New rotor setup rubbish 28.2e quality

thecivvie

I have a Fortec Ultra Classic that I was running off my SKY dish and decided to put up a 90cm dish with a rotor. I get excellent 90%+ quality on HB and Astra 19.2 but on 28.2e I get rubbish quality 45% and no vertical signals. I used the usals setup. Should I play with the offset and see if that helps

watty

Try adjusting Skew and also check your motor elevation, dish declination.
See does it get 42E and 30W too. They are really strong.

With Usals if the dish/motor is correct all satellites are correct. If offset did fix it, it would mean the dish/motor is wrong.

thecivvie

watty wrote:

Try adjusting Skew and also check your motor elevation, dish declination.
See does it get 42E and 30W too. They are really strong.

With Usals if the dish/motor is correct all satellites are correct. If offset did fix it, it would mean the dish/motor is wrong.

Checked both no go, seem to have lost 28.2 now. Noticed that as I move from 13 to 19.2 I lose about 10% in quality. I rechecked the motor elevation and that seems to be ok. I did notic that when I moved the dish to 42e the lnb arm was down so the problem may lay there

watty

The dish declination on the motor arm must be set too.

Elevation and declination are in a table with the motor, based on your degrees north.

The dish tilts over and arm is at angle and low when at far east or far west.

The LNB skew (angle) should be adjusted on 8W or so.

If dish declination (like elevation, but a droop) is wrong and you adjust the motor elevation on pole to compensate at a particular satellite, then you lose quality and signal more and more further away from that position. You must set the motor elevation according to your degrees north. Then fine tune dish up/down for best signal/quality.

If the pole is leaning and not perfectly vertical also you will get this problem.

thecivvie

I installed the dish on a new mount got from maplin, I made sure that it was level in every way.

I put the motor on as per the instructions and set the motor angle to my 53 degrees, just north of Clifden, put the rotor dish mount on and set the tilt of the dish, but I think this maybe where I made an error, at the time I installed it the dish was roughly pointing to around 17 deg east. I am not off work now for a while so won't have time to play with it.

Does the fact that it is a 90cm offset dish make any difference

thecivvie

I had to change my Fortec and got a Strong 6130 instead. This has brought some improvment to the situation. I also tweaked the dish setup. I still find that the quality in good on one end but not so great on the other. I also tried to get the TP that is mentioned in the thread about 16e for NG and others but no signal on it. So I guess I still have some work to do

Just for info, the Fortec every time I did a powerscan lost all the sat settings, ie changed the lnb type to single, rotor to Universal 1 etc

watty

Dish type makes no difference. Your pole that the motor is on must be absolutely vertical or the arc will go off.

I find that 16E signal weak in morning but fine by lunch time

thecivvie

I am going to get a small level tomorrow as I have a feeling that the one I used maybe slightly out. But I am getting better strenght now after some tweaking. Thanks for all the help todate

bauderline

Can anyone suggest a good method for getting the pole dead vertical. A spirit level does not seem very accurate to me... Any suggestions... I am placing the pole into concrete...

rgs. b.

Tony

bauderline wrote:

Can anyone suggest a good method for getting the pole dead vertical. A spirit level does not seem very accurate to me... Any suggestions... I am placing the pole into concrete...

rgs. b.

well there are "dual" levels which are excellent for this purpose but probably quite expensive. I use an inclinometer and just place it at different points, its really the left to right which is crucial in terms of the pole facing east/west as any minor error on south can be corrected with dish elevation as thats the way the dish will be facing, obviously its better to have the pole "dead plumb" on all axis's.

thecivvie

I may see if the budget will goto one, as I may put a bigger dish up later on in the year, this is an experiment for me

watty

A string with a weight at bottom can be used as a plumb line. My pole is on a wall so I was able to drop this down inside of pole and it top of string is at middle of tube, then when vertical the bottom is too. But it can be used spaced slightly off side edge on outside and moved around the rim at top slowly.

Zaphod

Any decent level will be fine if you make sure the pipe is completely level all around by checking the entire circumference of the pipe. If it's a big setup, it's good to have propping supports, ideally welded into place, to prevent future moving of pipe or shifting in concrete. Filling the pipe with concrete stabilises it further and reduces noise.



The lower pipe above was originally for a different dish which was later moved, but it was too wide for the h-h mount bracket. 3 hours of chiselling down through 10 inches of concrete, then placed in smaller pipe, few lengths of twisted steel hammered in place, fresh concrete, all leveled off and bob's your uncle.



Free Image Hosting [xs.to]


Nice US guide on installing Diseqc/USALS motors - they use an inclinometer to make sure pipe is level.
http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/HH-mount-installation.htm

thecivvie

Watty, I checked the pole and it is perfectly straight in all angles, I did notice that the lnb has a noise figure 0f .6db Would I be better to get one of .4 or lower

Tony

tcob1 wrote:

Watty, I checked the pole and it is perfectly straight in all angles, I did notice that the lnb has a noise figure 0f .6db Would I be better to get one of .4 or lower

I'd get the alignment right first, a .6 is not that much better than a .2

thecivvie

I have all the sat pulled in now that I was looking for, so just curious if a .2 would give better qualilty than the .6 I have. Took a bit of tweaking this morning to sort the problem, which was my motor angle

Tony

tcob1 wrote:

I have all the sat pulled in now that I was looking for, so just curious if a .2 would give better qualilty than the .6 I have. Took a bit of tweaking this morning to sort the problem, which was my motor angle

It would if you had a marginal signal but make sure the noise figure is accurate some LNb manufacturers can only quote .2 at certain freqs and not across the whole satellite freq spectrum. They are not expensive these days so worth a punt if you think you need one. Some of the guys here put me on to the titanium LNB which seems to work well.

thecivvie

Thanks for that info. Now to get Maplins to change the Fortec for me

watty

LNB will not make much if any difference. Rain makes a lot more difference.

Your motor / dish alignment was wrong. If somthing isn't right is can be time consuming to fix it.

Even with an old 0.7 dB LNB for a minidish I can get about 16 satellites OK on an 80cm dish.

If your dish 80cm you should get 19 / 20 satellites on even 0.7dB LNB meant for regular dish.

thecivvie

Yeah discovered this, still it was worth getting right, now to play some more and pull in a few more, though I have a feeling that I may need a bigger dish as I am almost on the western tip of ireland here

watty

Not going to make much difference to 6km west of Raheen

thecivvie

I am out past Clifden so maybe i need a 1m dish

watty

An 80cm dish should be as good in Clifden as here for most satellites. maybe slightly better for a couple.

A larger dish mush be aligned MORE accurately as the beamwidth is narrower, so if dish/motor mis-aligned the station can be lost entirely. On "Sky" platform a bigger dish still needs to store Eurobird 28.5 and Astra 2D (28.2) separately!

thecivvie

Yeah I get around 50-65 quality strenght is higher. But I only seem to get 28.2, w2, astra 19 and hotbird but saving that going lower east there is a building in the way

watty

With 80cm dish anywhere in Ireland quality should be over 90% for Sky.
Hotbird channels vary a lot from 50% to 90% on mine.

Get a bigger pole?

thecivvie

I was thinking about that as there is a tree around 30 feet away, it is not high but could be clipping some of the signal. I am currently on a Maplin bracket so will look into a decent pole

watty

download free link budget SW from
www.smw.se

It shows angle up to satellite if you put in your own position and the satellite position.

thecivvie

Thanks for the link, My garden is full at the moment, there is the kids trampoline with safety net which is almost in the way and that tree so I need some height but not sure if I want to put it above the roof level, I have a flat roof. I tried Tony's site but see he has no poles for sale so will have to look elsewhere as Maplins don't seem to do them either.

Thanks for all nthe help todate

watty

No you get decent poles in places like co-op, Buckleys (20ft is 20 Euro and 9 Euro delivery, cut it down to 10 ft) etc. Scaffold pole etc. Builder merchants etc. NOT TV/Satellite/gadget shops.

thecivvie

Never thought of that Will have to get a decent mount to attach it to the side of the house, I just went outside and loped the top of the tree and it has made some difference

thecivvie

Stuck it on the roof, have a flat roof, reset the dish and the signal strenght went up a lot, now 60 to 75% on all sats that I pick up. I cannot pick up Eutelsat W1 or W3 W2 is fine along with all the main european ones. Nothing past 28.2 well yet anyway