Motor install pretty much impossible

partyatmygaff

Ok here's the situation. I've got a 110cm dish, a dreambox 500s and a Moteck SG2100 motor and i've been trying to get it work properly since about January this year. After about three weeks of trying early January I gave up and decided to just bypass the motor and just use it as a fixed system again. Now i've been attempting to redo the install and I can't manage to get a signal on ANY satellite. I've tried Thor, Astra 1/2, Hotbird, Atlantic Bird, Badrsat and Eutelsat. The only one that managed a semi-decent signal was Atlantic bird which got a lock and was able to display about two channels. Nothing else works.

I've tried every tutorial across the net. I've bought a digital compass and made 100% sure the motor faces 180 degrees south and i've set my elevation to 29 degrees as recommended for Dublin. What's worse is my Dreambox shows 90% signal SNR no matter what occurs. It even shows that with the coax cable unplugged. The AGC is always 63% as well but that managed to go to 91% on atlantic bird.

What's even worse is that I can't even get a single satellite signal again. I'm completely stumped as to what i'm doing wrong.

I even tried one of those sat finders and it apparently got a very good signal, I tried plugging it in to the receiver and nada. Tried about three different LNBs and two other receivers.

Apogee

The motor elevation for Dublin is 36 degrees. The adjusted declination for an SG2100 is 30-7=23 degrees which is set using the scale on the dish.

A digital compass is only a rough guide to true south and cannot be relied upon to align a motor.

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

The motor elevation for Dublin is 36 degrees. The adjusted declination for an SG2100 is 30-7=23 degrees which is set using the scale on the dish.

A digital compass is only a rough guide to true south and cannot be relied upon to align a motor.

Already set both the elevation and the declination

I used a regular compass, a digital compass and even used the Sun at noon to gauge true south.

Apogee

In #1 you said your elevation was 29 degrees. Did you use the correct angles or not?

Is the pole level?
Is the motor at zero azimuth and the internal memory reset?
Is the the dish attached at right angles to the motor?
Is the dish tightly clamped to the motor? A larger dish will tend to tilt forwards.

Apogee

BTW the sun is not at true south at noon for Dublin (due to summer time + timezones) - it's currently at true south around 13:23pm.

http://www.satellite-calculations.com/Satellite/lookangles.htm

Again that's only a rough guide. When you receive 8W, then the dish is aligned (almost!).

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

In #1 you said your elevation was 29 degrees. Did you use the correct angles or not?

Is the pole level?
Is the motor at zero azimuth and the internal memory reset?
Is the the dish attached at right angles to the motor?
Is the dish tightly clamped to the motor? A larger dish will tend to tilt forwards.

Disregard the first post, it was a copy and paste from another post I made in another satellite forum. I did in fact use the right values.

The pole is level, motor is at zero and yes to both the last two questions.

At 13 degrees east (Hotbird) my dish appears to be pointing the exact same way as the fixed dish that my neighbour has.

Apogee

Did you reset the motor memory or not?
When you attach the dish to the motor, have you checked that the pole is still level? Have you also checked that the motor remains level, and hasn't been dragged off plump by the dish?

It is more difficult to align a larger dish, as the beamwidth is narrower, so you need to double check everything.

What is the brand of the dish? Some cheaper dishes have inaccurate scales.

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

Did you reset the motor memory or not?
When you attach the dish to the motor, have you checked that the pole is still level? Have you also checked that the motor remains level, and hasn't been dragged off plump by the dish?

It is more difficult to align a larger dish, as the beamwidth is narrower, so you need to double check everything.

What is the brand of the dish? Some cheaper dishes have inaccurate scales.

Reset the memory already, pole stays level after installing everything and i'm almost 100% sure that everything is perfect. It's been months and I just can't find out what's wrong.

Apogee

So next you connect your sat meter, and you also tune your receiver to an active transponder on 8W 11178, H, 27500.

Loosen the nuts on the mount the bare minimum, just enough that you can move the whole setup east or west. If you loosen the nuts too much, then when you retighten, the angles will be wrong.

Rotate the dish slowly until you see activity on the meter. If you think you've got something, go back to the receiver. If the receiver is not registering activity on the quality meter, you're on the wrong sat. If the receiver is registering on the quality meter, then do a transponder scan to confirm that you bring in the encrypted Orbit channels.

If OK, tighten up the mount again. Make sure to tighten each nut incrementally, going around from nut 1 to 4 as you would on a car wheel. Otherwise, you risk dragging motor off alignment by overtightening one. Keep an eye on the signal meter to check it doesn't drop. Go back to the receiver to double check that the quality meter hasn't dropped.

Again, what brand is the dish?

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

So next you connect your sat meter, and you also tune your receiver to an active transponder on 8W 11178, H, 27500.

Loosen the nuts on the mount the bare minimum, just enough that you can move the whole setup east or west. If you loosen the nuts too much, then when you retighten, the angles will be wrong.

Rotate the dish slowly until you see activity on the meter. If you think you've got something, go back to the receiver. If the receiver is not registering activity on the quality meter, you're on the wrong sat. If the receiver is registering on the quality meter, then do a transponder scan to confirm that you bring in the encrypted Orbit channels.

If OK, tighten up the mount again. Make sure to tighten each nut incrementally, going around from nut 1 to 4 as you would on a car wheel. Otherwise, you risk dragging motor off alignment by overtightening one. Keep an eye on the signal meter to check it doesn't drop. Go back to the receiver to double check that the quality meter hasn't dropped.

Again, what brand is the dish?

No brand apparent on the dish. I've tried both loosening declination and moving manually up and down to get a signal and that's how I got atlantic bird, but moving the motor to any other satellite gets me 0% signal.

I've already tried loosening the mount to move the motor east and west to no avail

Apogee

I'm unclear from your answer above. Are you rotating the whole assembly when you got 8W or did you drive the motor left/right to get 8W?

A no brand dish means the actual declination might not be the same as the markings suggest.

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

I'm unclear from your answer above. Are you rotating the whole assembly when you got 8W or did you drive the motor left/right to get 8W?

A no brand dish means the actual declination might not be the same as the markings suggest.

I'm aware it may be innacurate so what I did to get 4W (Atlantic Bird) was to set the motoro on 4W using the receiver and to then move the entire assembly manually east and west until I got some form of a signal then making minute adjustments in the declination until I got a lock. I then tightened everything and tried to move the motor to say 13E, 28.2E and 19.2E . Not one of them got a lock nor signal.

Apogee

4W???? 4W is not receivable in Ireland on a 110cm.

The motor should not be moved off the zero position until after the whole assembly is aligned to true south.

Apogee

Sorry, as you're in Dublin, I should have advised you to use 5W and not 8W as the reference satellite. So the active transponder on 5W would the the France 2 channel on 11591, V, 20000.

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

Sorry, as you're in Dublin, I should have advised you to use 5W and not 8W as the reference satellite. So the active transponder on 5W would the the France 2 channel on 11591, V, 20000.

Sorry I meant 5W, 4W is Amos.

Apogee

OK, so the motor must be at the zero mark.** Don't adjust the motor azimuth anymore until you find 5W. Adjust the declination (never change the elevation) to maximise signal.

** For a more accurate alignment, rather than having the motor at the zero mark, move it slightly east, 1 degree using the button under the motor (not the receiver). (This will compensate for the fact that Dublin is a 6W but the satellite is at 5W.)



Then as above, rotate the whole assembly east or west until you find the Atlantic Bird satellite.

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

OK, so the motor must be at the zero mark.** Don't adjust the motor azimuth anymore until you find 5W. Adjust the declination (never change the elevation) to maximise signal.

** For a more accurate alignment, rather than having the motor at the zero mark, move it slightly east, 1 degree using the button under the motor (not the receiver). (This will compensate for the fact that Dublin is a 6W but the satellite is at 5W.)



Then as above, rotate the whole assembly east or west until you find the Atlantic Bird satellite.

Ok then will do that tommorrow and get back to the thread

partyatmygaff

Nope just tried the method, nothing whatsoever. The receiver just says 63% SNR and between 88-93% AGC all the time and the sat finder doesn't increase in pitch no matter what I do. I've tried increasing dish declination, moving the assembly east and west and nothing seems to affect the signal. It's definitley not the receiver either as if I just plug in the fixed dish pointing at Astra 2 then it gets a lock and SNR/AGC nearing 97%

Apogee

The method is right, so one of your angles is wrong, most likely declination. Go back to the original declination, then increase the dish declination by 1 degree and rotate east/west the whole assembly and check for meter activity - set the meter to max sensitivity.

If nothing occurs, increase the declination by another 1 degree and repeat.

Keep repeating x10.

If nothing at this point, set the declination to the original setting, decrease the declination by 1 degree, rotate and repeat x10.

You have to do this slowly and carefully, regardless of how long it takes. At no point should you drive motor left/right or change the dish elevation.

partyatmygaff

Done from 15 - 30

15 gets me a slightly better signal. 22.5 gets me absolutely nothing however.

Apogee

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Done from 15 - 30

15 gets me a slightly better signal. 22.5 gets me absolutely nothing however.

Keep going. Above 30 deg and below 15.

Are you certain the LNB is fully functional across both polarities and both bands?

When you said you found Atl Bird previously, which 2 channels did you tune in?

partyatmygaff

Apogee wrote: »

Keep going. Above 30 deg and below 15.

Are you certain the LNB is fully functional across both polarities and both bands?

When you said you found Atl Bird previously, which 2 channels did you tune in?

Above 30 degrees and it will be pointing almost straight up into the sky. The lowest I can go is 15 degrees.

Tried three different LNBs, invacom, triax and a SKY issue LNB. I only bought the invacom LNB two days ago. 0.2dB so it's supposedly high quality.

I'm completely lost as to what i'm doing wrong.j

Apogee

Which 2 channels did you scan in on Atl Bird initially?

azzeretti

partyatmygaff wrote: »

I'm aware it may be innacurate so what I did to get 4W (Atlantic Bird) was to set the motoro on 4W using the receiver and to then move the entire assembly manually east and west until I got some form of a signal then making minute adjustments in the declination until I got a lock. I then tightened everything and tried to move the motor to say 13E, 28.2E and 19.2E . Not one of them got a lock nor signal.

What are you using for positioning? USUALS? I have had very similar problems to you in the past. I found in the setups I have done the points below cause the most problems.

- Wall bracket mount not plumb, this is the biggest issues on setup, you just HAVE to be plumb and square otherwise when you drive off your reference satellite your position will be wrong
- Wrong or out of date transponder list in receiver (most Dreamboxes I have come across recently have a fairly old satellites.xml file with old transponders, this will make you think you are getting no signal)
- Incorrect GPS positon used when setting up positioner (you need to have your Positioner setup correctly in the Dreambox, otherwise, like the level of the wall mount, as soon as you driver to another satellite the arch will be lost)
- On the wrong satellite. (it is possible to set the reciever for say Thor 1W and get a lock and signal but actually be on another satellite completely)
- Using a cheap meter that can't identify the satellite. As I said above, you can setup the reciever for a certain transponder and lock on a satellite with the same transponder in use and you will think you are fixed on something you're not.
- Dreamboxes are a bloody nightmare to setup for motors, at least in my experience. Plenty of reboots after settings change is needed. That is, if you change the Tuner config, restart Enigma. If you change Satellite list in LNB setup, reboot Enigma.

To be honest, I would say the biggest problem is the meter, if you have a decent meter that can drive the dish without the reciever your half way there (well, maybe a quater of the way!)

Apogee

@azzeretti- The fact that he can't seem to find 5W doesn't have much to do with USALS or how flakey a Dreambox is at the moment. Something more fundamental is wrong.

At this stage, you have to go back to basics and firstly check that you have line of sight to 5W. Remove the motor from the dish, clamp the dish to the pole and align to 5W. Confirm when you scan in the France 2 channel.

If you get that far, take a photo of the dish looking in from the side - this will give you a ballpark overall elevation. Take a second photo from directly behind the dish - ballpark azimuth. Next, get a 3 metre length of string tied to a peg, and tie the other end of the string to the base of the pole. Pull the string out in direct line with the LNB arm and then place the peg into the ground. Now you'll have a very good idea of where true south is when it comes to setting up the motor.

snaps

Apogee wrote: »

@azzeretti- The fact that he can't seem to find 5W doesn't have much to do with USALS or how flakey a Dreambox is at the moment. Something more fundamental is wrong.

At this stage, you have to go back to basics and firstly check that you have line of sight to 5W. Remove the motor from the dish, clamp the dish to the pole and align to 5W. Confirm when you scan in the France 2 channel.

If you get that far, take a photo of the dish looking in from the side - this will give you a ballpark overall elevation. Take a second photo from directly behind the dish - ballpark azimuth. Next, get a 3 metre length of string tied to a peg, and tie the other end of the string to the base of the pole. Pull the string out in direct line with the LNB arm and then place the peg into the ground. Now you'll have a very good idea of where true south is when it comes to setting up the motor.

Perhaps try to install with a different receiver?

Apogee

snaps wrote: »

Perhaps try to install with a different receiver?

Well, if he can find 5W using the dish only, then it proves he has LOS, his LNB, coax, and receiver are functioning OK, so he should then have no problem finding 5W with a motor attached.

azzeretti

Apogee wrote: »

@azzeretti- The fact that he can't seem to find 5W doesn't have much to do with USALS or how flakey a Dreambox is at the moment. Something more fundamental is wrong.

At this stage, you have to go back to basics and firstly check that you have line of sight to 5W. Remove the motor from the dish, clamp the dish to the pole and align to 5W. Confirm when you scan in the France 2 channel.

If you get that far, take a photo of the dish looking in from the side - this will give you a ballpark overall elevation. Take a second photo from directly behind the dish - ballpark azimuth. Next, get a 3 metre length of string tied to a peg, and tie the other end of the string to the base of the pole. Pull the string out in direct line with the LNB arm and then place the peg into the ground. Now you'll have a very good idea of where true south is when it comes to setting up the motor.

not if his transponder list is out of date or the same transponders exist on other satellites. Getting a decent meter is the best way to be certain you're on the reference satellite

Apogee

azzeretti wrote: »

not if his transponder list is out of date or the same transponders exist on other satellites. Getting a decent meter is the best way to be certain you're on the reference satellite

The symbol rate for the France 2 channels of 20,000 quoted earlier in the thread is pretty much unique for 5W. Most of the digital meters simply work from a pre-existing database of TP settings rather than interrogating the NIT.

partyatmygaff

I gave up and ended up getting an installer to reinstall it for me. We relocated the dish to above the roof and attached it to the chimney.

USALS didn't work so we had to manually set up the positions. We didn't get everything but I got Thor, Sirius, Astra 1/2, Hotbird and Arabsat working at around 75-80% signal quality. That was two hours ago, now for some reason I can only get Astra 2 and Arabsat and nothing else.

I can't even adjust the dish anymore as it's up on the roof and all that I can do is adjust the motor, I can't seem to get anything anymore besides Astra and Arabsat.

partyatmygaff

It keeps getting better....


The dreambox is refusing to boot up, just shows me a green LED and it won't even get ot the boot screen. Can't telnet or FTP into it either

glic83

you might need to re flash with dream up and a serial lead

partyatmygaff

glic83 wrote: »

you might need to re flash with dream up and a serial lead

Did that and it worked again.

Have resolved myself to just using a fixed dish again for the time being.

Motorised systems are really just far far too much hassle.

snaps

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Did that and it worked again.

Have resolved myself to just using a fixed dish again for the time being.

Motorised systems are really just far far too much hassle.

I cant understand why you are having so much trouble. I thought installing a motorised dish was going to be a nightmare. I remember my first install i done. It was very tricky, i had problems, but once i zero'd, aligned on 8 west then drove the dish to 8 west (It was a matter of a small nudge), re aligned again on 8 west when Usals was on 8 west, everything fell into place. Just had to adjust skew of lnb for reception of 26 east/ 1 west. Job done. Dont think ive ever had to re align in 5 or 6 years!