Setting Up Usals - Clare/Limerick Area

dfdream

Moved from Satellite Section as this section is more relevant to motorised setups.

Hi All,

Im setting up a motorised system with USALS and Im at my wits end.

Its a technomate TM2600
VU+ Receiver
1.1m Triax dish

I will add in my comments to WATTYS email in Bold.

You need to be using USALS, where your Lat & Long is entered into the satellite receiver.

Done. I set Latitude: 52.7800° Longitude: -8.7752° (i assume -8.7752° is w8.7752°)

The receiver then calculates the GotoX for each satellite.

Three things MUST be correct before you start
1) Pole absolutely straight. Use a big spirit level vertically or string an dplumbline down centre.

Measures 0 deg off all round with angle finder.

2) The correct motor rotor elevation must be set for your location. Do not readjust.

I set the latitude scale on the motor between 52 and 53.

3) The dish mount must be absolutely square on rotor arm (this can be fine tuned).

As good as I can see. Centre of Dish bracket lines up with centre line on motor shaft.

Then then Alignment can start
4) Set dish elevation on rotor arm according to your location and table in manual (depends on bend on rotor arm, so different for different motors).

5) Select around 5W or 8W and rotate motor on pole and fine tune dish elevation on arm. DO NOT change motor elevation.


Done. I twisted the motor and dish and adjusted the dish to get a picture on 8W. I could see Oscar Drama..

6) Select 30W or 42E, Which ever is not blocked by buildings

OK

7) Peak signal again by rotate WHOLE motor on pole. Do not readjust.

I can get pictures on 8w and 5w stable.

Thing is I cant get any other sat on usals.

I have plenty of clearance (about 50ft back from dormer house on ground.)

I set it to usals and choose hotbird 13 did a bit of re-adjusting (twisted motor a little and moved dish up) and have perfect picture. But cant pick any other SAT.

I replaced cable, lnb and connected directly to the lnb and even tried another receiver.

At this stage Id nearly get someone to come and align it.

Anyone in limerick / Clare that would do that and align for usals or help me out.

Zardoz

Try finding the satellites manually by driving the motor via the sat config screen.
I could never get Usals to work properly on any Dreambox I had ,it had a mind of its own.
I just installed all the positions manually ,starting at 8W and work your way East .

dfdream

I tried that.

Nothing shows up on any sat when I manually move it.

Im going to stay persistent with it though.

I had manually stored positions before but sats were hit and miss.

I dont think its a receiver issue I think Im not hitting the arc ok.

D

redout

yeah sounds to me as though you are not correctly on the arc.

If it persists the only option is to call an installer and have him align it for you.

Have to be honest you, I have a motorised dish yet 90% of my viewing is off of just two satellites -13e and 19e as thats were most of the stuff in Europe is. If I had to do it again I would just buy a mono lnb instead of getting a motor.

Here is the arc:

$ausage$

Hey dude.

I take it you have set it up on at least one sat 0.8 and thentry to move it. I had your problems and my dish was off by about 1 cm and it wouldnt work you can try all you want but with out the right meter its like point and hope! it is not that expensive to get a dude out and he can show you how u went wrong. Also. Look for a spare box i have heard that those boxes motor controls are not the best.

1Love

fat-tony

dfdream wrote: »

I tried that.

Nothing shows up on any sat when I manually move it.

Im going to stay persistent with it though.

I had manually stored positions before but sats were hit and miss.

I dont think its a receiver issue I think Im not hitting the arc ok.

D

I would agree that you are not on the arc properly. If you can get 5W and 8W on USALS through the receiver, then the receiver has your coordinates stored ok and is sending the correct commnds to the motor. If you can't get anything outside those two, then your motor elevation is either too high or too low and you have compensated by moving the dish declination. Check again that your motor elevation is set correctly. It may be that you have a motor elevation scale (not a latitude scale) on the motor - in which case it would be set to 90-53, which is 37 degrees elevation. Can you post a photograph of your setup, with closeups of the pole, motor and dish?

dfdream

Will check when I get home.

I'm nearly certain I have the motor set between 52 and 53 deg. (will confirm later)

On the squareness of the dish to the motor. It looks right but is there any way to confirm this.

I will upload photos later.

Does anyone recommend an installer in Clare / Limerick Area that could config the USALS (not stored position diseqc) and roughly what would it cost.

If someone is doing it for me I want to learn the lessons as well.

Anyone using a technomate TM 2600 in the west.

What are the motor settings. Also what evevation on the dish is scanning the perfect arc for them.

One last thing is there only 2 angles i should look at 1: the motor angle (52.78
) and the dish elevation 23.5 in manual (on web states between 22 and 25).

Has anyone got the triax 1.1 setup on diseqc motor.

fat-tony

Here are two guides which may be of help in getting your setup "on the arc"

http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=How+to+install+and+align+a+Diseqc+motor

or this

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/HH-mount-installation.htm

You won't be able to set the motor elevation by eye to more than an accuracy of one degree or so as the scales on the sides are pretty crude. You can check the angle with an inclinometer after the motor is installed on the pole if you're that bothered, but the motor scale should be reasonable place to start with. Your latitude and longitude settings in the receiver only need to be accurate within a tenth of a degree or so. Tracking a bigger dish is more difficult than a smaller dish. I started with an 80cm some years ago and I found that a 1.1m dish is much more fussy!

Don't worry about the scale on the dish, as these are usually designed to guide you when the dish is mounted on a vertical pole. In the case of a motor install the dish will be "leaning back" from the vertical when the whole assembly is pointing due South, so you will have to adjust the dish declination downwards slightly. Either way, you will have to adjust the dish declination until you peak on your preferred satellite. You would only change the motor elevation (or its position on the vertical pole) later on if you were not tracking the arc correctly. See the section "Testing Your Alignment" on the wiki page link to see the "philosophy" of how to track the arc.

dfdream

Tony thanks for the reply.

Im slowly loosing the will to set it up.

Went home yesterday evening with a new focus but alas no success.

I managed to get it on hotbird 13 and with a little tweeking of dish I could get 19.2 as well.

Nothing else.

I managed to get thor .8w on the usals but had to move the dish again.

At this stage I think an installer or someone that knows what they are doing would be the best option.

Anyone know an installer in the Clare / Limerick Area that would setup a usals setup. Or even someone that could spare the time to help.

I can only imagine that to someone thats done it several times its a piece of cake.

For me Id say id be better off with my eyes closed and hope for the best.

Everything is setup so its just to tweek the dish and motor.

Thanks

David

fat-tony

Stick with it!
I'm sure what you have is an initial setup problem. Once you eliminate that, then you will wonder what all the fuss was about.;)

You must start with the motor set at its zero position. Use your set top box to tell it to "go to zero". There is a scale engraved around the motor tube which will run from about 60-70 W to 60-70 E. The pointer should be centralised at 0 before you start. The dish should be mounted exactly square on the motor tube. Usually there is a raised line on the motor tube casting - ensure the dish is mounted symmetrically on it. Then ensure that the motor and dish combination is mounted on the pole so that the entire thing points due south (Sun is due South at about 12.30) and tighten up the U bolts from the motor to the pole enough to steady the whole assembly, but not too tight.
With your location set in the receiver tell it to drive the motor to the 8W satellite via USALS. The motor should barely move as it is only going 0.7 degrees to the East (you are at 8.7W arent you?). If you had pointed the assembly accurately due South to begin with you should only have to adjust the dish declination up or down to peak on the satellite. You may have to swing the whole assembly East or West slightly, but ensure that you swing the motor on the mounting pole - not the dish. Tighten up the U bolts again and check your signal and quality levels. The LNB should be straight in its holder (cable points directly down), but rotate it slightly in either direction until you get 100% quality on the signal.
Now tell the receiver to go to 5W and check that the signal quality is 100%. Do the same at 12.5W. Keep moving to satellites further East and West. Check your line-up is correct by pressing in on the lower part of the dish or pulling it slightly to see if the quality level improves. Similarly press in on the right and left side of the dish to see if the quality changes. If moving the dish manually improves the signal quality then you may have to change the motor elevation if you have an up-down improvement, or move the dish slightly on the motor tube if you have a left-right improvement. If you change the motor elevation or the dish position on the motor tube, then you will have to go back and tweak the initial settings on 8W by moving the dish elevation or moving the motor assembly on the mounting pole. See the link I posted earlier for the theory behind this.

Best of luck!

Here's a list of strong transponder on various satellites around your due South.

Eutel W2A @ 10 east 11144H 2441 ANB
EuroBird 9A @ 9 east 11804V 27500 Lux
Eutel W3A @ 7 east 11282V 27500 M6 Swiss
Sirius-4 @ 4.8 east 11766H 27500 KRT
EuroBird 4A @ 4 east 12540H 39060 data
Thor-5 @ 0.8 west 11324H 24500 BBC World
Amos-3 @ 4 west 10890V 27500 Megasport
AtlanticBird-3 @ 5 west 12543H 27500 Toyor Al Janah
Nilesat 101 @ 7 west 11785V 27500 Dubai Sports
Telecom 2D @ 7.8 west Feeds at times {3.5 degrees inclined}
AtlanticBird-2 @ 8 west 11066H 12666 BET
AtlanticBird-1 @12.5 west 11100H 2000 Al Hayat Life Channel
Telstar 12 @ 15 west 12608H 19277 MAC tv
Intelsat 901 @ 18 west 11660H 5632 NBA tv
NSS-7 @ 22 west 12734H 18084 Algeria
Intelsat 905 @ 24.5 west 11674V 27500 NTA Global
Intelsat 907 @ 27.5 west 11665V 13020 Ch-5*encrypt
Hispasat 1C @ 30 west 12092V 27500 Al Jazeera Intl

dfdream

Will have one last go at it at the weekend.

If all else fails does any one know of an installer that could set it up for usals for me.

Or even some kind person on this forum near limerick that could give me a hand.

D

settopbox

To make sure you are tracking the arc correctly and are properly aligned drive the dish either with the buttons on the motor or on your set up page on the box.
Start in the middle I Find helps eg 1 west and move E or W accordingly.

Once you get the next sat on the arc eg 5 east or 5 west save and move onto the next position.

If you find that you are missing slightly tweak the dish.

Obviously this will put everything else out, but you will eventually find the correct angles to pick up most of what you want.

Truth be told 1west 13,26,19 and 28 east is all you really want.

Dont bother with usals to much effort to get fully right.

It will torment you but you will get there.

Good luck

fat-tony

The middle of the arc for the OP is 8W. For me (on the east coast), the middle of the arc is 5W. In the UK (London area) 1W is the middle of the arc.

The dish has to be tracking the arc correctly whether you are using USALS or Diseq commands to move the motor. The advantage of USALS is that you don't have to store umpteen satellite positions into the motor - once it's tracking correctly it's all automatic;)

dfdream

Spent a few hours again at trying to setup on the arc.

No success..

At this stage any one know an installer in limerick / clare area that could align for me and show me how to align with usals setup.

Or someone on the Clare side of limerick that could spare an hour or 2.


D

hermunkla

Mod Edit: Absolutely no talking about breaking encryption or piracy is allowed on these forums.

swoofer

did you ever get sorted? I am in clare.

gb---

dfdream

Yeah got sorted.

The initial problem was the location of the pole (even though it looked OK) was not capable of receiving east of 13oE.

All sats west of that are fine.

Are you an installer or are you looking for assistance.

D