Improving the signal.

[Boxbhoy]

thor at 0.8w has hundreds of channels , not 28 , but we always start with the fta channels liike I mentioned before , so I am not even convinced that your 92% reading is thor at all

so when you say you get 28 channels , name some of the fta ones seen, so we can check your findings, because another member here said he was on thor and it turned out he was on 23.5 east and not 0.8 west !

That would explain a few things right enough.

That's the next thing to check.

[Elric]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]214848[/ATTACH]

Check out the angle when the motor turns it to 28E It's pointing down, that cant be right?

I can move it all over the shop and dont get a sausage. That's after improving the signal on THOR 0.8W to 92% and sending it to 28E

to me it looks like the dish needs checking should be more upwards also check if the brackets with the scale on the motor is the right way round

Sent from 2 tin cans and some string

[the goat]

Hi
As I said I had similar problem, they say should take 20 mins to install/get working motoriseddish, my one took days
Just a few thingsmay or may not help
Have you put inyour location correctly -/+ from which way your long/lat is
I put posts in thegarden (28e 13e 0) so as the dish lined up on 28e I could check it was in linewith post in garden,
I put a newbouquet in catseyes Test and put in god channels and BBC world from 0.8, 4.8,13, 19, 28 and renamed them (god 0.8 god4.8 god 13, etc.)
You should be ableto get these FTA channels if dish is in roughly right position
I live in bungalowso easy to get up and down ladder to line up dish, I tried a length of rope onbottom of my scaffold tube (dish attached to top end) take the rope out tosouth 0, put the compass on the post end so the compass is not influenced bymetalwork/house etc.
You now have aline to get dish arm lined up on
Press reset onmotor, line up dish for south 0, then use receive and go to 0.8 god, should hardlymove
Get a good pictureselect BBC world 0.8 make sure ok
Use receiver and go to god 19, what is picture like, should be good or near to good, don't change anything yet
Go to god 28 what picture like,
Tweak dish up/downfor go picture (not side to side) good back to god 19 is picture better/worst
Go back to god 0.8what picture like
If picture is ongood after above tests, then do test again moving dish side to side on the pole
When doing thetests check on the motor housing what degree the motor has moved to
That roughly what I did, I could not get good pictures throughout the arc range, so I keep trying different images, (think I tried about 8 images before I got 1 to workright)
I dont know why an image would make that much difference but it did to me
When I put on theimage that finally worked right, setting up dish run like clockwork
Dont know if thi shelps,

[Boxbhoy]

Thanks for the replies Gents.

First of tonight I'm going to check what sat. I'm actually pointing at when I think I'm on 0.8W. I'm sure Ramjet has hit on it.

It would explain why when I move round to 28E I get absoultely nothing. The dish will probably be pointing at fresh air!

It might also explain why when I stick in the correct Bouquet for 0.8W the signal drops to 0% when I try to tune the channel.

cheers

[ramjet]

Thanks for the replies Gents.

First of tonight I'm going to check what sat. I'm actually pointing at when I think I'm on 0.8W. I'm sure Ramjet has hit on it.

It would explain why when I move round to 28E I get absoultely nothing. The dish will probably be pointing at fresh air!

It might also explain why when I stick in the correct Bouquet for 0.8W the signal drops to 0% when I try to tune the channel.

cheers

thats exactly what I am thinking too

this was why I kept mentioning the same old things over and over again, of starting with 0.8w and making sure you get those 3 channels, its the very basics of doing this task and if you watch the youtube video you will see he does exactly the same things (except he just shows bbc world news)

if you keep telling us you are getting thor we believe you, the trouble is we have no proof of whether or not you are actually on thor, whereas if you said like I did that you got those 3 fta channels with signal and quality levels, and with pictures and sound and channel idents (like I did because I checked them first using my setup here) we would know then that your starting point is correct. but "tune fail" using catseyes list tells me you are not on the correct satellite so the transponder is "dead" because its not transmitting any signals on that satellite

pointing at a different satellite will give you the "droopy effect" because thor is our highest satellite, so point at a lower one by mistake and its all thrown out

its also better to elaborate than not, because we cannot see what you see, so when I posted my proof I gave satellite details, channels details, and then pictures of my WORKING setup whilst pointing at 0.8w thor so you could see what it should look like. I also said I had checked those 3 fta channels above on thor too

when you do get pictures and sound from those so-called "god channels" , the three I posted above, lock it up and note down and report back with the latitude setting on the motor body and dish elevation setting on the dish adjuster

ps:- its worth reminding you and the goat and anyone reading this saga that the magnetic compass points at magnetic south and not true south, so treat magnetic south as only in the general direction of actual south, better still use a stick in the ground at 1315 this afternoon and mark the shadow line behind it as the sun will be at true south about that time

[happy_highlander]

Aha ye old stick in the ground technique. The sun is never wrong

[ASEK]

aye when its out

[Boxbhoy]

I'm pretty sure what I thought was 0.8W is actually 23.5E, I know, I'm a half wit

The Channels I was getting were:
DAJTO, DOMA, JOJ PLUS, Markiza, RDS, STV1, STV2, TA3, TV JOJ.

I think the guy sticking it on the pole for me tried to point it at Sky/Freesat as opposed to South as I asked. Then when I hit a big number on THOR I just assumed it was right. Doughball!

I'll persevere again, this time If I stick the receiver on THOR and tune the channel BBC WORLD (Although there are a few in catseyes list) even though it says TUNE FAILED will it spring into life if I hit the right sat.? Is the receiver constantly looking for the specific channel signal as if it's in sat finder mode?
cheers!

[happy_highlander]

load catseyes list and put box on bbc world on thor as soon as you are pointing in the right direction snr will rise but only when you are pointing in right direction.

[ramjet]

I'm pretty sure what I thought was 0.8W is actually 23.5E, I know, I'm a half wit

The Channels I was getting were:
DAJTO, DOMA, JOJ PLUS, Markiza, RDS, STV1, STV2, TA3, TV JOJ.

I think the guy sticking it on the pole for me tried to point it at Sky/Freesat as opposed to South as I asked. Then when I hit a big number on THOR I just assumed it was right. Doughball!

I'll persevere again, this time If I stick the receiver on THOR and tune the channel BBC WORLD (Although there are a few in catseyes list) even though it says TUNE FAILED will it spring into life if I hit the right sat.? Is the receiver constantly looking for the specific channel signal as if it's in sat finder mode?
cheers!

thats the way you should have done it, loading in catseye lists, select bbc world news, swing around until it pops up onscreen
as you surmised, it will be waiting for it to "pop up" and will tune it in when on the correct satellite, so "tune fail" will disappear

in satfinder mode it should be looking for the transponder, but if in channel mode its looking for the channel you placed it on, in this case bbc world news

it does appear you had 23.5e like youngie had, so it also explains why your dish looked so depressed ,

the point is that you are learning and are getting there, so when you finally hit thor and get that channel and the other two I mentioned, you will start to finally realise your goal and the work will have been worthwhile. but you will also see why we are so pedantic about starting the way we tell you and as shown in the video digicon posted in another thread

its like getting the foundations right when building a house, the first course of brick has to be spot on if you want a stable house with roof to finally appear

good luck, cos you are getting close now

[Boxbhoy]

Some success at last! I didn't manage to land on BBC World news yesterday when adjusting the dish around where I was pretty sure 0.8 was.

After a bit of thought last night I realised I had a better idea were 23.5e was seeing as I had been messing about near there for a week!

I sent the receiver to 23.5e then moved the dish to the familiar area. Got the signal up to 92% again. Went back to the receiver and before I knew it up popped BBC WORLD NEWS. I guess the channel list was still set to it.

Never had much time before it got dark to tweak so I just tightened her up and 'banked' what I have for the time being.

After playing for a bit I've noticed a few anomalies.

On 0.8w BBC NEWS World shows 91% signal. The Music channel shows 57%. The Satfinder (That I was putting so much faith in and found 23.5e so well) shows nothing!

I assumed that every channel on a given sat would show the same signal strength? More reading to be done I guess.

I'm getting 100% signal on 28.2e but I guess that's as I have 1m dish and that Sat. can be had with a wee piddly mini dish.

Thanks again to everybody who took the time to reply especially Ramjet.

[digicon]

A brief rundown.

all satellites carry transponders that are transmitted via different footprints into europe which means just because you get 91% quality on one transponder does notmean you will get the same on another transponder just because its on the same satellite.

Most satellites have 3-4 different footprints even 28.2? has 4 one of which beams directly into africa so you wont get 100% on that Beam/Transponder.

You said it yourself you have a lot of reading to do and i mean until your eyes bleed and you eat-sleep-drink satellite LOL

[ramjet]

checking my spiderbox on those two 0.8w channels there isnt much difference

music channel is 79% signal and 88% quality

bbc world news is 80% signal and 98% quality

when you have the dish on 0.8w check the lnb is "straight" and not skewed left or right as I suspect its not sitting correctly and is skewed causing your reception issues

if the coaxial cable comes from the bottom, on 0.8w it should come straight down with no left or right hand skew, but I think its skewed in its holder so needs sorting out

other than that I would maybe fine tune the motor and dish, and check the latitude and dish elevation settings, bearing in mind the lat should be on 56 and the dish between 25 and 30 probably

[Boxbhoy]

Cheers for that Gents. More reading and more tweaking ahead!