Now that the motor is set up what to do about the channels and fine tuning?

[skewed]

Well tuesday night I mounted the mast and plumbed it, then wed night I had to move it because when I went to put the dish up its rotation was going to hit the house. So last night I finally hooked it an ran the motor. I zeroe'd it off on nim 1 at 91 west. Amazingly when I followed the recommended settings and put the dish up and turned it to where I thought it should be I had a signal! After trying to fine tune it it was almost dead on! So I go in the house and start sacnning. To make a very long story short there were plenty of sats that I pulled in and it locked in on with better than 50% quality. I caint remember which ones off hand but it was more than 4-5. Others had a good quality and when doing a blind scan I picked up channels. There are a few things I would like someone to comment on.

In the menu when you see " Go To Reference" What does that mean? Does it mean return to the "zero" point?


When I do my scans on one sat I got over 200 channels, its the one with al jazer or how ever you spell it, but only about 1/4 of them actually worked. I saw this patteren over and over, scan and not all of them worked. I finally figured out that a "$" sign was the reason for some but others just say searching for signal. Also I noticed that alot are duplicated I will have 3-4 of the same non working channels. How do I eliminate the duplicates when it is scanning?

Is it normal when doing a blind scan to totally miss transponders and have bad channels on only a few sats? If not can someone give me some tips on how to fine tune just the sats that are problematic?


I cannot get anything from 123, its dead. I can get sbs 6 at 74. I can hit 121 and lock in. Whats up with 123? This is my main sat to watch! I cannot get anything past 123 either. Is this at the end of my travel and do I need to zero at another sat? I tryed bumping the motor over each way and nothing, but if I change the elevation wont that throw off the other sats? How do you know when you have reached the hardware limitations?

When I scanned amc 1 I was playing with the tp settings and it said I was locked on it but then on another tp it said I was locked on 119? Is this normal?


Tonight I plan on going at it again hard. I think I might run a jumper to the circular side of the lnb and really try to tune 91 to the very best that I can and see if that helps with 123.

My pole was almost perfect using a torpedo level before I put the motor and dish on. Oh well now I just starting to think out loud.

Thanks again for everyones help. This is an amazing site, which means that there are amazing people here!

 

[Lak7]

In the menu when you see " Go To Reference" What does that mean? Does it mean return to the "zero" point?

Yes

How do you know when you have reached the hardware limitations?

You should have about 70deg travel either side of your "zero" which you stated is 91west
Your receiver should give an error if the motor is not moving correctly

When I scanned amc 1 I was playing with the tp settings and it said I was locked on it but then on another tp it said I was locked on 119? Is this normal?

Did you remember to change the LNB & DiSEqC Settings for Linear Sats


When fine tuning, use Linear Sats. A Sat like Nimiq @ 91 west is very strong, good to get started with, too powerful for fine tuning. Use "The List" to get a Strong TP for Galaxy 17 @ 91 west and peak dish. Then check a Sat on the far east, like 74 west for example, or on the west side, like 129 west.

 

[skewed]

As always thanks. Now what about the duplicate and non working channels? Is there anything I can do about that?

Also 74 is fine, and 121 is fine, but no 123. To me if I caint get it with bumping the motor east or west then it must be the up or down. Or someting with the scan. If it is the up and down then I need to bring it back to zero and try again, but from what I am understanding I should NOT adjust for up and downat that last sat or am I wrong? I have a bunch of them working but 123 is really getting to me.

 

[Lak7]

Double check LNB & DiSEqC setting for 123.
Try 127 or 129 west.

 

[Tron]

I'm sure you have probably checked this already, but is anything blocking your LOS (line of sight) to the satellites past 121w?

 

[brentb636]

Try sending your dish to 123W, the 11720 V 27692 transponder, and go out to the dish. Gently nudge the top forward, see if any Q shows up. If it doesnt, gently nudge the bottom up , to see if any Q shows up. We're trying here to see if you are just slightly off elevation. You might also look at your motor latitude setting and make sure that it hasn't slipped from your latitude.

 

[skewed]

Thats what it was,elevation. I think it is the cheap lnb arm on this fortec dish. it has alot of slack in it. I repointed it and found 123, but then I lost other channels that I has scannen on other birds. I am willing to put a little more effort into tweeking the settings. I had a great weekend of scanning and testing. I was very pleased with what I found that was out there and I wish we could speak of it here, just to know what else I have yet to come across. Even after all of that I am still very frustraied with the box scanning in duplicated and triplicates of channels and scanning non working( as in searching for signal channels) When I went it and tryed to edit my channels by deleting the bad ones my box locks up, then you have to turn it off on the back to get it to work again. I am alos wearing down the go right button on the remote. I wish I caould get some tips or even an explination of why this is happening.

 

[Lak7]

I am alos wearing down the go right button on the remote.

Are you using USALS to drive the motor and then need to "bump" the Dish to get Quality?

Not being properly aligned can cause channels to scan in multiple times, but not a good enough lock to show video.

Also, eyeball the rim of the Dish to see if it is warped.

 

[brentb636]

Even though the Fortec lnbf arms appear weak, they appear to work. I have the heavy Invacom Lnbf on both of my motorized Fortec dishes, and they track the arc quite well. I found on one of my setups that I had to "slightly " adjust my motor latitude setting ( It wasn't tight enough and had slipped by a couple degrees ) . Adjusting that correctly added about +30 to my Q ( on the 90cm dish) and made marginal signals quite strong.
By the way, it's very common to have to power off your stb when deleting channels , or doing a lot of blindscanning. I suspect that memory fragmentation occurs when you add or delete things, and only a power cycle will restore memory to an orderly array.

Hope this helps

 

[skewed]

I also have that invia com dual lnb thing, but this was not by choice when I called to phone in my order I told them I wanted the mk-2 kit or whatever it was, that day I told my wife how much I spent and then the next day she sees a charge for a good bit more. I just never bothered to ask the guy on the phone what the total was, I knew what I wanted, just the regular kit without the dual upgrade. When it came in I just wanted to hurry up and get it put up, but what I would use it for I don't know. Seems like a waste of money. I will more than likely be doing a write up on this dish, motor lnb combo. I just want to make sure that when I write down bad things they really are bad things that has room for improvement.

Such as the mast, it too short for a 36 dish, the only way you can wall mount is if the dish is aiming away from the wall, you caint even get over a roof peak because the mast is to short. This caused me to have to move the mast after spending alot of time to perfectly set it up.

The dish appears very flimisy. If you listen to the tone with a beeper and rest your finger on different spots of the dish you can hear the signal go up or down. Mind you I am not pushing hard at all. I hope birds dont like to rest on it.

There is a little play with the motor. After making the dish move to a sat I would record the quality, then move it off and move it back, sometimes it would be lower and sometimes higher. So up on the roof again with a beeper and sure enough you can move the dish fairly easy about 1/4 total movement back and forth. You can hear the tone increase as you lightly rock it. It feels like slack in the gears.

Are these problems standard? I just want to lock down the channels. I know my mast was perfect plumb. I guess what I will do is check it with the dish installed and see if it pulled. I don't think thats the case but I am at 98% on 91.0 and the last sat I can get is 121 nothing further( if I put my finger on the dish I hit 123 easy! and I can get 74 but nothing past that.


If I bring it to 123 then re adjust it throws off the others like 101 and 74. I just caint identify my problem because there are too many things to consider that may be wrong. To me this dish/motor/lnb will have to dead on to move from position to position and hit each one with high quality. To me flex in mounting brackets and slack cain't be good. I'm sorry if I offended anyone with what I said about my set up. I guess I really did not know what to expect. I'll report back soon, I'm just getting tired of messing with it right now, I went at it hard all weekend. I need a break.

 

[Lak7]

Dish should and needs to be stable.
This may help....
http://74.125.95.104/search?q=cache....pdf+sg2100+backlash&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us