H to H motor - now a dish problem

[Grahamc]

Thanks to Grafter, Mark666 & Satwyn for their replies on the motor problem, tried it on another receiver and it still did not work (and on another dish as I had dismantled this one). I am now having trouble finding a signal (hence its in the dish section) the old motor was a Digipower (with a 30 deg angle on the shaft) the new one is a Superjack DG-320 (with a 35 deg angle on the shaft). After assembling the dish and motor to the wall, set the elevation to 55 degs (Wallsend, Newcastle upon Tyne Lat 55.01, Lon -1.50) I fashioned a inclinometer (just a piece of card - piece of string and a 14mm nut) with an angle of 27 degs drawn on it. This I placed on the bracket which holds the dish and adjusted the angle of the dish to 27 degs. Since doing this I have been ******* about for a day and a half with not a glimmer of a signal (looking for 11861 H 28000 0.8-1 deg west). I have even had a long piece of string laid out on the lawn pointing south to help line it up.

Can anyone put me right if I am doing something lame - thanks a lot lads and lasses
Graham

Needless to say I am up a ladder (not while writing this) and have got aching arms and legs - hope you can help me out.

Even swapped the lead from the lnb to the sat meter (any more straws to clutch)

[echelon]

what make and model of dish is it ?

what does it say for dish elevation for latitude 55n in the digipower manual or instructions ?

which receiver are you using ? are you using usals ? if yes is the longitude and latitude set correctly on the box ?

which south reference did you use ? (true south or magnetic south) ?

[Grahamc]

Cannot remember the make of the dish. I use a Technomate 6900HD+ a Skybox S12 a QualiTV and a Pace 800 (I think that's the model - they were so ashamed of these boxes they just have Pace on the front).

Its the Superjack DG-320 which I am installing elevation angle 35, declination 7.7 so the dish bracket angle 27.3 (using an old school protractor so I made it 27 Degs dead (ish)). I have just hooked the SkyLink finder to the lnb so have not used usals or DiSEqC 1.2. (I have always used 1.2 never tried usals)

I have just used magnetic south but am turning the dish and motor together to try to achieve a signal - then when I can lock onto Thor I will then connect up the motor and receiver. Is there anything you can see in the setup I have made that could be causing the problem??

Thanks for the reply

[echelon]

thanks, doesnt really help that you dont know the dish make or model but you should be using the actual elevation markings on the dish and dish bracket itself, not a home made inclinometer

checking my darkmotor booklet it seems your angles are similar to mine, in which case you would set the dish elevation to around 27.3 as you say (but using the manufacturer`s elevation markings on the dish bracket itself)

BUT, I have no idea about this making your own gauge idea, or using it either , means absolutely nothing to me

if you read through the dogman posts in this forum you will see my advice to him, although he is in the south east so his latitude and longitude are different but the advice is exactly the same

you lock the motor to your latitude, which you have done , you make sure your box is set to usals and has the correct long and lat in it for your gps position, and send it to thor and bbc world news at 0.8w, and you have the lnb fitted with no skew, usually this means the cable comes straight down

once all this has been done , you set the dish at say 27 to 28 degrees on its built-in markings and swing left or right of magnetic south until you locate thor and bbc world news on your receiver, then you fine tune and lock it up and test other satellites

I have just tested that transponder and channel and its booming in here

so I would say that your method of finding the dish angle is not correct, causing your problem, the dish should have markings on it, mine do, which is why I have never tried your home made "protractor" method , which seems the weak point in your description, seeing as the rest all makes sense

what I will say is that when its on thor, the dish is more or less vertical, so not leaning forward or backward

as for using diseqc v1.2 , you would have to calculate where thor is on your motor and mark it accordingly, set the motor to it and then disconnect the motor and go direct to the lnb, then locate thor (you havent mentioned doing any of this) by manually moving the dish up/down and the motor left/right

nb: the zero on your motor has to point towards your true south, as it does for everybody else

usals does all this for you so is much easier to use as it tells the motor where to go, providing you have put your gps in for your location

its also worth bearing in mind that magnetic south is several degrees away from true south, and you only said south, so you didnt differentiate or mention which one in post #1 , so if you made a line for magnetic south it wasnt pointing correctly, so can only be used as a general guide just so you know roughly which way to point the dish

might be an idea to put your location into the dishpointer website and hang the dish off your house wall or wherever it is, select thor and see where the red line tells you to point the dish

[Grahamc]

Thanks Echelon, the dish has never had a name on it about 15 years ago a guy from nesat fitted it for me, I have been moving the dish and motor left/right/up/down and found nothing and am using the south (string) as you say as just a guide. Its an idea about the dishpointer (don't have an android except for the kindle fire, which does not work the dishpointer) done it on windows on the laptop though but am not taking it up the ladder.

Until seeing the photograph I never realised that the hieroglyphics on the scale were actually upside down numbers (15°-60°) so I need to bring the dish down a little although a straight edge parallel with the lines from the centre of the screw head on the photo does put it around the 27.5° mark.

When you say the dish should be almost vertical on thor, what about the 27°

Thank you once again for your help

[echelon]

I can see the 15 to 60 markings but cannot see the actual reference pointer or notch, although you would expect to be placing it somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees if you can locate that reference pointer or notch, but in any case the dish needs to be almost vertical when trying to get thor, meaning plumb , so not leaning forward or backwards

never seen that type of dish before I cannot comment on it, mine are triax which are completely different

I would have thought that any small reference pointer or notch on that dish would be inside the round slotted part where the bolt is on the backplate, or above the markings on the backplate itself, to point at those actual elevation markings that are upside down. ie:- the elevation markings are on the front plate so the reference pointer or notch should be on the backplate but visible in regards to those markings so you can align the dish onto a chosen dish elevation

as for using dishpointer, the idea was to find a landmark on the red line when it is pointing at thor, maybe a tree of a chimney or something that tells you where true south or thor actually is (this can be done in any web browser on any pc or any laptop or any tablet or smartphone with a web browser app or programme)

in your case thor appears to be due south of you so I am assuming you have the motor on its zero pointer ? ( again you still have not mentioned anything to do with that part of your setting up, despite my prompting! )

I do not think your methods of aligning your dish elevation are proving accurate, which I think is causing your troubles , seeing as you can obviously lock the motor elevation to 55.01n quite easily, so its not that causing the issues here because you never unlock that setting, and as long as the pole is plumb then it cannot be that either

I dont have a kindle fire either, but I would have thought you had a web browser of some sort on it, so you can easily access the dishpointer website and put your details in , same as you can do on a windows laptop , no gps is required (gps is used on smartphones along with a compass app to get magnetic south so requires gps on the tablet or phone to use the app, but dishpointer does not use gps so can be used on any web browser as long as you put your lat and long in , or your postcode) ie:- its a map like bing maps or google maps that can be used on any pc or laptop or smartphone or tablet)

you can certainly do this on a google nexus 7 or samsung galaxy tab etc, because they can have opera or firefox as web browsers, so dont see why a kindle fire cannot show a map like dishpointer just as easily, but in any case all you are looking for are landmarks on the true south position relative to your dish

you can even use a paper map as they should show south or north on them, like an ordnance survey map, then orient the map so you know what landmarks are due south of you, but web based maps like dishpointer make this a lot easier as they overlay onto google maps

[grafter]

If there's any glimmer of sunshine you just aim the dish in that direction at 1PM, that'll be fairly close. I've never taken any notice of angle shown on dishes or measured them prior to installation.

Critical is to get the pole vertical, the card and string inclinometer is a good way or if you're using a scaffold pole you could get one of those yellow end caps and run a thread through the central moulding point and put a weight on the end of it. Thread that through the pole and it should come out of the centre of the pole at the bottom end.

Set your latitude on the motor bracket, set the dish bracket so the reflector is about vertical, set your USALS, move the dish to Thor and start moving everything left and right on the pole. A tip here is to put a jubilee clip under one of the motor to pole brackets to stop it sliding down as you twist it. As soon as your meter registers a signal, stop, peak it L-R and nip up the motor bracket on the pole, move the dish up and down and nip that up then check to see if you've hit 1W, it's not uncommon (down here anyway) to sometimes get 5W as it's very strong as well.

If it's going seriously pearshaped it might be an idea to set up a pole in the garden, do it all at ground level then transfer it back to the other one. You'll only need to move the dish L-R to get it lined up and should save aching arms and feet if you're spending hours up the ladder.

[Grahamc]

Thanks for your advice Echelon & Grafter, There is no pointer on the dish scale I just thought it must be the centre of the screw head. Yes Echelon the motor is set to zero sorry I misunderstood you about the dishpointer, I had already used it - I thought you meant the android app. Do you think it is possible that the dish and the motor are incompatable as this worked perfectly with the Digipower motor (shaft 30°) but now with this Superjack motor (shaft 35°) there are another 5° to be taken into account. When the dish is vertical and pointed to (where I think) Thor is, the signal intensity flicks about between 79% & 80% (although the signal quality is 4%) as soon as I start to lift the dish the intensity decreases. The quality remains the same (rubbish).

I already have a 1.2mtr dish in the garden but can only get the far western satellites because of trees next to my fence which block the signal from 1 west right round to 39 east. That is the reason I put this dish further up the house wall about a month ago - it was originally driven by an actuator but I had the Digipower in the garage for about 3 years (probably longer) so I decided to install it, worked until last week (I thought it may have been the torrential rain we had last Friday or the Friday before - I forget) then just stopped - looks perfect inside ?? So I did not want to buy another the same as I cannot afford a new motor every month - beginning to think I should have. What a pain.

Still - thanks lads for trying to sort me out
Graham

[echelon]

I thought you must be assuming things that are incorrect, as I believe your assumption about using the bolt head as an indicator is incorrect and is probably adding to the errors causing your problems ( it will not be the centre of the screw head IMHO )

I do not believe that changing from 30 to 35 using different motors is causing you any problems as the motor booklet will tell you where to set the elevation on the dish to compensate for this 5 degree difference

neither do I think your dish is incompatible either, any offset dish will work as long as all the angles are correct

all these types of dishes have an offset, as do all these types of diseqc motors, which is why they have tables showing what to set the dish too for each latitude location

so its as grafter says, you dont really need to know what the dish details are as such, just make sure the pole is plumb , the motor is on 55.01n, then all you need is to send it to thor using usals (or in your case the zero marker) make sure the dish is plumb with little or no leaning backwards or forwards and providing there are no obstructions you will pick up thor with a strong signal by moving the motor on the pole LEFT/RIGHT and also by moving the dish elevation UP/DOWN

even if it was a fixed dish and not on a motor, it will still do the same task you are attempting right now which is to set it up on thor at 0.8w, its only after you have found thor and enabled it back through the motor that it becomes motorised and no longer fixed

other channels and transponders you can try are

11900 H 28000 THE MUSIC CHANNEL

11247V 24500 BTV-1 (telenot test card)

12418 V 28000 SLY NEWS and AL JAZEERAH and CCTV NEWS and CCTV 9 DO***ENTARY

11862 H 28000 BBC WORLD NEWS

all very strong signals here

if you pm me your postcode and house number etc I will double check on dishpointer for you

maybe you have something physically blocking thor ? like a tree or wall or building ? that would definitely cause you to fail at this, so maybe you are making incorrect assumptions about receiving thor too ?