newbie help also

tivomon · #1 (**permalink**) 06-11-2004, 04:26 AM

Hi all, I have a directv 18 dish and I've pointed it to 101w, I have a swaped ot the lnb with a so called generic. the spec's are input frequencey 12.2-12.7Ghz and the output Frequency is 950 - 1450Mhz. I am using MyTheater. At this point I have ~ 60% signal strength and I am trying to receive from AMC4. I'm having troubles understanding what LO1 SW and LO2 means. Also at this point I can't been able to sing a singal yet. Any pointers ?

wejones · #2 (**permalink**) 06-11-2004, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tivomon

Hi all, I have a directv 18 dish and I've pointed it to 101w, I have a swaped ot the lnb with a so called generic. the spec's are input frequencey 12.2-12.7Ghz and the output Frequency is 950 - 1450Mhz. I am using MyTheater. At this point I have ~ 60% signal strength and I am trying to receive from AMC4. I'm having troubles understanding what LO1 SW and LO2 means. Also at this point I can't been able to sing a singal yet. Any pointers ?

A generic LNBF capable of receiving AMC4 would have an 11.7-12.2 input frequency. The 12.2-12.7 spec indicates that you must have a circular DBS LNB, which won't work for the non DBS sats.
Also, the 18" dish is probably too small for most signals on the non-DBS sats. With the setup you have, there are a couple free signals you could view on some of the high power circular DBS sats, but for other sats, I'd recommend getting a bigger dish and a linear 11.7-12.2 LNBF.
Re the LO freqs, unless you have a so called universal LNBF, I'd choose a configuration called standard or something like that , which only has one LO freq, or else enter the same freq in both LO1 and LO2. For a 12.2-12.7 GHz LNBF, you should use 11250 (11.250GHz) and for a standard 11.7-12.2 GHz lnbf, use 10750 (10.75 GHz).
If you want to test your current system, use the 11250 LO setting, and aim at the 119 deg Dish network sat, and tune in 12297 MHz
see http://www.lyngsat.com/echo7.html
This should give you NASA Select TV . But to receive AMC4, you aren't going to have much luck until you get a different dish and lnbf.

tivomon · #3 (**permalink**) 06-15-2004, 03:18 AM

so my lnb and dish works with my subscribed DTV. I was hoping to pull in seom FTA by connecting it to my TWINHAN DVB. So I tried pointing my dish to 119, for my location 181 AZ and 50 Elev. I tried using the DTV receiver as a singnal strengh meter, but not much luck there. Also I noticed that on lyngsat.com echostar 7 shows L and R I am thinking this means left and right hand singal polirization? Apps like the one that comes with the card or My theater only talk about H and V polorization. Does this matter ? in Short do I have what it takes to pull in the NASA channel and the music channelts from echostar 7 ?

wejones · #4 (**permalink**) 06-15-2004, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tivomon

so my lnb and dish works with my subscribed DTV. I was hoping to pull in seom FTA by connecting it to my TWINHAN DVB. So I tried pointing my dish to 119, for my location 181 AZ and 50 Elev. I tried using the DTV receiver as a singnal strengh meter, but not much luck there. Also I noticed that on lyngsat.com echostar 7 shows L and R I am thinking this means left and right hand singal polirization? Apps like the one that comes with the card or My theater only talk about H and V polorization. Does this matter ? in Short do I have what it takes to pull in the NASA channel and the music channelts from echostar 7 ?

If your lnb/dish works for DTV, then it should work with the Twinhan to get whatever you can find FTA on 119. You should be able to receive NASA with no problem. The software will switch between L/R polarization just the same way as it switches between H/V that part will be invisible to you, you won't have to worry about it.
I don't know why you weren't able to find the sat with the DTV receiver. I used an old DTV receiver as a signal strength meter to find Echo-7 and it worked fine for me, but it's been quite a while since I did it, so I don't remember the specifics. You might try putting the DTV receiver on transponder 22, because I think the DTV sat at 119 doesn't have the low transponders, since they are used by Dish. You'd have to be pretty far off on the aim not to see anything. Don't forget to use the proper magnetic deviation for your location, and with respect to elevation, don't forget that offset dishes are looking higher in the sky than they seem to be aimed. I can't remember what the angle is, but you can figure it out. Something like 22 deg or something like that. However, with the signal strength meter, if you have the azimuth set right, just slowly raise the dish until you get a reading.
It might help if you describe exactly what you did, ie your location, to make sure that your Az/El was calculated correctly. Once you find the sat, set up the Twinhan for a standard lnb with 11250 LO freq. I don't use MT, so I don't know how the freqs are entered in that, but I've seen posts which suggest that you may need to specify freqs in different units than with the VisionDTV and other software, but post with specifics about exactly what you are entering.

tivomon · #5 (**permalink**) 06-15-2004, 02:50 PM

hey I got this to work now, so I have actually 2 dishes, the one that is the 18" for playing and also a larger dish 24" with dual lnb that is the one with my DTV sub on. I connected the TwinHan to one of the ports of the multiswitch and I was able to dial in the LO and SAT frequency you sugested for NASA. This actually worked, I also picked up a bunch of music channels off this sat on other transponders.
:lol:
Now back to the poining issue. I'm stratching my head a little on this one. So if you put in your zip in to the DTV receiver it will give you an AZum and Elev, if I use a tool like sat tracker from lyngsat.com I notice that AZumths are very diffrent. So for example if I connect up the 18" single lnb to my DTV receiver and put in my zip, 9130x then it will give me an AZum of 137, if I connect to the dual lnb which is for 101 and 119 then the AZ will be 151. I'm guessing that make sence since it's splitting the diff between 101 and 119. but if I just use lyngsat.com, and put in my lat and long (34 and 118), cords, then it will give me an AZ of 180. I'm not really understand that. is there an magical offset that I am missing here ?

wejones · #6 (**permalink**) 06-15-2004, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tivomon

Now back to the poining issue. I'm stratching my head a little on this one. So if you put in your zip in to the DTV receiver it will give you an AZum and Elev, if I use a tool like sat tracker from lyngsat.com I notice that AZumths are very diffrent. So for example if I connect up the 18" single lnb to my DTV receiver and put in my zip, 9130x then it will give me an AZum of 137, if I connect to the dual lnb which is for 101 and 119 then the AZ will be 151. I'm guessing that make sence since it's splitting the diff between 101 and 119. but if I just use lyngsat.com, and put in my lat and long (34 and 118), cords, then it will give me an AZ of 180. I'm not really understand that. is there an magical offset that I am missing here ?

Did you try http://sadoun.com/Sat/Installation/S...Calculator.htm

I don't know what the calculator in a multi satellite DTV receiver does, but the single sat DTV receiver should give a fairly accurate number, but for the 101 satellite. The 151 seems to be pretty close for the "compass heading" for the 110 deg DTV sat, which is the middle of the 3 DTV sats.

For your lat/lon, the azimuth is approx 181 with an elevation of 50.5 . For the Echo-7 sat.

This is not corrected for magnetic deviation, however, which would be about -15 deg, so if you are using a compass, rather than using the sun or something, you should substract 15 from 181 to get a compass heading of around 166, approximately, for the Echo-7 sat. So in other words, I think that what was confusing you is the magnetic deviation. Ie you subtract 15 deg from the Azimuth to get your compass heading, which is apparently what the DTV receiver calculates.

tivomon · #7 (**permalink**) 06-25-2004, 12:00 AM

aww this all makes lots of sence. I have a question about lnbs and switches. I have again the two dishes the 18" and the 24 oval with 2 lnbs and the 4 way switch provided all by our friends at DTV. I can get the nasa channel just find now from 119 using the ovel dish with the switch, If I use a DTV tunder as a signal meter and point the 18" at 119 I can get a good signal, when I move over the cable from the dish to the PC I get zip, I'm not sure what the settings should be in Visions Plus.

wejones · #8 (**permalink**) 06-25-2004, 07:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tivomon

aww this all makes lots of sence. I have a question about lnbs and switches. I have again the two dishes the 18" and the 24 oval with 2 lnbs and the 4 way switch provided all by our friends at DTV. I can get the nasa channel just find now from 119 using the ovel dish with the switch, If I use a DTV tunder as a signal meter and point the 18" at 119 I can get a good signal, when I move over the cable from the dish to the PC I get zip, I'm not sure what the settings should be in Visions Plus.

If I understand that you are using a single satellite 18" dish, then your problem wouldn't involve switches. You said above that you were using MyTheatre, which I haven't used, so I can't comment on settings there, but from your symptoms suggest to me that either the lnb isn't getting power, or that it is getting the wrong voltage. Ie, if there is a setting to provide lnb power in mytheatre, make sure it is checked. Also, the polarity on your lnbf is controlled by the lnb voltage, and this is determined by you telling Mytheater that the signal you are tuning is L or R (or H or V) polarity. When you were providing power via the DTV receiver, the DTV receiver was providing power, and was determining which polarity you were watching, however now, it is your Twinhan that has to determine polarity. So you might just check to see what polarity you have checked, and try the other polarity. Just a guess.