Rough Day--Bad Signals---Lots to learn

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SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Sep 11, 2012
42
1
Colorado
I tried setting my 8' Paraclipse Hydro today with not much luck. First I tried 107.3 W as I'm at about 106.8 and figured it is my southern most satellite. I'm using a First strike meter and had a great signal but only about 45 to 48% quality. Nothing I tweaked would bring it up higher or Lock. So I brought a little tv out there with my Micro HD to see what it would say. Sadly when I went to screw on the coax from the lnb the Micro connection just spins round & round. I've never hooked it up before so it must have come that way. Too late to just send it back. I just took it apart & it looks like I could rig something with solder & coax. The original connector looks irretrievable. So back to the First strike meter: I reset it for 105.0W and BAM! 80%+ both signal and quality. No Lock though. I checked the freq. and saw it was HITS so I suppose it's very strong but won't lock. So I tried the NBC freq on the same satellite. The quality went way down and I could not bring it up. My lnb is the BSC 621. I know I must be doing something wrong or missing something so I'll start reading everything over again. Hope I didn't buy the wrong lnb. I wanted one that would receive both C and KU but now I'd be happy with just anything. Well I'm on vacation and tomorrow is a new day. I always appreciate suggestions when I'm in these messes.
 
Slider just my opinion but I think the signals on 107.3 are stronger and easier to catch than 105W. Keep at it you'll get it locked inShift+R improves the quality of this image. Shift+A improves the quality of all images on this page.
 
Brian has always been outstanding in customer service. If it was mine i'ld call for a RNA and send it back Sure if will delay your project a bit But from my experience they've always went a step above and beyond to help. He's even personally emailed me helping me with several problems with projects and meters I've bought Always a cut above the rest.
 
The connector is definitely a weak point. Mine did the same thing the second time I connected a cable to it. The shield of the connector is crimped to the rf shield inside.You can see where an attempt was made to solder the connector to the rf shield but the joint was cold and the connector just spins. It is repairable as long as the wire didn't snap where it exits the connector. Someone else mentioned this a couple weeks ago.
 
I don't know who Brian is but I bought it at Sadoun. It was about 2 months ago when I first began introducing myself to this hobby & started buying stuff. I suspect it was one that was returned and resold without a thorough inspection. Anyway after that amount of time I don't feel comfortable trying to return it. Partially my fault for just leaving it in the box until now. Anyway, a piece of coax & spot of solder might do the trick.
 
We would be happy to repair with no bench fee if you ship it in to our tech department. Simple repair that should take less than 5 minutes.
 
I've had the BSC and it's a bit touchy. It's hard to get it working perfectly for both C and Ku.

There are two additional adjustments for that lnb. One is skew - turning the lnb in the scalar. The other one is focal length - moving the lnb closer and further away from the dish surface.

If you have some way to move the BSC for those two adjustments, while it is receiving signal, you would be better able to peak your signal to the highest strength. I did mine with an aluminum ski pole connected to the inside of the lnb and coming out the center hole in the dish. I was able to move the lnb on both of those axes with it. Essentially, I peaked the dish with that method and then used wire to hold the pole/lnb tight. Then I moved the dish so I could reach the lnb, and then tightened it in place, then removed the adjusting pole. It's an imperfect method but it was the best I could come up with.

If you have a center hole in your Paraclipse and want to know how I fabricated the adjuster, just let me know.
 
Lone Cloud, I was able to rig a ladder where I can reach the lnb & did tweak it a bit. But then I guess I'm blocking the dish some that way. There's also a dead pine about 150' away the lnb is pointed well over but it might be blocking part of the dish. I'll take that out today.
 
Good. I had to go the way I did because my dish is on the roof and there is no place for a ladder. On the good side, that spot can see from 55.5 to 148 or so.

If you can move the lnb by hand, when you get down off your ladder, the signal should be stronger.
 
Don't know where you are it in CO but if that pine tree is 150' away it would have to be about 140' tall (if on ground the same elevation as the dish) to be blocking your dish. That is using a 44 degree elevation on 105W at Denver's latitude.

You can use dishpointer.com to determine distances of potential obstructions, you may have to guesstimate the heights, of course.

Also, I didn't realize that (some?) sat meters would detect DC2 signals, but I know nothing of meters or DC2.
 
Yes I started at Dishpointer with the Google map & all seems right. I just thought maybe the trees might be affecting the bottom part of the dish not allowing me to acquire enough quality to lock it in. More than likely it's some other factor like the lnb or the frequency I've got dialed into the meter. I'll be back at it here pretty soon.
 
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