured out what the problem was late last night. Of course, it was something stupid that I had done. Evidently when I connected the coax to the LNB I bumped it and knocked the skew out of whack. I didn't notice it then, or for about a day and a half after. From my vantage point when adjusting the dish I couldn't really see the LNB very good so I didn't notice it until I had swung the whole assembly around on the pole to check something else. At that point I had to climb down the ladder to get a tool I had forgotten. When I looked up at the dish I saw that the LNB was cock-eyed and realized what was going on. I bet I won't make that mistake again! I fixed the LNB and tightened it down really good. I have aligned back up with G11, but I haven't peaked it yet. I'm going to do that sometime today. I'll post back once that is complete.

Thanks again guys for all your help and moral support. This forum is probably the best I have ever been on regardless of subject. I think there are a great bunch of people here. Maybe one of these days I'll learn enough about this hobby to be able to make some meaningful contributions, as long as I can keep my LNB straight that is.

 

[voomvoom]

Congratulations Dogstar 1313......

Al

 

[dogstar1313]

Well, still no luck. I can get one sat and peak it out, but when I motor to somewhere else I get zilch. No quality at all. I'm about to go try again starting with a different sat to see if that helps.

 

[dogstar1313]

I am trying to figure out what sat I'm pointed at right now. When I blind scan it I only get two channels in the clear. One channel is an advertisement for GlobeCast World TV system and the other is WDSU UP channel 6. Does anybody have any idea what bird I'm pointing at? I looked at Lyngsat, but couldn't find any info on these two.

 

[PSB]

IA-8 @ 89w

 

[dogstar1313]

Thanks Pete!
I'm not too far off the mark since I am shooting for AMC 3. I see WDSU now on Lyngsat's site, but I'm a bit confused. It has an A next to it and earlier I had mistakenly thought that meant it was analog, but I also see that it's highlighted in yellow which means digital clear. So, what exactly does the A mean?

 

[PSB]

A is the web address of the channel!

 

[dogstar1313]

Once again, thank you Pete!

As usual, I'm trying to overcomplicate things.

I'm going to work on my setup some more when I get off work tonight. Hopefully I will get all my alignment issues worked out tonight so I can get down to some serious blind scanning the rest of the week.

 

[dogstar1313]

Well I finally got everything lined up and tweaked. I have only scanned a fews sats so far, but look forward to doing some heavy duty scanning this week. I set up on AMC3 and tweaked it and once that was done everything else falls right into place using USALS, at least from what I have seen thus far anyway. Is AMC3 a notoriously weak/hard to find sat? Or maybe just the ones around it are stronger? It took several trips up the ladder to get it just right. Initially I set up on Montana PBS and tweaked the dish based on the signal strength from that channel. I was able to get it to go from around 40% quality initially all the way up to 75%! I might try again to see if I can get even more sometime when I don't have to work in the dark.

One thing I have noticed in my scanning is that sometimes when I blind scan a satellite there will be a few channels missing that will normally show up if I just do a scan based on the transponders already programmed in the Pansat. Is this normal? My strategy up to this point has been to just blind scan the hell out of everything. Should I instead use the pre-configured transponders and then only blind scan if I think I'm missing something? What scanning philosophy usually yields the best results?

Once again I would like to thank all of the members here at Satellite Guys for being so helpful and not beating up on me when I asked stupid questions.