Oh the joys of dreambox!

[Smokin..o0O]

I have a couple of questions but I think I need to supply a little info before asking them :Biggrin2:

As a total virgin to satellite via dreambox, I spent hours if not days reading here and other forums about motorised dreambox setups.
Having had advice from digidude and others on here, I decided to replace the cable tuner in my DM600PVR with a sat tuner. I ordered a dish, motor, mount, LNB and everything else needed to get up and running.

Yesterday I got the mount fitted to my wall and eventually got the motor and dish fitted.
First time setting up what I would have called a standard offset dish to a motor. In the olden days, my dishes were nothing like a standard dish so having to set elevation on the motor and declination on dish threw me more than a little. Then the mount stirred in another problem. It is a tubular inverted U type mount. It was set up perfectly plumb quite easily and bolted tight to the wall. As soon as the motor and dish was clamped to the mount, it showed it's weakness. The thing flexes like a spring ! With no wind and just a light touch, the mount will allow the dish to bob up and down like yoyo. The weight of the 1M dish and a Fortec motor drops the end of the mount a few millimetres. I added a couple of washer behind the bottom of the mounting plate and this seems to compensate for the drop caused be the weight. I have ordered a pair of T&K brakets, so that problem will be dealt with as soon as they arrive.
I'm confident that the dish is pretty well aligned, well good enough for a start anyway.
Time to tamper with the dreambox. As it had been running a heavily modified image for cable, I decided to flash it with a nice clean image. I used the Pli Helenite and in a couple of minutes, a nice clean image was running on the box.
After the initial settings for sat were made I had a little smile as I could move the motor east and west using the buttons on my dreambox remote. This may seem normal to most people, but having last used satellite equipement more than 10 years ago, this was a delight to behold.
OK so time to try and find some satellites and channels.
Nothing I tried could locate a signal, no matter how I moved the dish, nothing could be found. No matter what satellite I selected in the dreambox, the dish wouldnt move on its own.
I set the dish back to where it had started and went searching for some help.
I came across a few m posts mentioning "captains" settings, so I got hold of that and stuck them on my box.
After a little more fiddling, I managed to find BBC world on Thor 1W. At last! Finally got so see something on screen apart from menus
Well the fun didn't last long because that's the only satellite I could locate.
I select any satellit in the box menu and send the dish there, but nothing would lock. I did notice that on its travels, the dish would get a momentary lock on what I guess were satellites but it would never stop on one no matter which I had selected. I could move the motor east and west manually from the menu, but when I got a lock I could not scan it because I did not know which satellite I was on. So after getting a lock, I went to search, I would have to select a satelite to scan, the motor would move and stop nowhere near a signal.
Eventually the motor stopped responding and I suspected the dream box of causing it. I reflashed the image and started from scratch again. All was well with the motor control again and it was getting easier to locate my favourite (only) channel, BBC world
I have now managed to locate hotbird 13E by selecting a channel from a bouquet, then after the motor stopped moving, I go in and manually move the motor till I get a lock and the channel is visble. I saved hotbird position as motor location number 2. I didn't know any other way to save it.
so I am now able to switch between FTA channels on Thor and hotbirdroud:
For those of you who have not already fallen asleep reading this, here comes the questions.
Using the captains settings I can only locate Thor 1W. All other selected sats ppoint the dish nowhere near the actual location of the satellites. Is this because my location differs from that of the creator of the captains settings?
If the above is correct, is there an easy or simple way for me to correct the stored sat positions in the captains settings or do I need to start from scratch finding my own services?
If this is not the case, can anyone suggest the proper way for me to find satellites?
Have I made it hard for myself by chosing to stick with my dearmbox and would a Technoate have made my life much easier?
Well, that's it for now. I think I need to go lie down in a darkened room.

 

[Curious123]

On the dreambox if you go to setup > satelites & transponders > rotor setup select usual i think and send your motor to '0' than point your dish to South . I needed a compass to get my dish pointing south correctly. Now i would select Thor from the bouquets and go to BBc world and try and achieve as strong a signal as possible.the reason you are not locking onto any other satellites is your arc is wrong. Check your angles of elevation, declination , latitude and longtitude.

 

[MikeTV]

Have you set up your londitude / latitude positioner settings according to your location in the setup menu?
If you haven't, the box won't have a clue what step commands to send to the motor.
Goto www.multimap.com and put in your postcode to get your co-ordinates.

The bracket you have won't do the job properly. You're unlikely to be anywhere near vertical which will mean you're way off the arc.

Get your T&K brackets and start again mate - save yourself some stress.

 

[Smokin..o0O]

On the dreambox if you go to setup > satelites & transponders > rotor setup select usual i think and send your motor to '0' than point your dish to South . I needed a compass to get my dish pointing south correctly. Now i would select Thor from the bouquets and go to BBc world and try and achieve as strong a signal as possible.the reason you are not locking onto any other satellites is your arc is wrong. Check your angles of elevation, declination , latitude and longtitude.

Hi Curious123.
I have my dish pointing due south. I do get a good clear signal and picture on Thor BBC world.
I had thought my dish can't be too far off perfect because although the motor dosen't stop on the satellites i select from the captains settings, as it passes the satellites I do get signals but the motor moves on past where most satellites are supposed to be.

Have you set up your londitude / latitude positioner settings according to your location in the setup menu?
If you haven't, the box won't have a clue what step commands to send to the motor.
Goto www.multimap.com and put in your postcode to get your co-ordinates.

The bracket you have won't do the job properly. You're unlikely to be anywhere near vertical which will mean you're way off the arc.

Get your T&K brackets and start again mate - save yourself some stress.

MikeTV.
I have enetered my loacation settings in the menu as taken from multimap.
Lat: 55:55:18N (55.92177) I set to 55.921 N
Lon: 4:39:09W (-4.65242) set to 4.562 W
If I ignore any bouquets , and just go into setup > satelites & transponders > rotor setup, and starting with my dish on 0, move the dish manually east, the signal reports many satellites as the dish moves along it's path. I'm not saying each of these satellites are being received at peak signal, but they are there. The trouble is, if I stop the dish on any of these unknown sats, and try to search for channels, I then have to select a pre determined sat and list of trasnponder frequencies. As soon as I select any sat from the list, The dish moves and I'm back to the point where I have no signal lock at all.
A lot of times, for no obvious reason when entering or leaving the setup menu, and without having made any changes, the dreambox shows messages like "Please wait while the motor is turning to 19.2E" or "39E"
Just seems like random sats it decides it wants to move to.
Another weird thing is that sometimes I would select say BBC world on Hotbird 13E while the dish is pointing at thor, and the message comes up telling me its moving but nothing happens, the dish does not move.

As for the bracket. I know the supplied bracket is not up to the job but my T&K brackets have been delivered this morning so if there's even a small break in the weather (it's pissing down ATM), I'll get out there and bang the new brackets up.
I have a feeling that all the weirdness I'm experiencing relates purely to the dreambox. Too late now do do much about it, so I'll just get on with it.

Thanks for the input guys, much appreciated :Cheers:

 

[Curious123]

Check your cable connections are firm and watertight. I use the automatic transponder to scan for satellites. Now that you have managed to get a picture on Thor, I would try and do an automatic scan for Astra 28.2E. If you don't get a lock try moving the dish slightly from side to or up and down.

 

[Smokin..o0O]

Check your cable connections are firm and watertight. I use the automatic transponder to scan for satellites. Now that you have managed to get a picture on Thor, I would try and do an automatic scan for Astra 28.2E. If you don't get a lock try moving the dish slightly from side to or up and down.

Hi again
Let me try to explain a little clearer what's happening here. ATM I can select thor 1W and Hotbird 13E.
No other satellites can be selected, what I mean is, if I select any other satellite, when the motor stops, there is no lock on the tuner but.. If I move the dish via motor control in settings, while having left the selected channel on, I can get almost every satellite.
So basically, my dish is pretty well aligned in that if I try hard enough, I can manually control the motor and pick up just about every satellite I look for. So I guess its tracking the arc pretty well.
The problem is, that selecting almost any satellite from the captains settings, the dish moves but does not stop in the correct position.

 

[digidude]

it sounds like your dish aint alaigned quite properly m8. if you are passing the satellites, but can get them by manually moving the motor then you can do one of 2 things. re alaign the whole thing, the motor needs turning slightly east or west on the pole its mounted on. the 2nd thing you can do, is fool the box into thinking youve got the dish bang on by altering your lat/lon settings. adjust by steps of 0.2 east or west first and the receiver will move the motor as though youre located elsewhere.

ive used this a few times in the past if things have been slightly out, but if you can get it manually, then by lying to the box about your location youll also get the signals using USALS as well

 

[Smokin..o0O]

it sounds like your dish aint alaigned quite properly m8. if you are passing the satellites, but can get them by manually moving the motor then you can do one of 2 things. re alaign the whole thing, the motor needs turning slightly east or west on the pole its mounted on. the 2nd thing you can do, is fool the box into thinking youve got the dish bang on by altering your lat/lon settings. adjust by steps of 0.2 east or west first and the receiver will move the motor as though youre located elsewhere.

ive used this a few times in the past if things have been slightly out, but if you can get it manually, then by lying to the box about your location youll also get the signals using USALS as well

Hi digi.
I did reposition my dish today when i swapped mounts
Adjusted height and east west position till I got the clearest signal possible on Thor.
I'm still not 100% convinced that all is well with the dreambox. When manually moving the motor from the motor menu, moving east is always easy, but 9 times out of 10 trying to step it west fails. Although it reports "moving motor west" the dish dosen't move. I have to drive to 0 then start all over again.
Can you explain USALS to me please?

 

[Smokin..o0O]

I should add that I was not aware that USALS could be used on the dreambox.
Not that I know anything about it

 

[digidude]

to explain usals ill first explain how your position compared to the satellites work.

thor is closest to the center of the satellite arc, and is the highest in the sky and the closest to true south. its 1 degree west of the true line that runs north-south. the only way your dish would point due south AND get 1W is if yout longitude was actually 1 degree west. when using the older DiSEqC 1.2 (Digital Satellite Equipment Control) then this would be your refernece, and the other satellites would then get lower in the sky, in both directions, from this one satellite, so each position was saved as you found it. so no matter where you was, youd start at thor then find the rest manually.

USALS (Universal Satellite Automatic Location System) uses the assumption that your motor and dish are alaigned correctly for your area (it differs, as will be explained) and it then uses calculations to work out the known distances between the different satellite orbital positions.

now back to where we started. usals knows that thor is at 1W, so if you tell the usals syatem that your longitude is also 1W then it knows that the motor should point due south (at 1W as you are on the 1W line) so the motor would actually be set at 0 degrees. as my longitute is 3.6 degrees west, then thor is only actually 2.6 degrees west of my 'due south' line. if you was on the GMT line (0 degrees) then it would actually be 1W from your location.

while it takes all the hard work out of finding satellites, it does mean you have to ensure that the dish is lined up rpoperly to begin with.

on a dreambox, usals is opened by ticking the 'goto x' box in the motor setup

(soz if it went on a bit lol, had a few cans :Cheers

 

[Smokin..o0O]

to explain usals ill first explain how your position compared to the satellites work.

thor is closest to the center of the satellite arc, and is the highest in the sky and the closest to true south. its 1 degree west of the true line that runs north-south. the only way your dish would point due south AND get 1W is if yout longitude was actually 1 degree west. when using the older DiSEqC 1.2 (Digital Satellite Equipment Control) then this would be your refernece, and the other satellites would then get lower in the sky, in both directions, from this one satellite, so each position was saved as you found it. so no matter where you was, youd start at thor then find the rest manually.

USALS (Universal Satellite Automatic Location System) uses the assumption that your motor and dish are alaigned correctly for your area (it differs, as will be explained) and it then uses calculations to work out the known distances between the different satellite orbital positions.

now back to where we started. usals knows that thor is at 1W, so if you tell the usals syatem that your longitude is also 1W then it knows that the motor should point due south (at 1W as you are on the 1W line) so the motor would actually be set at 0 degrees. as my longitute is 3.6 degrees west, then thor is only actually 2.6 degrees west of my 'due south' line. if you was on the GMT line (0 degrees) then it would actually be 1W from your location.

while it takes all the hard work out of finding satellites, it does mean you have to ensure that the dish is lined up rpoperly to begin with.

on a dreambox, usals is opened by ticking the 'goto x' box in the motor setup

(soz if it went on a bit lol, had a few cans :Cheers

digidue, thanks again for your time.
I do understand thebasics of satellite location, and thier positions on the belt.
I have just been having a hard time getting my head round the proper setup of the motor and dish. My thinking was, if my dish was not almost perfectly aligned, then when I move east say, the further i move, the less chance I would have of detecting satellites as the arc my dish would be folowing would either be too far west of the position the sats really is, or too far east, therefor, I wouldn't detect the satellites.
I can go way east and detect many sattleites even to the point where my dish looks like it's almost lying on it's side
I can't do the same to the west because as I said earlier, the motor just does noit like to be moved manually to the west by the dreambox.
Maybe I have a few non related problems here and you being the wiser, can see through them and realise they are isolated problems, but I see it all as 1 big problem and to be honest, I will not let it stress me today, it's just not worth the hassle.
I do appreciate all the help given here, and I am aware that it's not easy trying to help someone long distance without being able to use the "hands on" approach so I am really grateful for your help.
:Cheers:

 

[pinkhelmets]

I'm not sure that moving manually east or west is going to help. You need to have faith in Goto-x (usals) and know that the motor is moving to the correct direction, it is then elevation that may need slightly adjusting, or it could be your initial zero point thats not due south, or that your pole isnt straight. It is easy to get good signal on 1west, 13east and see lots of stronger sat signals but completely not following the correct arc. Its hard to discribe without a picture but imagine a curved line then a straighter thick curved line.... the thick one being the real arc and your more curved one being the line your dish follows. If you move your very curved line up/down/left/right/twisted it will cross the thick line at 2 points and can still run roughly alongside the thick line at lots of points even though its not exact. You start below/undereath the thick line, cross it, then above it, then cross it, then below it again.

Forget manually moving and going in circles. Usals works, but you just have to get the dish aligned better. Try droping the angle of the motor very slightly, then raising/increasing then dish elevation very slightly to retune back on 1west. That straightens your arc line, so see if that improves.

 

[Smokin..o0O]

I'm not sure that moving manually east or west is going to help. You need to have faith in Goto-x (usals) and know that the motor is moving to the correct direction, it is then elevation that may need slightly adjusting, or it could be your initial zero point thats not due south, or that your pole isnt straight. It is easy to get good signal on 1west, 13east and see lots of stronger sat signals but completely not following the correct arc. Its hard to discribe without a picture but imagine a curved line then a straighter thick curved line.... the thick one being the real arc and your more curved one being the line your dish follows. If you move your very curved line up/down/left/right/twisted it will cross the thick line at 2 points and can still run roughly alongside the thick line at lots of points even though its not exact. You start below/undereath the thick line, cross it, then above it, then cross it, then below it again.

Forget manually moving and going in circles. Usals works, but you just have to get the dish aligned better. Try droping the angle of the motor very slightly, then raising/increasing then dish elevation very slightly to retune back on 1west. That straightens your arc line, so see if that improves.

pinkhelmets
I think you may have belted the nail on the head mate.
I plan on starting from scratch with the dish positioning again as soon as the weather let's up a bit.
The motor angle seems a wise move as I imagined increasing or decreasing that anlge would widen or narrow the arc my dish moves, and possibly explain why the dish seems to move too far east for any selected satellite.
I did set everything according to the instructions supplied with the motor but as I said before, setting an angle on the motor, and then on the dish is all new to me. It was much easier in the old days
Thanks mate:Clap:

 

[Smokin..o0O]

A little further info here and more problems.
When working on this before I couldn't see my dish so I have moved it and the pole it sits on to it's highest position.
I can now see my dish from my loft window.
When I moved the thing higher, I also decreased the angle of the motor, and increased the angle of the dish. Thought I'd do it a little at a time, trial and error sort of, to see if I can improve the positioning of my dish.
Now it's clear that the main reason I had so much difficulty before is the moving of the motor bt the dreambox.
Let's say I am sitting watching BBC world on Thor. I select BBC world on Hotbird 13E. The meassage comes up saying motor moving but more often than not, the motor does not move at all. If I leave that channel selected and go into rotor setup and try to manually move the motor east, more often than not, instead of moving in steps corresponding to my button presses, once it srarts moving, I won't stop till it reaches the east limit of the motor. Selecting move west does nothing and usually I have to select drive to 0.
I have hooked up 1 of the small inexpensive sat meters that has beeper built in. When I use the manual move options in rotor setup. I can hear the pulse tones when the button is pressed even when the motor refuses to move.
Not knowing what could cause the motor to either not move or to continue moving when it should stop, I have flashed my dreambox 5 times today, with a total of 3 different images and I still have the motor moving proble,.
Any suggestions?
Thanks guys.

 

[Smokin..o0O]

Another small update.
Just went up the ladder. The motor has east and west buttons on the housing. Pressing the east button, the dish will move freely as long as I hold the button pressed. Pressing the the west button, the motor does not move, and the small LED lights up red.

 

[Curious123]

The reason that it says moving to a particular satellite and never gettuing there is that your dish is out alignment so it cannot get to its destination. I would line it up on Thor and than scan for 13E, 19.2E and 28E have the strongest signal. I would select the automatic transponder scan and select 28E and make it scan for a lock , check to see if it has moved to 28E when it fails I would go and move the dish half an inch either up or down or side to side on each scan it i only matter of time before you get a lock.

 

[Smokin..o0O]

The reason that it says moving to a particular satellite and never gettuing there is that your dish is out alignment so it cannot get to its destination. I would line it up on Thor and than scan for 13E, 19.2E and 28E have the strongest signal. I would select the automatic transponder scan and select 28E and make it scan for a lock , check to see if it has moved to 28E when it fails I would go and move the dish half an inch either up or down or side to side on each scan it i only matter of time before you get a lock.

I hear what you are saying Curious123.
Forget dish alignment for a moment please. The latest tests I have done shows that more than 50% of the time when trying to fine tune my dish, or even move manually between satellites, the motor fails to move at all.
So I was wasting hours before I discovered the motor likes moving east, but is stubborn as a mule when I want it to move west.
The LED on the bottom of the motor when trying to move west is worrying me.

 

[fezzy]

Hi
Looks like you have a few problems mate. I would start from scrach
again. Make sure the pole is100% plumb, as its got to be bang on.
Don,t forget that setting up with a compass will not give you true
south only magnetic south. Also if you are not happy with using
usals, by all means , set up manually ( i do ) its a little bit messy
but you will get there. Also i would check all connections and the
motor. How long is your cable from reciever to dish? As i was
having a problems with my motor not stopping and not moving
when it should have done. I changed my tm8 motor to a dark motor
and found that the tm8 was o\k as i was still getting the same
problems with the dark motor, which by the way is a lot faster and
sturdier as its a metal gear. After a lot of head banging i found
that the motor was not getting its full power, because of the long
cable run, from reciever to dish. Its sorted now though with no
more problems.

Hope this has helped

Fezzy

 

[pinkhelmets]

Just to confirm, its not to do with being aligned correctly as suggested, as the motor should move when going to a satellite -even if it cant find it.
Now the dreambox is set to use usals/go-to-x function as it should be, so the first thing to check is that your motor is usals/go-to-x compatible? Maybe its an older type thatdoesnt support this function and is diseqc1.2 only?
Next thing is to check your connections are fitted 100% correctly on the co-ax cable. Minimum shielding in contact, or shorting threads, can mean you get a picture clearing but its not a clean connection so theres not enough power getting through for the motor to turn. Check also that you dont have anything inline like co-ax splitters, line-amps, wall sockets, adaptors, etc. These can all stop the signal from reaching the motor.

Apart from that you are going to need to check this receiver on another dish, or try another receiver on this motor.

 

[pinkhelmets]

Sorry, Fezzy replied as I typed mine, but he confirms some advice and adds some more .
Good luck.