Motorised dish set-up

[psham]

Hi,
I attempted to get my system up and running this evening but ran out of daylight and patience... lol..
Is it possible to setup the motorised part if i have a lock on the hotbird satallite or do i have to lock on the thor satellite first.

 

[digidude]

i use sky to lock onto when i install a system m8, as long as you have setup the USALS on your receiver first, tell the motor to turn to the satellite you want, then alaign the dish to that satellite. next check other satellites before putting the ladders away though

click satellite help in my siggy below, then how to install a motorised dish for a full step by step tutorial

 

[techie]

Hi,
I attempted to get my system up and running this evening but ran out of daylight and patience... lol..
Is it possible to setup the motorised part if i have a lock on the hotbird satallite or do i have to lock on the thor satellite first.

you must loc on thor first (ensure your motor is at zero degrees though) use thor frequency 11325 to loc on (bbc world)

but be warned mate, if your pole/bracket on wall is not 100% perfect to horizontal and vertical you will not have the perfect arc. the motor must also be mounted perfectly to the pole, the dish must then be mount to motor with dead centre of dish to zero on motor..otherwise your just wasting your time.

after ive done the alignments i loc thor, then i move dish via motor around to 28 deg east for astra 2..

put a spirit level on your pole, if its leaning forward or backward its no good, if its leaning left or right its no good, it must be bang on..
use a compass to find south, move the motor and dish on the pole as one unit to south, turn the gain way up on your sat meter, thor is weak signal. if you have setup the dish and motor declinations correctly according to your lat and longtitude you should find thor with a bit of left right tweaking around south, its a millimeter adjustment, not inches..

 

[techie]

here a top site for getting your dish pointed to the right place

tp://www.dishpointer.com/

it will give you for your location all the data required to setup your dish to a choosen sat..

latitude and longitude
elevation:
Azimuth (true):
Azimuth (magn.):
LNB skew:

 

[digidude]

i use USALS as it saves having to find due south and thor as a reference point (a la 1.2) USALS cleverly takes your lat/lon to fine tune the dish for you as long as the zero reference point on the motor points due south (not magnetic south, theres a big difference)

thor was used with old systems, and even 1.2 systems as it was the highest on the arc, and closest to south, but even though its at 1W, the only time it will really be at 1W is if yout longitute is 0 degrees. if yout lon is 1W then thor will be due south from you, if your lon is 5W then thor will show on your motor as 4E as your motor points due south when on zero degrees

USALS makes the calculations complicated, but greatly simplifies the installation

 

[techie]

i use USALS as it saves having to find due south and thor as a reference point (a la 1.2) USALS cleverly takes your lat/lon to fine tune the dish for you as long as the zero reference point on the motor points due south (not magnetic south, theres a big difference)

thor was used with old systems, and even 1.2 systems as it was the highest on the arc, and closest to south, but even though its at 1W, the only time it will really be at 1W is if yout longitute is 0 degrees. if yout lon is 1W then thor will be due south from you, if your lon is 5W then thor will show on your motor as 4E as your motor points due south when on zero degrees

USALS makes the calculations complicated, but greatly simplifies the installation

tried using usals many times, but the motor manuals point to a site for calculations that is now down...
and each receiver needs to be setup, using the calculation site which is down, for a particular motors usals setup as they are not the same..

 

[techie]

great site to work out magnetic deviation

h**p://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/IGRFWMM.jsp

i have a digital compass which can be set for magnetic deviation or true south...
never changes much though, its currently 4deg 51'

 

[techie]

this would be a great project digi, combine all our methods into one guide for a motor setup..

 

[psham]

motorised setup continued

Hi techie and digi..
This is as far as i've got..
I started by trying to lock on to thor using the signal and quality bars in satellite setup to no avail.. Then i tried to get bbc world on thor to get a picture which i did so went into motorised setup and saved this posotion as thor..(even though i had no signal quality i could see bbc world)

Now i picked hotbird satellite and moved the dish through reciever (vol up down) when i got a good quality signal i saved that as hotbird and could then see all channels on hotbird..
Then i moved on to astra28.2 and got a good signal and 80% quality.. saved that and could watch all channels on it..
The Problem is i cannot get badr, 23.5 astra, eutelsat, astra1, eurtelsat w2, eutelsat w1, eutelsat w3 or sirius 2/3 to tune in...
Is this normal or is this because i couldn't get thor to lock on in the first place even though i could get bbc world on my tv?

 

[psham]

motorised setup continued

By the way i'm using a TM-2200 super DISEqc 1.2 h-h motor

 

[techie]

Hi techie and digi..
This is as far as i've got..
I started by trying to lock on to thor using the signal and quality bars in satellite setup to no avail.. Then i tried to get bbc world on thor to get a picture which i did so went into motorised setup and saved this posotion as thor..(even though i had no signal quality i could see bbc world)

Now i picked hotbird satellite and moved the dish through reciever (vol up down) when i got a good quality signal i saved that as hotbird and could then see all channels on hotbird..
Then i moved on to astra28.2 and got a good signal and 80% quality.. saved that and could watch all channels on it..
The Problem is i cannot get badr, 23.5 astra, eutelsat, astra1, eurtelsat w2, eutelsat w1, eutelsat w3 or sirius 2/3 to tune in...
Is this normal or is this because i couldn't get thor to lock on in the first place even though i could get bbc world on my tv?

you get astra2 and hotbird because they are very large footprints/signals, you dont get the others because your dish isnt arcing correctly as the motor moves...

find thor(bbc world) with motor at zero, when you get loc, move the dish & motor as one unit about 5 degrees to the east (maybe half an inch)(if your in uk), tighten up your bolts but not fully.. Now try to find thor again by going west 5 deg(drive with receiver) then save it, adjust dish angle up or down to fine tune, then goto astra 2 with receiver and save...

most folk use astra 2 first as its such a strong singnal and easy to find, thor setup can be tedious and can take an hour, astra take 10 mins, but i always finding tuning astra first gives me a back track arc...

and as i mention earlier if your setup aint plumb then dont even try doing a motor setup.

try and imagine a semi circle in the sky and thor is very close to the highest point of that circle, if your higest point isnt right then you will arc to either side of the other sats...thor is use to try and set higest arc point...

 

[psham]

motorised setup continued

Thanks m8
Its back up the ladder so..
I'm in ireland by the way if that makes any difference.
p

 

[psham]

motorised setup continued

right..
That didn't work, in fact couldn't pick up anything but thor... My pole must not be plumb.. only thing for it is take the whole thing down tomorrow eveninig start from scratch and make sure everything is as it should be..
thanks anyway.. i'll let you know how i get on..

 

[techie]

Thanks m8
Its back up the ladder so..
I'm in ireland by the way if that makes any difference.
p

so am i...it was nice today

 

[techie]

its a very tedious thing your first install mate, but bide your time and learn quick it will come..

quick list

check and double check that bracket is plumb
find thor which is about +5 degrees off magnetic south
fine tune dish to thor bbc world
move motor and dish as one unit east about half an inch
fine tweak dish angle up about 2-4 mmm
tighten bolts on motor to pole and dish, but not too tight incase you gotta play with east west again
track west and see if you can pick up thor (if you can figure out how usals works it is best for this, Digidude is the man for this) usals will put you bang on where thor should be from current location..
fine tweak for thor..
move to 28.2 deg east astra 2, either manual or usals, again usals will put you bang on where astra2 should be
then move to 30 deg west hispasat, either manual or usals.

if you can see thor, astra 2 and hispasat, tighten the whole thing up quick and run away and enjoy....

if you dont see those 3, your arc of your motor is out and you must adjust east west (motor and dish as one unit..) these adjustments are minature, ive seen a milimeter adjustment bring the arc in to perfection, 1-2mm out can cause you to loose sats in the west or vice versa..

i always find that i have no west sats after setup, then fine tweaking dish&motor to east brings them in..

 

[techie]

i have fine tuned everything for you now mate...

download this piece of software for antenna setup

h**p://www.al-soft.com/saa/saa.exe

find your exact location here

h**p://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm

input location to the program in degrees and minutes given at location site.

the setup software will give you the exact location of all the satellites from your location including magnetic deviation..

you will need a good compass for pointing your dish in the right direction..

the setup program will even give you the suns azimuth compass location and the time at which the sun will be in each sat location, it is very comprehensive..

 

[techie]

here are some good guides also

Setting Up a Motorized Antenna

h**p://www.tele-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0601/eng/beginner.pdf

Exactly adjust your satellite dish by yourself!

h**p://www.tele-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0701/eng/beginner.pdf


from Digidudes explanation of how usals works and the location of the satellites depending or your location has given me food for thought, i always thought thor was at 0.8w from south no matter where we are on the plantet, but by using the software in the above post i actually see that thor is at 172.5 degrees for my location, so i must actuall move my dish east, not west to get thor (from true south)..

This post has taught me a lot in this last few days, ive been setting up dishes for years and to my shock i havent been 100% correct, i wish to thank Digidude for his enlightenment it has been most helpful, today i go home to setup my own dish correctly

 

[techie]

right..
That didn't work, in fact couldn't pick up anything but thor... My pole must not be plumb.. only thing for it is take the whole thing down tomorrow eveninig start from scratch and make sure everything is as it should be..
thanks anyway.. i'll let you know how i get on..

if the software is way over your head mate just get me your exact location at

h**p://www.satsig.net/maps/lat-long-finder.htm

pm me your location lat and long in degrees and minutes including the north/south west/east bit and ill enter the info into the software and pm you the details

 

[techie]

But USALS is not easy to setup as i pointed out before

Without USALS, the alignment of the antenna system is somewhat
more difficult. DiSEqC 1.2 drives the antenna to the selected satellite
position in almost the same way. But since the local geographical
data is missing, the motor drives to a satellite position based on the
prime meridian and the equator.
Therefore, when aligning the motor for the first time – and then
again later on with all the other satellite positions – alignment with
the actual satellite position has to be achieved with the motor commands
“move east/west”. Because of these difficulties, manufacturers
of these motors make available helpful software on their web
sites that enable you to easily calculate the true position of a satellite.
TELE-satellite has also made a version of this tool (“USPOS”) available
for download at w*w.TELE-satellite.com/Uspos.exe

the above software is needed to properly setup a usals motor as the default usals setup in your receiver is wrong for your location it is only based on the prime meridian and the equator.
This is why i never bothered with usals as the usals setup site for technomate motors is down and hasn't worked for 2 years now.. so ive had no choice to revert to diseq 1.2 controls as the motors i buy are technomate.

 

[digidude]

This post has taught me a lot in this last few days, ive been setting up dishes for years and to my shock i havent been 100% correct, i wish to thank Digidude for his enlightenment it has been most helpful, today i go home to setup my own dish correctly

no problem m8

the above software is needed to properly setup a usals motor as the default usals setup in your receiver is wrong for your location it is only based on the prime meridian and the equator.
This is why i never bothered with usals as the usals setup site for technomate motors is down and hasn't worked for 2 years now.. so ive had no choice to revert to diseq 1.2 controls as the motors i buy are technomate.

thats why in my tutorial, i state to setup the USALS co-ordinates first, before even starting to attempt to alaign the dish, as then then sets up the USALS calculations in the receiver AND the motor before you start. as long as the latitude setting on the motor is spot on before you start, and your pole is 100% vertical, its possible to setup a system bang on using just the balkanika channel on 16E, but you have to be confident that your pole is straight

ive managed to get motorised installs done in an hour using USALS, i wouldnt use any other way now, no matter what motor i use