Trouble on getting arc, need help

[larry love]

Anybody have a simple routine for getting on the arc? I am having dif determining which bird I am pointed at..I have looked at the channels I am bringing in with the power scan and they do not match the ones I am looking for...I look at the channels I bring up and compare them to Lyngsat chart and determine the channels are on another bird not the one I am looking for...how do I correct to get the right when say I am on a bird that is 4 degrees west from the one I am looking for?

Another subject...when you do a power scan and are pointed at a bird you get freqs polarity sig rate for the transponders that are picked up..some of these have a bracketed plus after them and some don't..what does that mean?

[pmb1010]

what' s your equipment, the settings you've calculated, motor type, your zip code?

That'll get us started.

[elgemcdlf]

Rotate the entire assembly on the mast to the east 4 degrees. You are also either high or low depending on what you are looking for and what you have. Assuming true south sat your dish elevation needs to come up a bit also.

[larry love]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

what' s your equipment, the settings you've calculated, motor type, your zip code?

That'll get us started.

Am Using:
Fortec Star Mercury II
HH90 Motor
80P Fortec dish
Std LNBF
Location Lexington,KY
Lat 38. N Long 84.4 W
Mtr elev 38 dish elevation 38 + 5= about 43
TS 185
Trying to use AMC2 as South Sat

Thanks

[larry love]

Originally Posted by larry love

Anybody have a simple routine for getting on the arc? I am having dif determining which bird I am pointed at..I have looked at the channels I am bringing in with the power scan and they do not match the ones I am looking for...I look at the channels I bring up and compare them to Lyngsat chart and determine the channels are on another bird not the one I am looking for...how do I correct to get the right when say I am on a bird that is 4 degrees west from the one I am looking for?

Another subject...when you do a power scan and are pointed at a bird you get freqs polarity sig rate for the transponders that are picked up..some of these have a bracketed plus after them and some don't..what does that mean?

Wanted to add this question again..have an answer?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by larry love

Anybody have a simple routine for getting on the arc? I am having dif determining which bird I am pointed at..I have looked at the channels I am bringing in with the power scan and they do not match the ones I am looking for...I look at the channels I bring up and compare them to Lyngsat chart and determine the channels are on another bird not the one I am looking for...how do I correct to get the right when say I am on a bird that is 4 degrees west from the one I am looking for?

Another subject...when you do a power scan and are pointed at a bird you get freqs polarity sig rate for the transponders that are picked up..some of these have a bracketed plus after them and some don't..what does that mean?

There are several possible reasons for what you are observing, and the cure depends on just what you have done.
However *MY* simple routine, is:
1) Send your motor to it's zero position, and make sure it indicates zero on the motor.
2) Go to antenna setup section receiver in your receiver for your due south satellite. Go to the USALS section, and set up your Lat/Lon and the satellite's longitude, and tell it to go to the satellite. Your dish shoul move only slightly.
3) Set up the latitude scale on your motor to your latitude + 0.6 degrees.
4) Set up the dish elevation according to your motor's instructions, which is usually the angle of the bend in the motor shaft minus your declination, ideally the declination of a western satellite.
5) Line up your motor as close as possible to aiming at true south, not magnetic south.
6) Tune your receiver to a KNOWN transponder, usually using the transponder scan option, which will give you a signal/quality meter.
7) Using your receiver/TV out at the dish, or a handheld meter, slowly raise and/or lower the dish elevation, looking for a signal. Signal isn't important, quality is. When you find a signal, make fine adjustments of the dish elevation, and by moving the whole assembly on the pole very slightly.
8) You might do a power scan here just to make sure that you are on the right satellite. If not, search for that sat, and don't change anything other than the dish elevation and whole assembly on pole until you find it.
9) Once you find, and have peaked on your true south sat, then go to the antenna setup for a sat closer to your east or west horizon. Using USALS, tell the receiver to go to that sat.
10) Again, go to the transponder scan, enter a KNOWN transponder and watch the signal/quality meters.
11) Again, out at the dish, try to find and peak the signal, however this time DO NOT TOUCH the dish elevation. Only search by moving the whole assembly on the pole. Once you find the peak, you should make VERY FINE adjustments by turning the whole assembly on the pole. Don't try to peak, but after each adjustment, bump the motor east/west using the buttons on the motor, peaking the signal as good as you can. If the signal is better after peaking via the motor buttons, then adjust the mount on pole more in same direction, otherwise go back in the other direction. Ie the signal may get worse when you move the whole mount on the pole, but it may get better after bumping the motor.
12) Eventually, you will get to the best possible signal on this east or west satellite. If you have done all the steps above right, and if your pole is plumb, then you are done. At this point, you can go to each sat and do a power scan to find channels.

[larry love]

Have the ant set up for AMC3 and am getting NBC Now which is on Galaxy 28 bird...How do I get on the proper arc from here????????

[pmb1010]

you must follow the excellent instructions - to the letter - from above

i'll attach a pic of what i think you have going on
look in this thread
http://www.sadoun.net/forums/faq-new...found-sat.html

ignore the 61.5 it was from another guy on here with your exact same issue.

[Bibbler]

Larry...

pmb1010 is correct. Attempts to shortcut will drive ya nuts and it will take forever to align the dish. Bill's directions are indeed excellent and if you follow them step by step, you'll be tracking the arc in no time... For me, I've had little luck with signal meters, I always take a 12" portable TV out to the dish...

[elgemcdlf]

Originally Posted by larry love

Have the ant set up for AMC3 and am getting NBC Now which is on Galaxy 28 bird...How do I get on the proper arc from here????????

It is impossible to offer advice with this for information. Where are you trying to be? What have you done? Have you followed Bill's instructs and are pointed at this sat? It will also be easier for most of us here if you give longitude of the sat and not name. We just have to look it up and find longitude anyway. You are trying to lock onto a sat with only feeds (your reference to AMC2). Use 87 as your alignment sat and use the tp for the TIP channel as it seems to be the easiest to find on that sat. Follow Bill's instructs telling the motor to goto AMC3 or 87. You could also use 79 but it is farther away from your true south. The tp to use on 79 would be the Telemundo channel. Does not matter if you speak Spanish or not it is a solid tp that is easy to locate.

In any case you can not advance beyond this point until you have accomplished this task so trying to move forward prior to will only prove very frustrating.

[larry love]

I think I am on the arc finally but the problems persist.... I first tried to use AMC 2 -85 degrees as my southern sat cause 85 is my longitude but I never got a signal of any kind (none of the feeds) so I switched to AMC 3 - 87 degrees still could not get a signal..while doing some of the messing around that I been doing for the last ten days I got a signal and good video on Galaxy 28 - 89 degrees so I used 89 Sat as my southern to establish the calculation point for USALS. This seemed to work as I got signal indication alll along the arc when I scaned the various FTA Sats..but after doing a ;power scan on each sat I would get transponders read and the the save screen would come up but nothing to save..for example: Scanned Galaxy 25 97 degrees input transponder 11783 V 20000 got a signal of 73% and 43% quality and the save screen came up with nothing to save...the only sat I have been able to get a picture on is Galaxy 28 at 89 degrees. I got the sat info from the ftalist.com site dtd
4-15-07 so I am thinking the info is correct..

Any ideas?????????

[pmb1010]

What scan are you doing? (is there a menu name?)
Reason I ask, in my Lifetime Ultra there is transponder scan, sat scan, network scan, and blind scan. Each has their purpose.

The blind scan (kinda) goes from one end to the other, looking for signals, typically FTA (non-encrypted). So even though your indication during the search shows something, the system "throws it away" because it's encrypted. That can do what you say, go thru all the motions and get no results found.

Identify a known transponder that has 24x7 signal for each satellite.
So see if you can find/identify these.

79 - Utah Education 11742V - classrooms, slides
89 - ABC News One 11955V - news (I'm not so sure about 24x7 on this one)
93 - University Network 11865V - doctor scott - either him or his wife...
101 - Fox 11708V - says fox on the screen

So I'd suggest using USALS to get to these, set your unit on these transponders to make sure you have a signal, and do transponder scan.
if on the right sat, these channels should come in.

You might want to verify your dish is actually moving. We've had reports of folks think their dish is moving, but they are scanning the same sat all the time, and its got nothing on it but data and scrambled stuff with no FTA. Good signals, no channels.

[pmb1010]

Originally Posted by larry love

Scanned Galaxy 25 97 degrees input transponder 11783 V 20000 got a signal of 73% and 43% quality

where did this come from?

Look here:
Galaxy 25 at 97.0°W - LyngSat

This shows what's out there too. Look for "A", "F", DVB and numbers higher than over 9999 (lower is C band)
That has the transponder numbers for each sat...

Good luck!

[wejones]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

where did this come from?

Look here:
Galaxy 25 at 97.0°W - LyngSat

This shows what's out there too. Look for "A", "F", DVB and numbers higher than over 9999 (lower is C band)
That has the transponder numbers for each sat...

Good luck!

Only thing close to that I could find was on Echo-9, tp5, which is scrambled, but should scan in a bunch of foreign channels if you tell it scan in scrambled channels, otherwise it wouldn't find anything to save.

Originally Posted by larry love

I think I am on the arc finally but the problems persist.... I first tried to use AMC 2 -85 degrees as my southern sat cause 85 is my longitude but I never got a signal of any kind (none of the feeds)

The feeds aren't there all the time. They come and go. More often than not, you won't find anything. The 12196 test card is there all the time though.

Originally Posted by larry love

so I switched to AMC 3 - 87 degrees still could not get a signal..while doing some of the messing around that I been doing for the last ten days I got a signal and good video on Galaxy 28 - 89 degrees so I used 89 Sat as my southern to establish the calculation point for USALS. This seemed to work as I got signal indication alll along the arc when I scaned the various FTA Sats..but after doing a ;power scan on each sat I would get transponders read and the the save screen would come up but nothing to save..for example: Scanned Galaxy 25 97 degrees input transponder 11783 V 20000 got a signal of 73% and 43% quality and the save screen came up with nothing to save...the only sat I have been able to get a picture on is Galaxy 28 at 89 degrees. I got the sat info from the ftalist.com site dtd
4-15-07 so I am thinking the info is correct..

Any ideas?????????

It is possible to do an alignment without finding your south sat first, but is really making it much harder. I know that it is tempting when you find signals elsewhere, and you think you are getting close, but you really would be better off going back to AMC2 and starting over. If I'm right about the Echo-9 thing above, then you are way off.

[elgemcdlf]

Originally Posted by larry love

I think I am on the arc finally but the problems persist.... I first tried to use AMC 2 -85 degrees as my southern sat cause 85 is my longitude but I never got a signal of any kind (none of the feeds) so I switched to AMC 3 - 87 degrees still could not get a signal..while doing some of the messing around that I been doing for the last ten days I got a signal and good video on Galaxy 28 - 89 degrees so I used 89 Sat as my southern to establish the calculation point for USALS. This seemed to work as I got signal indication alll along the arc when I scaned the various FTA Sats..but after doing a ;power scan on each sat I would get transponders read and the the save screen would come up but nothing to save..for example: Scanned Galaxy 25 97 degrees input transponder 11783 V 20000 got a signal of 73% and 43% quality and the save screen came up with nothing to save...the only sat I have been able to get a picture on is Galaxy 28 at 89 degrees. I got the sat info from the ftalist.com site dtd
4-15-07 so I am thinking the info is correct..

Any ideas?????????

How did you get to 89? You should be aligning your dish to what you believe is true south and then with USALS tell the dish to GoTo ... I would choose 87 as it is closer than 89 and it has active tp's. When the motor stops start fishing by manually moving the assembly on the mast and work with dish elevation. Once you find it peak the signal and then try to find another sat with USALS. Hopefully you are on the arc.