N00b Needs Help

[k3n0bl]

OK guys, new to FTA and trying to install a motorized setup.. I am using a Pansat PM900 motor, an I-Link9500 HD receiver, and the LNB is a Pansat PT-5800

The dish/motor have been mounted to the mast but

I have a few questions/problems:

1. I think the motor moved the dish last night when i was messing with the receiver, i did a factory reset on the receiver, I am not sure if the receiver knows where the motor is pointed to right now? IF no, how do i get it back to 0?!!!
2. I am not sure if I understand USAL. When I initially set it up it asks for LAT/LONG/SATELLITE. I have inputted my lat/long but I'm not sure if I should manually point the dish at the sat that I have set? Or do I initially point the dish true south and put in 0 as the satellite... then try to fine tune it?
3. After my issues with the motor, I decided just to try to point the whole setup towards Galaxy 19 lol, I have an accutrac meter, it sounded like it is hitting, and i got some channels but when looking at the strength on the receiver, it was very low. Any good tutorials on dish alignment techniques?

I know that for you elites out there, these questions are prolly funny lol... but I appreciate anyone willing to help a nooby

 

[cyberham]

I am officially an ex-noob. I now have a working motorized ku-band system installed and working well, so I consider myself a GN (graduate noob).

Move the motor to 0 position as indicated on its housing, using its left/right buttons mounted on the motor. Reset the motor (mine has a tiny hole on it where you poke a paper clip or similar to reset it). Input your own lat/long coordinates into your receiver for the USALS. Use your receiver to move the dish to a satellite closest in azimuth to your due south with a strong transponder you think you should be able to receive. This automatically sets the LNB skew correctly. Input data for or select that transponder on your receiver. Loosen the dish bolts, and physically move the dish azimuth with your hands (not with the motor) until you receive that transponder. Do the same with the dish elevation. Move dish, pause, wait, check reading, move dish, etc. Have patience and do everything slowly. You should have a system of "seeing" your receiver output while at the dish: I use a slingbox to stream the receiver video onto the Internet, then I use a wifi PC at the dish in the backyard. Or you could take your receiver out to the dish. Lock the bolts. Now use the USALS feature of your receiver to motor to each satellite and check that you are receiving transponders from each one.

Added: From Cincinnati, a good satellite to use would be SES2 at 87W. Its azimuth for you is 184 degrees, with elevation of 44.6 degrees. Use transponder data for the Patient Channel of 11716 H 4856.

 

[Blindowl1234]

K3, Welcome to Sat Guys. Lots of info and help in here for sure. 87W is closest to your true south, the Patient Channel is an easy one to get. Once you get a signal raise and lower the dish slightly and see if the signal improves. I'm not familiar with your particular set up...receiver etc...I live in Goshen...what part of Cincy are you in? I haven't found too many FTA folks in our area as yet...Blind

 

[k3n0bl]

Thanks for the help! I am in Hamilton, Ohio... between Cincinnati and Dayton. I have a linear LNB, will I be able to pick up that 87W SES2?

 

[cyberham]

Thanks for the help! I am in Hamilton, Ohio... between Cincinnati and Dayton. I have a linear LNB, will I be able to pick up that 87W SES2?

Absolutely! For the record, your dish azimuth in Hamilton for 87W is still 184 degrees, but your dish elevation would be 44.3 degrees, just a touch lower than Cincinnati. Let us know if you find the satellite signal.

 

[k3n0bl]

The only Sat that my receiver shows at 87 W is AMC3

 

[cyberham]

SES2 is the new name for AMC3. Use AMC3, and rename it to SES2, if you can.

 

[k3n0bl]

awesome man, i appreciate the help!

 

[k3n0bl]

another issue here, it doesnt list the transponder 11716H, and I have no idea how to manually enter it.

I am going with 11736 V
Is that a good transponder to test with? Does it matter?

 

[cyberham]

11736 V 8333 is fine to use. It is a little weaker here, but it is still a strong transponder. You're just in time to hear the muslim prayers which are on MTA right now.

 

[k3n0bl]

I appreciate your help!

Apparently this isn't going for me. Yesterday I tried moving the entire setup to 97 W to see if the dish/lnb/receiver were all working together. I was able to get some channels. Today I wanted to get the motor working right. There was no reset hole or buttons on the motor, so i tried using the diseqc menu on the receiver, tried to get it back to zero using the step E/W, not sure if i was there, but i was close. Then I did a data reset on the receiver hoping that since the motor was at zero and the receiver was back to factory defaults, I'd be starting from scratch

I have no idea how to set the motor to a tenth of a degree, but i got it somewhere around 44 and tightened it down. Ilinks menu gives you 3 things to set for the initial USAL setup. Satellite/latitude/longitude. I didn't know what satellite to choose so i selected USER1 which points at 0 degrees (since i was set back to 0). Then I moved the dish to 87 SES2/AMC3. It seems as though there is absolutely no room for error by any fraction of a degree. Either I am on the signal getting maybe 60/strength 99/quality, or I am getting nothing at all. And when I think i have it on, i'll tighten the dish then the dish drops just a little bit and everything goes out of wack.

So after all that frustration, I decided to move the dish back to 0... and it moved there. Since i had a transponder working on Galaxy 19 yesterday, I set the motor to move there, didnt look as if it moved but I-link said it was moving. Tried to get a signal from that spot, got nothing... not even a squeel on the meter.

Seems like there is a lot of conflicting elevations when it comes to motor elevation and what true south is. Pansats documentation on their website says that true south is 182 and motor elevation is 39.2 http://www.pansatusa.com/download/PM900.doc. While dishpointer and other sites give me the same numbers you have said.

 

[cyberham]

The azimuth and elevation numbers I gave you, and confirmed by Dishpointer, are correct for Hamilton, Ohio.

I hear your frustration; I went through this off and on for a long time and was about to use the dish as a frisbee down a local hill! I can tell you the breakthrough for me was when I stopped monkeying with moving the motor with the receiver. I had spent hours moving the dish back and forth using the motor, but getting nowhere since I didn't have the whole dish assembly lined up on the satellite arc correctly.

The trick is to start at 0, use the motor to get the LNB skew correct, and then after that only physically move the dish as you were doing. Yes, it is quite finicky and very small movements are required. Maybe you need to loosen the bolts just a little more so you can move the dish more smoothly in very small increments? It sounds like you're getting close.

 

[k3n0bl]

yeah, tomorrow is a new day, I'll give it another whirl, i dont give up easily... again i am thankful for your help. I have the I-Link 9500 manual, i see it isn't on your downloads list... I'll probably scan/upload it this week for the list. Thanks again!

 

[polgyver]

And when I think i have it on, i'll tighten the dish then the dish drops just a little bit and everything goes out of wack.

I noticed that with some dishes, the bolt acting as a pivot axis, has too much clearance in dish brackets. You can tighten the bolts determining elevation, yet the dish still can drop down or can be raised up a bit because of this clearance. In some dishes I drilled the pivot holes with Greenlee Unibit to dia 5/16 and installed a piece of 5/16 stainless tubing, which ends I flanged (flared?) so it would not come out. This fixed the problems.

 

[k3n0bl]

Weird question here, how does the receiver know where the motor is? Is there any 2 way communication going on where the motor tells the receiver "I am here" and the receiver acknowledges it? Or is it just a faith based system? Because it seems like it might be incredibly easy to screw it all up from the receiver lol.

Another question here. I put in the initial post the model of my LNB, I believe the frequency is 10750? Do i need to set that in from the main screeen? I can't remember if i did that the other day when i got some channels. Also the 22 KHz.. On/Off?

 

[oblio]

Weird question here, how does the receiver know where the motor is? Is there any 2 way communication going on where the motor tells the receiver "I am here" and the receiver acknowledges it? Or is it just a faith based system? Because it seems like it might be incredibly easy to screw it all up from the receiver lol.

Another question here. I put in the initial post the model of my LNB, I believe the frequency is 10750? Do i need to set that in from the main screeen? I can't remember if i did that the other day when i got some channels. Also the 22 KHz.. On/Off?

Your receiver doesn't know anything on its own, it only knows what you tell it. And that's even if you are wrong. If you follow the required steps, locate a tp, blind scan and find tv channels, then you have a reference point to start setting up your STB properly.


Get familiar with your menus. Don't see what STB you have but should be able to scan, rename, add, edit and delete sats, tp's, channels, favs etc.


Your lnb will say on it what it is 10600 or 10750. Makes a difference. Set via sat setup menu. If you have universal lnb then 22 khz=off if you select it as unversal in set up or 22 khz=on if select it as standard. You must have an S value before anything will work and if LNB set up wrong, usually no value (or <40).

 

[k3n0bl]

It rained all day today, suppose to do the same tomorrow, but I got on the roof for a little bit anyway. I was getting a squeel from the meter when i was up there, thinking I was pointing to 87W but the receiver signal wasn't changing, so I turned to Nimiq on 82 and i believe that was what my meter was reading so i set my Lon/Lat/Sat to Nimiq, browsed around the different satellites and didn't get any transponders other than Galaxy 19, and it's only one transponder, mostly with scrambled channels like Fox News/Russia Today/MSNBC, a few are FTA though. Is it typical in my situation to only receive one transponder on all the satellites? Should I keep it at Galaxy and try to fine tune it?

 

[k3n0bl]

ok, I just figured something out, im really pointed at SES1 101W not 97 W lol. When i changed it to 97 W yesterday, a transponder was detecting a signal so i thought I was on Galaxy 19, but ... im not lol. I suppose I need to adjust the motor 4 degrees to the east?

Well once again I am a bit confused, I see that you said the Dish elevation for my location is 44.3, but I have no idea what the motor should be set at... or vice versa. Again, the manual to my Pansat PM900 is giving me a different reading for my location: Motor Elevation 39.4 Dish Elevation 24.0. My latitude is 39.4° Longitude is -84.6°

 

[cyberham]

....I was getting a squeal from the meter when i was up there, thinking I was pointing to 87W but the receiver signal wasn't changing,...

Now you know why simple signal meters can be more of a nuisance than a help. They tell you when you're receiving something, but you don't know what. I think monitoring your receiver (with data for a known transponder entered) signal output is the way to go.

Did you first swing the dish in azimuth and elevation physically (without using motor) to get tuned into 87W? And then tighten the bolts and start motoring to different satellites?

Many satellites have many receivable transponders. Galaxy 19 at 97W has well over 250 unencrypted transponders that you can receive including TV and radio without moving the dish.

The question is: are you now on the satellite arc? If you are, you should be able to motor to the satellites for which you are in the footprint, and receive signals from them.

 

[cyberham]

ok, I just figured something out, im really pointed at SES1 101W not 97 W lol.....

Well once again I am a bit confused, I see that you said the Dish elevation for my location is 44.3, but I have no idea what the motor should be set at... or vice versa. Again, the manual to my Pansat PM900 is giving me a different reading for my location: Motor Elevation 39.4 Dish Elevation 24.0. My latitude is 39.4° Longitude is -84.6°

Once aimed at Galaxy 19 at 97W, you will know it! No other ku satellite has so many receivable unencrypted transponders: hundreds of them. However, you know you are on SES1 at 101W if you receive Pentagon, TRWAM and BVN.

You need to understand about the declination angle adjustment with respect to your motor and dish. Your motor instruction manual will explain. This adjustment is based on your specific latitude and motor design. At this point, with dish mounted on the roof, I suggest you simply physically raise and lower the dish assembly while tuned to a strong transponder to make sure the signal is peaked in signal quality.