OTHER New to fta have a few questions

[harshness]

But I don't understand why you both suppose a non-plumb pole in north/south direction should be more of a nuisance for motorized setup, than for fixed setup.

It isn't really a matter of supposition.

With a fixed dish, you get it aimed and your done.

When you put a motor on it, now you have to concern yourself with the fact that the motor only moves the dish in one plane. If the plane is tilted, the dish won't sweep the arc that it was designed to cover. In the best of situations, it crosses the Clarke Belt at two points and all of the rest are either high or low. I suppose you could compensate for a True North tilt by jacking the elevation on the motor, but why not make it level so you don't have to mess with it? It is all about reducing the variables. Getting a motor set up is difficult enough without having to compensate for being sloppy with the one frame of reference you have control over.

 

[bpalone]

Get the skew pretty close before you go looking for the satellite. And as FTA4PA said, then fine tune after you have signal.

Don't know if you have questions about which direction to turn to set the skew or not, but here you go:

Standing behind the dish looking in the direction of the satellite (like the dish), if it is left of your true south then the twist is to the left or counter clockwise. If to the right of your true south then the twist is to the right or clock wise.

 

[breynold76]

Thank you to everyone that helped me. I had to wait for my satellite finder got here. I got what I believe to be 97w very easy but, I get no channels. Some transponders are solid and some go from 72 signal quality to 0. Signal one second none the next consistently. I dont know if it is a cable problem or I need to peak the dish some more.

 

[bpalone]

Most of us like to take a receiver and TV out to the dish. We make sure the receiver is set to a good (operating) transponder frequency on the satellite we are looking for. We then find the satellite (hopefully the one we were looking for) and peak on that transponder. Then do a blind scan to see just what we have found.

Sathint.com and lyngsat.com are good places to go get frequencies. 97W has something over 200 channels on it and most are only DVB-S, which makes them pretty easy to get. Did you try a blind scan? If not, try it and see if get anything different. If you do, post what you see and one of us can tell you what satellite you are on.

Another thought, is to make sure you have everything set correctly for 97W. You have to set each satellite on most receivers.

 

[breynold76]

Most of us like to take a receiver and TV out to the dish. We make sure the receiver is set to a good (operating) transponder frequency on the satellite we are looking for. We then find the satellite (hopefully the one we were looking for) and peak on that transponder. Then do a blind scan to see just what we have found.

Sathint.com and lyngsat.com are good places to go get frequencies. 97W has something over 200 channels on it and most are only DVB-S, which makes them pretty easy to get. Did you try a blind scan? If not, try it and see if get anything different. If you do, post what you see and one of us can tell you what satellite you are on.

Another thought, is to make sure you have everything set correctly for 97W. You have to set each satellite on most receivers.

The smallest tv in my house is 40". I was being lazy so I got a signal finder. That thing finds signals all over the place that are not real. I finally lugged the tv outside and in less than 2 minutes I got the signal peaked at 50%(big tree in the los). Blind scan shows 343 channels.

Now it is time to move it around and see what else I can get.

Once again thank you to everyone that helped me.

 

[bpalone]

Might watch around and catch a sale on small TVs or find one at a Good Will store or something. Garage Sales are another place to watch for small TVs. They come in handy at times, but also can collect a lot of dust.

Glad you got it. It gets easier the more you do it. Enjoy and have fun.

 

[KE4EST]

If you want to invest in a meter get one that actually has a PLL tuned circuit. This way you can put in the Transponder info and it will actually on lock if you hit that frequency.
There are several in the 100-300 dollar range that work well.
Those little cheap meters are almost worthless, unless you have a lot of experience and then I still don't prefer one.

 

[hank123]

Cheaper then a TV.

 

[Arion]

If you want to do more than just playing around and if you hate frustration a [decent] satellite meter is a essential in this hobby. It would of been almost impossible to accurately set up my new C-Band dish without it. With a TV and if it's a digital signal you either have it or you don't. So problem is you don't know how close you are to a lock and when you get a lock you don't know if your signal is marginal or good.

It was time the other day for my fall tune up on the 1.2 meter dish as I wasn't getting some signals that I expected. Just a matter of setting the meter to the right satellite and transponder and then by watching the meter I was able to peak both azimuth and elevation and lock it back down. Then just a quick check of the skew. Being on USALS and having a known vertical and centered mast you peak one satellite and all of them you can see on the arc will be good. Took me all of 10 minutes. I wouldn't really even dare to do it with just a cheapo $15 intensity only meter.

 

[breynold76]

Cheaper then a TV.

I just assumed it would cost three or $400 to buy one of those so I never looked at them. Found it on eBay for $68 I think I'm gonna buy one of these.

 

[hank123]

I have seen them for that price on Amazon prime.

The meter is very basic. Its not a meter you want to use to nail down the hard to get 16/32apsk feeds

 

[IntelPennny4]

this is just me but if it was me i would buy a higher end meter. i have bought cheap meters and in the end i had enough money into the cheap ones where i could have bought the higher end one in the end grrrrr. i use applied xr-3. i wouldnt go back to any other meter again after using this meter. if its something that your going to get big into then i would go for the higher end one but again thats just me. it beats bring the tv out and receiver and cables and chairs and tables. but then again maybe some people like doing that idk.