Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Acklin
I was installing a fixed dish this weekend to pick up galaxy 15 (?) Old I-5 and noticed a few things I thought I'd pass on.
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Galaxy 15 is at 133, and is where the old Galaxy 1r used to be.
I-5 used to be Panamsat 5, and used to be over the Atlantic, but is now over Europe.
I assume that the above is a typo, and you meant Galaxy 25, which used to be
IA5 or T5?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Acklin
A 30" fortec dish is marginal at my location in SW PA, but I am able to get about 135 channels., 21 transponders.
I adjusted skew by tuning a fairly strong transponder, and doing the skew adjustment until I thought it was peaked. Then I pulled or pushed the LNB in or out until I was out of the focus point, noted a drop in quality, but still locked.
The skew became much more touchy, and I found there was only one place I could maintain lock and reasonable quality numbers. Once I had that skew setting, I pushed the LNB back in (or out) until the quality number peaked.
I'm using an old FortecStar Lifetime Ultra recently flashed to factory code, and I got 85 strength, 74 qual on the strongest channel (God Channel I believe).
The lnb arm is bendable- pushing up or down can change the quality number quite a bit- almost an adjustment in itself if the dish is locked hard. No side braces on this model. (80 cm).
Then the fun started. I blind scanned and got only a few transponders, and the quality numbers were way down. About that time I decided to go inside, as I was getting cold.
Then it hit me- These receivers are made to hit a (low) price point, and the temperature co-efficents on the tuners and such are probably really poor. I was tuning with a receiver in 50 degree (f) weather, and as the receiver cooled off,the tuning was drifiting also. Mhz Worldview, usually easy to get, was in breakup by the time I tuned it in after 25 mins of blind scan.
So I hooked the dish to the DiseQ switch, came inside, and scanned using the warm Mercury II, and got 21 transponders, 135 channels, etc. All good.
So- keep that receiver temp stable if you can when tuning outdoors this fall.
Larry |
Interesting. When you did the blind scan outside, did the frequencies that came up for the transponders differ much from what you came up with when you came inside?
I would have guessed that perhaps outside where it was cool, the frequency might have drifted a bit in the receiver. However the Ultra is able to lock transponders when WAY off frequency, and the Mercury is similar. So it must be something else besides just frequency drift. Anyway, I'm surprised that you observed much difference for such a small difference in temperature. My Ultra occasionally runs close to 50 deg, since it's in my basement that isn't heated, but I've never noticed anything similar that might have been related to temperature. Although my Ultra is sitting on top of a stack of 3 or 4 other receivers, so they may be keeping it warm.
But you are illustrating why mil-spec electronics are so much more expensive than consumer electronics. Before I retired, I used to test military electronic devices at extreme temperatures (-40 up through about +120 or more), and most things we tested didn't perform very well.