Peaking the motorized dish

[Blindowl1234]

Ok I'm looking for some suggestions on how best to peak the signal. Wine gard 30" dish, Sg2100 motor, Fortec Star Dynamic Receiver, Techsat Tracker 2 Lnb. I'm finding if I use disecq to peak the signal I get the best results...however the readings are all over the place! If I lock in everything from 91w to 129W then try to adjust say 97w then I lose some of the stuff on 123w. If I get 99w peaked then I lose something else. I can't seem to find that perfect spot. Also most of the readings I'm getting are quite low. Some transponders/channels are at 30% and holding....others are in the 45% range. Only a couple of sats are in the low 50's. If I adjust the dish 1 degree up or down I lose some channels somewhere. I rechecked everything and its level...don't know what else to check. I know I should be getting much higher readings. Thanks! for any ideas. Blind

 

[skewed]

This is my exp. My true south is 91 and I peaked it almost perfect at 98% but at 123 I would be off and at lower than 74 I would be off.I found that I was off more east at 123 and more west at west 74 and below. I then entered in a higher latitude in the usals to compensate, as in instead of 30.0 I used 31.9 and it seemed to average it out. Before I tryed that I drove the motor to 123 and got up on the roof and peaked it to 123 but I was so far off on the east side at 74 I had to "zero" it again. I have my pole plumb without a dish and when I hung a dish on it it did change I assumed this was because the fortecs mere made so cheap but for what ever reason I was off. I guess the moral of the story is you can change the settings in your usals to slightly correct for problems with the install, which it is sounding like to me. I am not saying you done anything wrong as I made every attempt to make sure I was right and I was still off. I personally would make sure that I was zeroed in on my trure south sat 100% and then change the usals to change how far it moves. Again this is only my opinion but it worked for me. When I tryed to "force: it for one sat or another I ended up losing in the big picture.

 

[skysurfer]

if your motor is like my hh120, I may be able to help if you tell me in what direction you are off on either end of the arc (i.e. do you have to pull up on the lip of the dish or push down on the lip of the dish to get better signal?)

I have my hh120 fine adjustment page printed out that tells me what I should do depending on what the dish lip test says at the end of each part of the arc.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Thanks for the insight....I think I've got it as good as its gonna get for now. I've got everything in but barely. Seems like if i move the dish 1 degree or so up or down I lose something.....right now i've lost 129W...If I go out and adjust it I might lose some of the channels on 97w or 123w. Seems what I lose is the channels on the weaker transponders. I can't wait until the leaves grow on the trees come spring....I may have some real issues then...oh well I'm going outside to mess with it a little today and see what hapens. Thanks! Blind

 

[colbec]

I seem to recall some posts of a year or two ago where it was noted that it is fine to use USALS for the majority of the sats in the center of your arc, but when it comes to the extremes of E and W it can be helpful to tune them with Diseqc 1.2; tweak tiny moves east and west to peak individual sats and save. It certainly worked for me.

 

[brentb636]

Also , as you approach the edges of your range, USALS may send back an "out of range" message, even though using Diseqc 1.2 , you may be able to reach your target manually. Something I have to do with 148W .

 

[B.J.]

Ok I'm looking for some suggestions on how best to peak the signal. Wine gard 30" dish, Sg2100 motor, Fortec Star Dynamic Receiver, Techsat Tracker 2 Lnb. I'm finding if I use disecq to peak the signal I get the best results...however the readings are all over the place! If I lock in everything from 91w to 129W then try to adjust say 97w then I lose some of the stuff on 123w. If I get 99w peaked then I lose something else. I can't seem to find that perfect spot. Also most of the readings I'm getting are quite low. Some transponders/channels are at 30% and holding....others are in the 45% range. Only a couple of sats are in the low 50's. If I adjust the dish 1 degree up or down I lose some channels somewhere. I rechecked everything and its level...don't know what else to check. I know I should be getting much higher readings. Thanks! for any ideas. Blind

While I think it is likely that the above setup isn't aligned quite right, I am confused by the above mention of "try to adjust say 97w then I lose some of the stuff on 123w". If by adjust, you mean just running the motor using DiseqC-1.2, then this doesn't make sense, and something is wrong. If by adjust, you're referring to changing the elevation or declination of your mount, then it makes sense that you'd be having problems, and bottom line is that you shouldn't be doing that.
Basically, you should set your motor elevation and declination (via dish elevation) on your true south satellite, and if that is done properly you should never have to touch that again. If it DOES need re-work, you are best off starting over from scratch (and use the "modified" declination/elevation numbers to start with). Aligning a sat dish is really a 2 step process, and once you start trying to improve one sat by changing the adjustments, it usually makes things worse.
But back to the possibility that by adjust you meant just motoring via DiseqC-1.2. Peaking one sat via 1.2 should not affect any other satellite, unless your receiver has a "re-sync" command, and you use that, or possibly if the motor get's commands in error that re-syncs it by accident.
I have an SG2100, and I tend to use DiseqC-1.2 a lot with it, because when I issue a goto reference command, the motor doesn't go back to zero, but instead goes to about 2 degrees east of zero. I can use USALS if I tell the receiver that my location is 2 degrees different from my actual location, but I often just try to use DiseqC-1.2 instead. However my newer receivers, which try to be more user friendly by ommitting much of the diseqc-1.2 capability, make it harder and harder to use DiseqC-1.2 properly, so with those receivers, I have gone back to USALS with the wrong longitude strategy.
Anyway, you might check your SG2100 and see if when it's at "zero" it is really at zero out at the motor. If not, that can be corrected with a hard reset after manually moving it to zero, but you'd probably have to start over from scratch at your channel locating. However I'm guessing that you are probably far enough off on alignment that this might be best anyway.

 

[Blindowl1234]

yeah I'm using disecq 1.2 But I've checked all the alignments everything else is ok. Oh well another project I guess when I get time. Blind

 

[TRG]

I have pretty much the same problem. I think the declination scale on my motor mount is off. My latitude is 35.154. I have tried several different positions and could never get it perfect. And my signals like yours are lower at the ends of the arc. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I'll never get it perfect. My other problem is that I chose to mount my dish on the roof and its a PITA to work up there. I'm planning on having my roof re-shingled this spring. At that time the dish will come down and go in the yard where I can access it more readily. And I'll also be adding 2 fixed Ku dishes for the western sats. One will cover 119 (NASA), 123 and 129. And the other will be on 125. That way my motorized dish will never have to go much further west then say 101 or so.

 

[Blindowl1234]

TRG, Yeah you and I have the same problem....I decided to point my two fixed dishes at the sats the motorized dish has issues with 97w and 123w....works fine that way.
ThankS! Blind