Another update of my experiments. To make a long story short, my
Mercury is pretty much working again.... I think....
I was preparing to switch over to try another receiver. I had been connecting the Mercury's passthru to my Broadlogic PCI receiver. So I disconnected that, and connected it to my
Twinhan, which I was going to then bypass the Mercury via connecting a barrel connector between input and output of the Mercury. WA-LA.... Got reception from 90CM again, on both H and V. I had about as strong a signal as I ever get on AMC3. I thought that perhaps the Broadlogic was sending out diseqC signals, but it wasn't, and I'm using a DC-block, so it shouldn't be interacting re voltage either. I then connected this passthru to my Twinhan.
I thought that perhaps the switch just decided to come back to life again, so I went into the Antenna setup of the Mercury, which was set on the same transponder that I was currently watching, and I had the positioner on "OFF", so it wouldn't try to move the dish. SNAP... signal went away, both on the Mercury AND on the Twinhan, which I was also monitoring via the passthru. Switched back to the horizontal transponder... signal back. switched back to the Vertical transponder. Signal back. So things were still strange.
I also found that even though I got signal back on vertical polarity, that if I watched it for a while, it would eventually go snap, and I'd lose signal, but I could always get it back by switching to horizontal then back to vertical. Strange.
At this point, I disconnected the Mercury, and connected up only to my Twinhan. Reception was solid, both H and V. And I could move to sats using DiseqC-1.2, which was the original problem I had with the Mercury, ie I couldn't get to AMC3 via DiseqC-1.2. With the Twinhan, however, using Tsreader, I couldn't find any satellite via USALS, although I've never used USALS with Tsreader, so I'm not sure how well it works. But anyway, the 90CM seemed to work OK with the Twinhan, so I tried and tried to get USALS to work via altering my station longitude, but I just couldn't find anything. Finally, I decided to see where USALS is actually sending the dish.
First, I sent the dish to AMC3 via diseqC-1.2, then went outside and checked the rotation angle on the motor. Since my longitude is 70.8, the USALS angle for AMC3 should be about 18.1 for me. I checked the motor, and when aimed at AMC3 USALS@=18 , which was just about perfect.
Then I used USALS to send the dish to AMC3, and the USALS@=25 !! Ie WAY OFF. I know that my ZERO is off a couple degrees, but this is 7 deg off.
Then, I used USALS to send the dish to 70.8, which should be my zero, and it went to USALS@=8.5 ?!?! Again, way off. I thought that perhaps Tsreader wasn't calculating USALS offsets correctly, so I re-connected the Mercury. Went into DiseqC-1.2 mode. The Mercury was currently on AMC3, so it said that it was moving to AMC3. I told the Mercury to goto 0 , and the USALS@=17 !!!???!!! {I think that it actually went to AMC3, and then never moved. Ie later I tried several times to get the Mercury to go to zero in DiseqC-1.2 mode, and it never once moved at all.}
I then switched to USALS mode, and told it to goto 0 , and the USALS@= -2 . Ie this was the original error in my zero that I had noticed when I first got my Mercury. This makes it pretty clear that TSREADER doesn't work in USALS mode.
Then I told the Mercury to goto AMC3 in USALS mode, and the USALS@= 16.5 {Ie this is wrong, but correct when considering the 2 degree error in my zero}
The Mercury was still giving me problems, in that it often wouldn't come up on vertical transponders, and the signal would kick out, etc.
I then switched to my Fortec Lifetime receiver.
In DiseqC-1.2 mode, I told it to goto ref, and the result was USALS@= -2 , which is my original zero error. Ie DiseqC-1.2 goto zero works with the Lifetime, but not with the Mercury.
Switched to DiseqC-1.2 mode, and told it to goto 29 (which was my OLD DiseqC-1.2 number for AMC3, and it took me to AMC3 just like it should.)
Switched to USALS mode, and changed my longitude from 70.8 to 68.8 to compensate for the 2 degree zero error, and told it to goto AMC3, and it took me to AMC3 just like it should.
I then went back to the Mercury, changed the USALS longitude to 68.8, and now USALS works fine. DiseqC-1.2 mode seems to be working now too, which it wasn't before. So now, I'm not sure if the Mercury has just fixed itself due to use, or if the warm dry day, has dried out my connections out at the dish, and the Mercury is now able to handle everything. But now everything seems to be working again. I even re-aimed my Primestar, and the once broken
DiseqC switch is once again switching to the Primestar when requested.
So I'm confused. There were definately times when things were working with other receivers (Twinhan and Lifetime) and not working with the Mercury, however since it's working now, I suspect that the Mercury's problems were at least partially caused by moisture or cold out at the dish.
Anyway, I guess I'll have to wait for this thing to conk out again, before I can troubleshoot more. I'm tempted to try the new firmware, but I think I'll wait on that too, since other people had problems with it.