Curly's motorised dish installation

Curly

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I thought I'd start a thread in anticipation of having loads of questions, despite having done loads of reading latley.
If I keep all my problems to this thread, it might make useful reading for someone else in the future.

All my gear has arrived this morning :Clap:
Now all I have to do is install it and configure it lol

I've got an Orbital 1M dish, Technomate TM2 twin lnb, TM2200 motor and a TM6900 HD reciever :proud:

The first thing to say is FECK!!! the dish is big!!!
I've read that they look smaller up on the wall. I hope this is true. I don't know if I should put it on the wall, or put 4 chairs round it and use it as garden furniture lol

The reciever looks really smart. I can't wait to get it working now, I'm like a kid with a new toy :banana:


Going to make a start this weekend so fingers crossed it's not pi55ing down.


Curly
 
wish you luck m8 am in the proccess of geting mine aligned right safsdgdfgdfhffhgsb (swear words )didnt take me long to put it up done most of it down on the ground but am still having problems not a big issue with so many knowlegeable ppl around
 
wish you luck m8 am in the proccess of geting mine aligned right safsdgdfgdfhffhgsb (swear words )didnt take me long to put it up done most of it down on the ground but am still having problems not a big issue with so many knowlegeable ppl around

Yeah, I'm following your thread with interest too m8 lol

I might even try setting everything up on the floor, then putting it up on the wall once I've got the arc correct.
As long as I get it pointing south again, should be ok?
I've found the base of an old round table so could use that.

Curly
 
Doing it that way means you will end up doing it all twice pretty much!! I have just doen mine and apart from a few minor hics it all went ok - just whack the bracket up nice and plumb and set the rest up from there!! Hopefully if will all go ok - its a nice feeling when it all works!!
 
Doing it that way means you will end up doing it all twice pretty much!! I have just doen mine and apart from a few minor hics it all went ok - just whack the bracket up nice and plumb and set the rest up from there!! Hopefully if will all go ok - its a nice feeling when it all works!!

Absolutely right mate. Best place to start is with a good sterdy wall bracket.
For a dish that size, make sure you use T&K wall brackets with a steel pole.
I use a Wixey digital angle finder (£20) to set the pole plumb. These are the bollox.
Build the motor and dish on the ground, and then get up the ladder and slide the whole assembly over pole and position.

Good luck!
 
Right! It's going up this weekend :banana:

I've made a bracket and it's the dogs doodies. I can even stand on it and it won't move :proud:

I've put my dish together and sat it on the motor.
From dishpointer.com I know that my latitude is 53 degrees. I've set this on the side of the motor on the latitude side.

My first question is, on the back of the dish (Orbital 1M) there are 2 different scales, 1 on either side where you pesumably would set the elevation if it were a fixed dish.
Again, according to dishpointer.com if I was to set the dish up on thor (which is the next job lol) the elevation would be 29 degrees. Which side of the dish is this set on as they are both different. I know it will need adjusting once it's up there but it would be nice to be in the right area before I get up the ladder.
TIA peeps.

Curly
 

Cheers m8, I've read it a few times lol

I'll set it so it's vertical and play about with it to tune it once it's up on the pole.
I just saw all these marks and assumed I had to set them to something too.

My pole is dead vertical (ooh err Mrs) and I'll double check this when the dish is on it.

So the next important things are that everything points dead south and I've got the latitude on the motor correct. I've got all the USALS settings to put into my box too.

I hope it stays dry this afternoon :) I can't wait lol

Curly
 
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them markings are what fooked me up. set it on one side but was meant to measure it on the other side. Typical !! LOL

Any way i just had the receiver set up on thor and physically moved the dish angle till i had a good strength signal then just tightened up the bolts.
 
I think i used what ever side my motor told me to in the instructions

The motor bit was fine. It had latitude on one side and elevation (I think) on the other. It was the ones on the back of the dish that confused me.

Anyway, I've not fallen off the ladder lol
I built everything up in the garage and was all set for my ascent up the ladder. It looked a little overcast but I'd waited for the big moment for long enough.
I set off with what must be the hardest thing to grab hold of and carry up a ladder and made my way up to the pole.
Just as I got to the point of no return and was trying to get the bracket of the motor round the pole, the feckin heavens opened!!
It absolutley pi$$ed it down on me.

I git it fixed to the pole of a fashion, and beat a retreat back to the garage lol.

After the storm blew over it was time to tune it in.
After putting in my lon and lat and selecting USALS in the OSD, I told the dish to move to Thor. It turns out that channel 1 is BBC World and was already preset in my reciever.
I went back up the ladder and checked that the dish had moved from the scale stamped under the motor. I then started to move the dish up and down, left and right. I used one of those sat meters. Eventually I got a tone on the meter and the reading increased. I then fine tuned it to get the most signal that I could and ran to the TV like an exighted schoolboy lol.
I was greated with "No or bad signal" on the screen :(

This went on for some time. I just couldn't get anything!

I then, in true McGuyver style, made a shelf to clamp to my pole. I sat the reciever on it and put the coax in from the meter with a patch lead.
I then got the lappy and stuck a usb video capture device in it and put a phono lead from the back of the reciever to the lappy.
I could now see both the screen and the meter. this made it a lot easier. A slight touch on the dish and BINGO!!!!!
I was on the top of my ladder watching the news :banana:

I had the remote with me so selected hotbird from the list.
Off it went and picture straight away. I tried another and got that too :proud:

That was enough exitement for one evening so I called it a day. I'm off to see what else I can get after lunch.

I've still to re-run my coax to my main TV as I changed my mind where the dish was to go, so still a bit to do yet.

Curly
 
Well I've got everything working fine.
I can get all sats from 45E to 20W when a tree spoils the fun.

As the reciever (6900HD) is straight out of the box, which files should I be putting on it to get the "extra" channels???
I have a usb stick at the ready, but I've no experiance with patches and keys on these things lol

Curly
 
Well I've got everything working fine.
I can get all sats from 45E to 20W when a tree spoils the fun.

As the reciever (6900HD) is straight out of the box, which files should I be putting on it to get the "extra" channels???
I have a usb stick at the ready, but I've no experiance with patches and keys on these things lol

Curly
patches here http://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/index.php?threads/178620/&highlight=patch&page=3

keys here http://www.digitalworldz.co.uk/index.php?threads/179768/&page=6
 
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Thanks guys. A couple of quick questions though.
The keys are described as "softcam keys" so is the patch actually the softcam??? It strikes me that the keys need changing daily but the patch needs updating less often, yet some channels are described as AU??

I tried putting the latest patch in but didn't get anything extra. Do I have to put in one before the other??

I tried these so called pron sites (purely to see if the patch worked ;) ) and all I got was various birds with their tits out chatting on their mobiles :wtf:

As Said, total noob with this and only part way up a steep learning curve at the moment lol so appologies for the basic questions.

Curly
 
i dont know how they work on the technomate

but on the dreambox you copy the softcam.key and then all the rom files into the keys folder. if a channels AU then all you need is softcam.key i believe and then tune to the correct channel

for others you have to add the keys in manually each day
 
I set mine up 3 weeks ago never done one before it took me about 2 hours 80cm televs dish ,tm motor, TM-3100 Reciever and quad Lnb. As long as the brackets are level and the pole is plumb It is just a matter of playing about untill you get the best reception. Patiants Patiants and even more patiants Is the key. If at first you dont succedd try again. :proud: Good Luck
 
I've sussed it when it comes to the patches/keys etc.
Basically I was doing everything right lol
For anyone else struggleing, download the patch and latest keys for your box.
Mine has the USB option so I put everything on my pen drive.
Press the USB button on the remote and select data transfer.
Load the softcam and keys.

When you go to the channel that the patch was for, give it time to clear. Thats where I went wrong. I got "Scrambled channel" on the screen so I tuned to something else. Having left it for a while last night while I re-read the instructions, the channel cleared and I was faced with some young lady doing something she shouldn't have been pmsl.

Curly
 
nice one Curly seems you have found the main channels you will be watching ;)


:Clap::banana::Clap:
 
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