how do i fine tune my hd6000 spiderbox ( SAT),,signal strength ok qual

[paulupton123]

can any one help me the procedure to fine tune my satelite receiver ??

my signal strength is 80 % but my quality on some of my channels are as low as 41 % ,,i have been told to fine tune it but i do not know how to do this i have read a large number of threads but none of them explain the procedure to fine tune ???
i do not want to disrupt the channels that work ok as they have upto 65 % quality ..
i have read this thread ,,, https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?162474-Setup-Guide-for-Spiderbox-6000HD
but it doesnt explain what i need to do to fine tune ..
if anybody could please help i would be grateful ,,many thanks.
oh and before anyone says read your manual i can not find it thats why i am asking

[echelon]

the spiderbox 6000 manual is in our TUTORIALS section (GUIDES AND FAQ forum) so sorry but thats no excuse ;)

as for fine tuning, it depends which method you are using to operate your motor ? (you never said)

if using usals then you alter the usals location (longitude) until you get the best performance across the range of sats, this assumes your dish and motor are setup correctly , start by using your actual longitude and latitude settings from a satnav or dishpointer or google

but, if using diseqc v1.2 then you need to fine tune each satellite separately by moving left or right until the best signals are found and then saving each position, repeating for all satellites (time consuming, which is why people prefer usals)

most people use usals, so start by checking your usals longitude and latitude are correct in the motor settings, THEN try altering left or right in 0.1 or 0.2 degree steps , save the position and then check the sats and channels

[paulupton123]

thank you echelon,
i will check wat u have just said now ,,
i have a motorised dish by the way ,,
i will try to understand all your help

[rasp]

I have a similar sort of problem using diseqc v1.2:

Say i am on hotbird signal 83% Quailty 74% if i go to a V transponder signal is great if i go to H transponder signal is great when switch again the signal goes down 79% Signal 0% Quality.

If i switch the box off and back on works fine and after a while same thing happens

[echelon]

thank you echelon,
i will check wat u have just said now ,,
i have a motorised dish by the way ,,
i will try to understand all your help

yes I know, but you still havent said which method you use to move it

ie:- USALS ? , or DISEQC V1.2 ?

[Satcat]

Use USALS, it's a lot easier than trying to set Diseqc 1.2 up. As echelon says alter your longitude until you get the best signal.
I had the same problem so tried diseqc, it was hard work, so I went back to USALS, altered my long from 2.7 to 4.6.
I was convinced that I had my motor correctly positioned on my pole, so couldn't figure out why I had to alter my settings so much.
It turned out that when I sent my motor to zero, It was slightly off zero, so I set it to exact zero, reset the motor and now I'm back to long 2.7 with the strongest signal possible.

[Mickha]

Just to add can you please post your dish size, and general location, when discussing signal quality issues, along with the satellites, and frequencies, you are quoting your signal quality readings from.
If in the UK, and on a strong satellite, like 19.2E, or 13E, then your signal quality readings should be a lot higher, and might indicate a poorly aligned dish, or that your receiver hasn't been set up correctly, whereas if you're posting signal quality readings from a weaker satellite, and frequencies, it could be a good reading.
Without more information we are only guessing.

[paulupton123]

Just to add can you please post your dish size, and general location, when discussing signal quality issues, along with the satellites, and frequencies, you are quoting your signal quality readings from.
If in the UK, and on a strong satellite, like 19.2E, or 13E, then your signal quality readings should be a lot higher, and might indicate a poorly aligned dish, or that your receiver hasn't been set up correctly, whereas if you're posting signal quality readings from a weaker satellite, and frequencies, it could be a good reading.
Without more information we are only guessing.
thanks mikha i will post all the relevant information tomorrow ,,thanks for your help thou
il try and answer some of it now
my post code is xxxxx which is in thatcham
i have a motorised dish but my friend that originally tuned it tuned it for astra 1n ( free to air uk channels eg bbc etc)astra 1h 19E (gets channels like germany S** Sports etc) and hotbird 13 E gets most of the italian S** sports etc)but some of the channel strengths are poor i checked the strength and quality and the quality was as low as 46% ,,the strength was 80%

i dont know how he tuned it but i had to stand inside looking at my tv screen telling him if the percentage eg 46% went higher or lower i seemed to remember at the time it was 80% strenght roughly and the quality wasnt so high maybe about 50% or just a bit more ( does this help to which way it was done??)
there are no trees in the way as to what i can see
the dish size i would be guessing but il find out tomorrow exactly the size ' i would say it was about 2feet across the middle if that helps and its on a wall mount with a motor which moves to get the other satelites ( 3 in all )as my mate said the others wouldnt work only with soft cam watever that means ?
anyway i will check the details properly tomorrow ,,dish size etc oh and i think he did my longitude latitude etc but i remember he said the east and west were opposite of was they should have been if that makes any sense wen we logged it in

[echelon]

sounds to me like its not aligned properly AND not got the correct details inside the spiderbox either

for this to be fixed you need to put right all the stuff you arent sure about until the dish and motor alignment are spot on, using the correct longitude and latitude for thatcham in your spiderbox

Your Location
Latitude: 51.3941° ; (051.4 N)
Longitude: -1.2491° ; (001.2 W)

motor and dish alignment is fully explained and covered in the dish forum here on pimps


https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?58680-install-FAQ-thread

https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?131435-motorized-dish-tutorial

https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?98442-How-to-fit-a-motorised-dish-using-usals


the motor elevation should be set to 51.4 on the latitude setting and locked tight

spiderbox should have both of the above details in its USALS motorised settings and saved

then check hotbird at 13e and peak the signal by a combination of altering the dish elevation and moving the motor to the left or right on its mounting pole by slackening off the motor mount itself slightly

better still, if you can get bbc world news on thor at 0.8w check that and peak the signal using the same methods
whilst on thor the lnb should have NO SKEW, with the coax lead pointing straight down

[Mickha]

Can you upload any pictures, of the dish/motor, and the wall. If it was fitted correctly, and doesn't make contact with the wall you should be able to get most satellites from 42E to 30W.
2 feet is only about 60cm, which is not a big dish, for this hobby, but capable of getting a lot more than you currently have, and a lot better signal quality readings, once set up correctly.

[paulupton123]

sounds to me like its not aligned properly AND not got the correct details inside the spiderbox either

for this to be fixed you need to put right all the stuff you arent sure about until the dish and motor alignment are spot on, using the correct longitude and latitude for thatcham in your spiderbox

Your Location
Latitude: 51.3941° ; (051.4 N)
Longitude: -1.2491° ; (001.2 W)

motor and dish alignment is fully explained and covered in the dish forum here on pimps


https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?58680-install-FAQ-thread

https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?131435-motorized-dish-tutorial

https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?98442-How-to-fit-a-motorised-dish-using-usals


the motor elevation should be set to 51.4 on the latitude setting and locked tight

spiderbox should have both of the above details in its USALS motorised settings and saved

then check hotbird at 13e and peak the signal by a combination of altering the dish elevation and moving the motor to the left or right on its mounting pole by slackening off the motor mount itself slightly

better still, if you can get bbc world news on thor at 0.8w check that and peak the signal using the same methods
whilst on thor the lnb should have NO SKEW, with the coax lead pointing straight down
thank you i will call my mate jason and tell him all this and ask him if he will move it for me ,,if he doesnt il try and do all these things myself ?? or should i call a satelite installer expert??

[paulupton123]

hi mikha i will take a pic of the dish etc and upload it ( to here?)and write all the correct and relevant details

[echelon]

thank you i will call my mate jason and tell him all this and ask him if he will move it for me ,,if he doesnt il try and do all these things myself ?? or should i call a satelite installer expert??

only you and he can answer that question, if you have the expertise to do what I said, then do it, if not, pay a professional (if you want this sorting out that is)

its either right, or wrong, if a jobs worth doing, its worth doing well, or not at all

in my opinion, its not been done correctly so far

[paulupton123]

thanks echelon i will call my mate and show him all this information ,,
my signal strength is 80% on all the channels on
astra 19e
hotbird 13
and the uk astra free to air
but the quality varies 64% on the good strength channels bbc 1 and a lot of others ,,but on some channels true movies 1 2 and true movies drama plus some nat geo wild and sports channels the quality is as low as 46% ,,and wen it goes this low i either get a very crackly picture or the signal goes all together
the reason i asked about fine tuning was to see if i could fine tune it mysel,f and not get my mate out to do it ,,but from what you have said and the others its going to be not straight forward and more complicated than i first thought so i'll have to ask my mate jason

[paulupton123]

only you and he can answer that question, if you have the expertise to do what I said, then do it, if not, pay a professional (if you want this sorting out that is)

its either right, or wrong, if a jobs worth doing, its worth doing well, or not at all
quick question to you


in my opinion, its not been done correctly so far
ive told you my quality is as low as 41 and 46 % ,,wat percentage do you think i should be able to achieve ?? for instance wat is yours ?? one other person has put his signal strength and quality up on here and his was a lot higher than mine and i want to know this so as wen i ask my mate or a pro i can say the percentage that i think is exceptable??

[Mickha]

He probably had a bigger dish than you, but you should get the channels, you mentioned, without any problem, as they are available on a Sky mini dish.
The problem seems to be that your dish wasn't set up correctly, to track the satellite arc, only to get a few, strong, satellites, 13E, 19E, and 28.2E, and because of this it isn't aligning on 28.2E as it should.

[echelon]

irrelevant as my box is different ; as are my dish , my lnb and my location

I would say yours are appalling due to a badly fitted dish and motor and you still havent said what the figures are in the menu in your spiderbox

ie:- what is the longitude set to ?

what is the latitude set to ?

and repeating myself, I have told you your installation is badly set up and needs sorting out , so fine tuning will not help IF I am correct

in other words, mr heath and mr robinson set this up and its appalling from start to finish in my opinion - so do it correctly or dont bother

so next time you post, try answering the questions asked of you (you havent answered one yet) and get somebody out to fix this installation properly whilst its summer and not freezing cold in the middle of winter

also bear in mind that for a direct comparison, you need somebody with the same or similar location , same size dish , same lnb and same box with same patch inside the box to stand any chance of doing a direct comparison , so pointless you asking somebody in aberdeen to compare the weather to yours, or to compare their range rover fuel consumption to yours in a fiat 500 ;)

so asking me or mickha to answer those comparisons is totally useless due to the reasons above (different location, different box , different lnb , different dish size)

get somebody with a similar setup in slough - reading - oxford - swindon - winchester - southampton - portsmouth etc to give you their figures , bearing in mind signals of around 80% and quality of 65% to 80% would be more like it

also put your box on a feed from a sly dish and check the signal and quality levels, then use them as a comparison as your bigger dish will give better levels than the sly dish if its setup correctly

so DO NOT post again without giving these details asked of you , if you are using USALS or DISEQC V1.2 in your box menu settings ? , longitude and latitude in your spiderbox if using usals ?, exact dish size diameter measured across the front of the dish ? , if the motor is set to 51.4 N on its metal bracket ? , etc

you were told all this months ago too !

here https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?167497-6000-hd-spiderbox-%28poor-signal-or-poor-picture-quality%29&p=908065

I will also remind you of what you said yesterday


thanks mikha i will post all the relevant information tomorrow

anyway i will check the details properly tomorrow ,,dish size etc

oh and i think he did my longitude latitude etc but i remember he said the east and west were opposite of was they should have been if that makes any sense wen we logged it in


this will be your last chance to provide the correct information, if not , this thread will be closed

[Mickha]

Quality readings mean nothing, I have a 1.2M dish, a different receiver, and do not live in your area.
Your receiver is probably using Diseqc 1.2, to position the motor, so you could go into the Spiderbox menu and move the dish East/West, to maximize the signal quality.
The first thing you should do is read your receivers manual, or the guides, on the forum. Please try to find out if your receiver is using Usals or Diseqc 1.2, to position the dish.
The way it was set up I doubt the LNB skew will be correct, as this automatically adjusts when the motor moves the dish, providing it was set up correctly, at the beginning.

https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?162474-Setup-Guide-for-Spiderbox-6000HD
https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?151115-Spiderbox-manuals-and-guides

You want the manual for the 6000HD, provided by Echelon.

Beaten to it by Echelon.

[paulupton123]

just to let you know my mate that fitted the dish is coming round sometime this week ,when he does i will get him to answer your questions ,,(eg how he tuned it in usal or diseq ?)
at the moment i have no pictures on any channels
(not worked for over 5 days now,picture quality poor less than 16%)
and he knows this too ,,anyway wen he does turn up i will let u know
(thnx again for your help thus far )

[The Man From Delmote]

Had this conversation with a friend of mine recently. A lot of it can be down to the size of the dish. Im still using my sly dish which is aparently only 60cm? I get 75% signal and 70% quality which is ok for SD but get occasional tearing with HD. A larger dish 90cm+ (usually motorized) should get you upwards of 90% depending on the quality of the LNB you use. I'm upgrading mine to a bigger motorized dish will let you know if I see any improvement.

Cheers

Man from Delmonte

[simon 2003]

my bet is poles not straight