Dish Setup - Adjusting Latitude Settings

[Julezy]

Hi all,
I decided to move my dish as i couldn’t get any sats further east than about 30 degrees due to the neighbours house blocking the signal. My new location means I can now get 39 East and a few other more easterly ones which im happy with. When moving my setup i did adjust the dish position on the motor mount as it wasn’t quite central (very close though). In order to get the sats lined up using USALS i did my ‘bodge’ of tweaking the longitude setting and although it doesn’t match what it should be for my location i can track the easterly arc very well – i was getting 93% on Diema at 39 east. The westerly sats are not right however – having done some research i reckon its because the motor angle is set too high (and also the dish wasn’t quite central on the motor) – i set the motor angle up on day 1 and haven’t altered it since – 52 latitude based on my location. I was wondering whether its possible to ‘bodge’ this by altering the Latitude setting in the motorised menu (same as i did for the Longitude) I had a quick go at this and it didn’t appear to make any difference ?
If its not possible i’ll adjust it slightly at the motor itself by decreasing it slightly and then tweaking the dish angle to see what difference it makes. I know the westerly sats don’t appear to offer as must as the easterly ones – i’m just interested in tuning it so i can track the arc both sides.
From peoples experiences, how accurate are the scales on the Technomate motors ? – i read somewhere that you should only use these as a guide in getting your setup accurate.

As always I’d appreciate any advice and comments on this,
Cheers
Jules

 

[jetsetw]

Hi, I have had a Technomate motor for 4 years - the TM2200 - and haven't had any trouble with it.

I went straight for USALS, and found it worked a treat using the scale on the motor. So my own experience has been very positive as far as reliability of TM motor scales goes. The dish scale was another story, however. I have a Triax TD64 and find the scale hopeless on that. Fortunately, the dish elevation is the last thing to adjust (along with manual E/W rotation of the motor along the pole) so it was easy enough to get a good signal on 1W (my southernmost satellite). From there the arc was tracked fine on both sides.

My advice is not to fudge the longitude and latitude settings on your receiver unless all else fails, since this is likely to cause an imbalance of the arc as you have found. i.e. You can fudge one side to work, but then the other side fails. If your pole is completely vertical and the motor/dish elevations are correct, then USALS ought to work perfectly with the correct settings on your receiver.

Here are the key things to check:

1) Pole vertical - needs to be absolutely spot on. Take as long as it needs, moving your spirit level all the way round and adjusting screws/fittings as necessary to make sure the pole is truly vertical. I think this part took me the best part of an hour, but it was worth it.

2) Motor elevation correct according to the scale on the motor. Trust the TM scale markings for now - you can always adjust things later if necessary.
Also check the elevation is the same on both sides of the motor! It is easy when tightening it up to find that it starts to tilt slightly. I had to hold my notor very firmly to keep it level at this stage.

3) Dish centrally attached to motor stub. TM motors have a line down the stub which helps you check that the dish is square on.

4) Correct longitude and latitude settings in receiver. As mentioned previously, I would strongly advise against fudging these.

5) Reset the motor from the appropriate menu on your receiver. Check the motor is centered on the 0 mark.

6) Send the dish to 1W from your receiver. Then rotate the entire motor horizontally on the pole, and adjust the dish elevation, to get the best signal you can on 1W.

7) Now test the arc. It should either work fine on both sides (hooray!), or miss in the same direction on both sides (i.e. dish elevation is too high on both E and W side, or too low on both E and W side).

If the latter, bad luck... The motor scale isn't accurate and you'll need to experiment a bit. But you'll get there as long as the problem is symmetrical on the arc. What you don't want is the dish elevation being too high on one side of the arc, and too low on the other. That suggests a more serious problem with alignment (probably the pole) or incorrect longitude/latitude settings in the receiver.

Good luck!
Jetset

 

[Julezy]

Hi Jetset,
Many thanks for that reply, some very useful tips. I've checked my mounting pole and i know its not quite spot on but its very close - its quite difficult to get it spot on as its a really long pole and probably not that ideal........I'll have a go at adjusting things again tomorrow - i suppose at least i've got it working on the easterly sats which is better than the other way round !

I've got a feeling the elevation on my motor might not be the same on both sides either.......

What do you reckon to this guide in terms of correcting aligmment ?
Cheers

Jules

TRACKING THE DISH
-----------------

*START*

First check that you have the strongest possible signal on Thor (Business TV).
Do this by grabbing hold of the top and bottom of the dish and gently flexing
this dish upward and downward. You should get a worsening signal as you move
the dish up - down - left - or right. If this is not he case then loosen the
motor brackets and reallign the motor position left right. loosen the dish
elevation nuts and alter the dish up and down until you have the best possible
signal. when flexing the dish you are not trying to get the strongest signal,
just flex it enough to check if the signal gets better or worse in each
direction.



Now drive the dish to Sirius 5 East. Load up the channels list for Sirius and
choose "NOVY
Canal" You should
get a strong signal from this channel - around 90%. Then choose one of the weak
transponders on Sirius (Viasat Ticket) These channels are very weak in the UK -
even in clear weather conditions on a 1 metre dish you will not get more than
about 55% signal on a perfectly aligned dish.



While on Viasat Ticket, flex the dish up and down slightly to see which gives
the best signal strength. Make a note of which direction improves the signal UP
or DOWN. You can also try manually driving the dish slightly further east or
weat with the EAST WEST buttons.



Now go back to Hispasat. Choose "Programaceo" Channel. If you are
getting little or no signal flex the dish slightly up or down to see which
direction gives better signal. Remember that the dish tends to move slightly
too far west on Hispasat so you may need to manually drive it slightly back to
the east. Again make a note of which gives better signal UP or DOWN.



If you have a good signal on Hispasat "Programaceo" of say 75% or
more - try one of the weaker channels such as "P-Cinema". These
channels are again much weaker than others on Hispasat - a well aligned dish
gives you around 65-70% signal. Once again flex the dish up and down to wee
which direction gives best signal.



If you can't find Hispasat AT ALL then move your dish to 8 or 15 degrees west
and repeat the above process to see which is better reception UP or DOWN and
make a note.



Now drive the dish back again to Thor 1W "Business TV" and check that
it is still perfectly aligned and all this "flexing" has not changed
the dish elevation. Reallign if necessary.



Now one of 5 possible situations will have occured. These will be dealt with
below. And if you need to adjust the alignment of you dish then remember the
next line!



IMPORTANT - ONLY EVER ADJUST THE DISH/MOTOR WHILE YOU ARE ON THOR 1 WEST



Situation 1. Dish gives better signal when flexed upwards on both Sirius Ticket
and Hispasat P Cinema - in this case you need to DECREASE the elevation of the
motor and INCREASE the elevation of the dish to compensate. Reallign for
strongest signal on Business TV then go to *START*



Situation 2. Dish gives better signal when flexed downwards on both Sirius
Ticket and Hispasat P Cinema - in this case you need to INCREASE the elevation
of the motor and DECREASE the elevation of the dish to compensate. Reallign for
strongest signal on Business TV then go to *START*



Note Situations 1 and 2 should never arise if you correctly set the motor
elevation to your latitude (eg Liverpool - 53
degrees)!!





Situation 3. (The most common one!!) Dish gives better signal when flexed
DOWNWARDS on Sirius Ticket and UPWARDS on Hispasat P Cinema - in this case you
need to loosen and rotate the MOTOR a few degrees to the West (Towards
HISPASAT) and then tighten up the motor, loosen the dish and rotate the dish
back towards the East to compensate. Reallign for strongest signal on Business
TV then go to *START*



Situation 4. Dish gives better signal when flexed UPWARDS on Sirius Ticket and
DOWNWARDS on Hispasat P Cinema - in this case you need to loosen and rotate the
MOTOR a few degrees to the east (Towards SIRIUS) and then tighten up the motor,
loosen the dish and rotate the dish back towards the West to compensate.
Reallign for strongest signal on Business TV then go to *START*



5. Well Done! You get perfect alignment on all three points!! No further
adjustment required



by using two very weak signals on Hispsat and Sirius you can get a perfect
alignment of your dish - all other satellites are more powerful and you wil
have no problem with these.

 

[jetsetw]

Hi, that guide you posted looks very good indeed to me.

Just a few comments:

1) It seems to be testing 4.8E and 30W for an arc centred close to 1W. I personally would test much further east than this, say 28E. If you can go as far as 45E/W then even better! If 1W, 30W and 28E are all working, then USALS should find everything else in between without difficulty.

2) The note in capitals about only adjusting things when pointing at 1W is really important - I should have mentioned this. You need to make sure you can still get a good lock on 1W before checking if the arc is ok, which means there's no point adjusting anywhere other than at 1W.

3) The fixes in scenario 3 and 4 are getting you to realign the dish on the motor stub. This shouldn't need to be done if it was done properly at the start, and assuming your motor & dish aren't warped. Get your head under the dish (perferably when it's centred about 0 i.e. after resetting the motor from the menu), and look up along the motor stub. You need to ensure that the faint line along the stub runs exactly in the middle of the gap between the sides of the dish bracket which are attached to the stub.

As for the motor elevation being slightly different on each side - yes, it was quite tricky for me to force the motor bracket to stay level when tightening up the main body of the motor to it. But if you let it tilt even a little, then you'll have problems later. It's worth loosening and retightening correctly before going any further.

All the best - it's a terrific feeling when it's all set up!
Jetset

 

[Julezy]

Hi,
Another day of dish tuning........
Checked my mounting pole and although i thought it was pretty close to being spot on i was only using a small spirit level - when i used a much longer one it turned out it was quite a bit out. Mind you i was using a 3 metre long scaffolding pole to mount my dish on which was another bodge which was ultimately never going to work properly !
So went back to square one and used the original 'L' shaped pole and had to mount it on an easterly wall (not ideal i know) Anyhow in checking my setup it looks like i had the motor elevation not quite matching on both sides (about 1 degree out) - i originally just assumed they would match on both sides (wrong). Also the dish was a fraction off central on the motor stub - not much but proberly enough to cause problems.
So I corrected these faults and got the mounting pole vertical. I used the correct long and lat for my location in USALS and hey presto tracked the easterly arc. Thats the first time i havent had to bodge the USALS settings !! Although I've not gained much from my previous installation point, as i still cant get the westerly sats (being on an east facing wall) but at least i must have set things up right which is pleasing at last Its a shame i cant test it out properly.
The only way i'll get the westerly sats is if i grow some bigger balls and climb a big ladder to set my dish up on so it clears my neighbours house !
Cheers

 

[Zorch]

Hi Julezy,

The only way i'll get the westerly sats is if i grow some bigger balls and climb a big ladder to set my dish up on so it clears my neighbours house !

You could always hire a scaffold tower or even a powered/elevating one to do the job safely... the powered/elevating one has the added advantage that you don't have to do any climbing or hoist your dish/motor etc. to the working level... however after looking at the hire price per day... the static scaffold tower seems to be the most affordable option...

I hope this helps...

Best Wishes,
Zorch

 

[Julezy]

Hi Zorch,

Yes ive had a look at the those options - not cheap ! However I might well end up doing something like the scaffold tower option. Theres something quite addictive about setting these dishes up and tuning them in.........
Cheers
Jules

 

[Zorch]

Hi again Julezy,

This is what I looked at... and thought it was a reasonable/affordable daily rate... remember your safety is always paramount... and this is much much safer than going up a ladder...

You don't have permission to view the code content. Log in or register now.

I hope this helps...

Best Wishes,
Zorch

 

[Julezy]

Hi Zorch,
Cheers, that looks reasonably affordable - £32 for a day (minimum of 2 days hire they say so £64) If the tower is installed and removed for you even better. Might go with this sort of option eventually.
Thanks

Jules

 

[Zorch]

Hi again Julezy,

...If the tower is installed and removed for you even better...

My (late) best friend hired one... and they did set it up and take it down... I'm not sure which company he used though... however I don't think any company would just drop it off and let you do all the assembling/disassembling...

I hope this helps...

Best Wishes,
Zorch