Dreambox setup with Moteck SG2100

Eurorunner

Trying to get a motorized system up and running and having spent all day at it and nothing to show for it, I really want to pull my hair out!

Dreambox 7020 S
Motor: Moteck SG2100
85cm Dish – brand unknown unfortunately
LNB: Invacom 0.3dB

1. Using Multimap, I established my location as follows;

Lat: 53:45:49N (53.7636)
Lon: 8:45:40W (-8.7611)


2. I setup the dish/motor – with the angle of the motor set according to the latitude above. The elevation angle of the dish itself is set to 17 – but I don’t actually know what it’s meant to be as the dish manufacturer is unknown.

3. As I have no experience with D’boxes, I decided to find the reference satellite ie. the one nearest South by hooking up to another receiver and using a satfinder on the other end.
I managed to tune in Nilesat (7*W). I realize now that Atlantic Bird 2(8*W would have been the closest to my longitude (8.76*W) and will try using it when I tackle it tomorrow. Should I have been able to pickup most Sats on the arc based on using Nilesat as reference? I couldn’t find a signal for any other sat on that arc.

4. I then tried to setup the Dreambox but when I did an ‘automatic transponder search’ on Nilesat, it came up with nothing. I then manually input the transponders that I had successfully got signal on earlier – but still no signal on the Dreambox.

Where am I going wrong?

watty

Nilesat at 7W on 80cm dish? Unlikely

Use 5W. Or anything if you are using GOToX / Usals

Eurorunner

watty wrote:

Nilesat at 7W on 80cm dish? Unlikely

No - i definitely got it with an 85cm via the skystar 2 card. I double checked the transponder info,etc. against lyngsat.

watty wrote:

Or anything if you are using GOToX / Usals

Interesting that you should say that 'cause I'm a little muddled as to how 'goto'/usals works. If i setup one particular sat. initially under this system, is it a case that usals will find any of the others automatically?

What if the rest arnt coming in, what would you check assuming the system had been setup with the sat at 0* well tuned in and the mount plumb?

mayto

to use gotox just select an easy sat like hotbird for starters.make sure dish and motor are at correct elevations.then rotate the whole motor till you have hotbird tuned in.then select a difficult sat like thor (1w) and the motor will move to thor's approx position.move whole motor again slowly left/right till thor is tuned in.you should be able to get most sat's at this stage.if not its just a matter of fine tuning and changing dish angle slightly.

Ronan|Raven

Give us a shout tomorrow if you like Eurorunner, can have a look for you. Also see if the dreambox is doing anything funny Sometimes when tuning in sats it has issues in my experience.

watty

How USALS/GOTOX works.

You tell the Satellite receiver your latitude and longitude.

The satellite receiver uses that and the equatorial position of the desired satellite in a formula to calculate the degrees east or west of True South (The Motor's Zero, no matter where you live).

The motor gets a single command GOTO <angle> when you select a satellite. No positions are stored in the motor.

If the motor elevation is correct and the dish declination is correct and motor pole absolutely vertical and dish "square" onto rotor arm, then rotating the WHOLE assembly to get the selected satellite will work. Then the motor Zero will be pointing true south.

If the dish declination or motor elevation is wrong, then near south you will get nothing. But a very far east/west will still work, but then the motor will not actually be pointing due south.

Only if all the angles are correct does the full arc work. But this is also true of basic Diseqc 1.2 without the GotoX extension.

In the basic Diseqc 1.2 case you can manually step east / west till a satellite is found. Then the "store" command actually saves tells the motor to save the position. Motors may only have 8 or 16 position memories. Only the Motor has the gotoX internally. In the basic case the receiver does not need or use your position and and does not need the satellite position either. To retrieve a satellite, the receiver issues a "Move to stored position" command to the motor

The receiver ONLY does USALS if it has a a list of angles for satellite possitions AND somewhere to enter your own location. Not all motors have the GotoX, it is not part of Diseqc 1.2 specification.

So basic Diseqc 1.2 works quite differently to Goto X/ USALS. You need both a campatible receiver AND a compatible motor for USALS concept to work.

GotoX is the extra motor command.
USALS is the "Stab" company trademark name for the receiver calculations. Not all receivers call it USALS, for licence reasons.

fat-tony

I have a Moteck 2100 and a 90cm dish and have used it with a Dreambox 7020 for the past 18 months or so.

First up - the Moteck is USALS compliant - it supports the "GOTO" function where the receiver calculates the relevant angle from the location information and the satellite you wish to view.

The standard Dreambox image (firmware) and the one I use (Hydra) is USALS compliant also - you enter your site location and everything is calculated automatically.

As explained in Watty's detailed description - initial setup is critical. The support pole must be absolutely vertical (you need to check this with a good spirit level or inclinometer) and the motor needs to be set to the correct elevation angle for your latitude as explained in the manual. I made a cardboard template and drew the correct angle on it and checked for plumb once the motor and dish were installed on the pole. Then you ensure the motor is set to zero and the dish is centralised on the motor and the whole rig points due south. You then tell the receiver to go to your nearest southerly satellite (I used 5W as I'm based at 6west). At this stage you use the elevation/inclination adjustment on the dish (not the motor) to pick up the satellite signal. If you had pointed the motor/dish combo at due south properly in the first instance you might not need to shift the azimuth (west - east) much to bring in the best quality signal, but if you do need to move it make sure you move the whole motor/dish together (by loosening the u-bolts on the mounting pole) - don't twist the dish on the motor shaft. Make sure the LNB is set to the correct skew (maximise the quality) by twisting it in its holder and tighten everything up.

With luck/skill (if you set the motor elevation spot on) you should now be able to get the receiver to pick up / scan from about 60E to 60W depending on your location etc. If you can pick up satellites at the centre of the arc, but not at the extremes (or only at one extreme) you probably will have to adjust the motor elevation slightly (and also correct the dish declination). You can Google for help with this - or I may have a file on it somewhere on my home PC.

I'd agree with Watty that Nilesat (7W) is difficult to pick up (on the Dreambox). 5W is quite strong but 8W is probably the highest point on the arc for your location. Not so many clear channels on this as compared to 5W but it should be usable.

Ronan|Raven

8west is the best to use for your location I would say. Iuse it here 7 miles away and all is happy.

Eurorunner

Thanks lads for the detailed posts. I had another go at it last night after work. Wasnt far off but not far off doesnt cut it with satellite.
With RonanRavens help, got it setup today. A lifetimes worth of reading up to do on dreambox I would imagine but I might just vegetate and watch the tube for the evening