Dish alignment

[glen4cindy]

Is it typical for dishes to lose alignment over the winter?

I have not used my dish in several months. Over the summer I was having massive problems and found my switch to be full of water. I still have the same switch but it appears to be dry now. The only channels I seem to be able to get are NASA on the DN satellite and G10R. When I try to motor to 97 and others I get nothing where I did over the summer.

Everything is tight, and the connections seem good, but, I just am not getting much. I don't get everything on G10R that is shown on Lyngsat. I get 38 channels, though I have not done a blind scan, and I did have to add a transponder to get about 12 more.

[Edit: Okay, I just did a blind scan on this bird and now have 50 FTA channels and 5 with a $ by the number which means they are not FTA.]

I noticed that my dish is a little sloppy on the elevation but this seems to be a motor issue. I posted a question here about that last summer and was told that my motor may get a little loose on the elevation.

With this in mind, I don't know if I need to wait until spring and get out there and start from my true south and align again or just what to do about this. What do you guys think?

Thanks.

[Sadoun]

Most likely your mast might have sagged down about a 1-2 degrees or less. Use USALS to move to G25, then, using a live transponder on G25, adjust the
the mast up a little.

[glen4cindy]

Originally Posted by Sadoun

Most likely your mast might have sagged down about a 1-2 degrees or less. Use USALS to move to G25, then, using a live transponder on G25, adjust the
the mast up a little.

What do you mean by the mast? My primary mount is a 2" heavy gauge metal fence post down several inches in concrete.

If you are talking about the piece that comes out of the motor at 30 degrees, how do you adjust that up or down?

Thanks!

[rainman]

I think what Sadoun is talking about is the dish elevation adjustment.
if your motor shaft has slop it will never truly be in align thats the problem I had with the stab 100 I would get it align move across the arc and it would be off again. got a DG 240 last summer and have not had anymore alignment problems.and the DG also has a backlash adjustment to remove slop.

[Sadoun]

I meant the pole. Make sure it is still plumb.

[glen4cindy]

I went out to the dish, and right now, there is no slop in the dish at all.

I also did a factory reset on my second receiver and now I have less than I did before.

123 is very weak now. Signal at about 70% and quality at 30% on 11800. I tried going to 1.2 and bumping the dish east and west with no improvement so I guess I need to nudge the elevation up or down a bit.

I cannot get anything now on 110/119. Before I was picking up NASA and the free demo channels. Although they are not worth watching, at least it is a way to make sure the system is working!

I think I need a new switch since the last one was full of water at one time. Doing anything until I get a new one might not make much sense. Question is, how do I keep the new one from filling up with water again? Does Sadoun sell boots and terminators for the unused ports? I am only using 2 of the 4 ports on the switch.

Wish it was spring so I could really get out there and mess with this. I did not realize how much I missed it!

[Sadoun]

For a weather protected DiSEqC switch consider #2 0r #4 here: DirecTV and DSS, FTA Multiswitshes Multi switches DiSEqC

[glen4cindy]

Well, it was warmer today, and I went out and messed with the dish some. There is some slop in the dish arm that comes out of the motor. I am going to try and tighten that up, but, with my wife inside, I was moving the whole dish up and down with not much change in the signal/quality so I don't think that is my problem.

I can't find my level right now to see if my mount is still plumb.

When I moved the motor to reference and then to G-25 I was able to scan about 100 channels. I moved to AMC 4 and scanned about 20 or so, but, on AMC 3 I got like 12 but the signal is really bad and quality is next to nothing so something is really wrong! I just don't know what just yet.

My switch seems to be working. On my 2nd box which I am using to do all of this, it has a skew setting for each transponder. It does not seem to care what this value is set at, there is also a 22KHz setting which I am leaving OFF and the diseqc setting that I am setting to port 1 which is where I have the L wire coming off my LNB to the switch.

As of now, I can get G25, AMC 4, and G10R with reasonable signal and watchable quality, but, not any others.

I'm in St. Louis, MO if that means anything to the more experienced.

[rainman]

if you are using usals try switching to disqec 1.2 and bump the dish east and west a little and see if the signal gets stronger if it does it's do to the slop in your motor.

[glen4cindy]

Originally Posted by rainman

if you are using usals try switching to disqec 1.2 and bump the dish east and west a little and see if the signal gets stronger if it does it's do to the slop in your motor.

Yes, this has done the trick. After moving to the satellite, I switched to 1.2, did one "bump" west and my quality went really high. It is still not consistent though. I had to motor to 123 and back to another 3 or 4 times before it locked in.

Someone suggested adjusting my longitude in USALS to fudge the motor but, I was not successful in getting this to work.

Do I have to keep track of what "position" I keep each satellite in when using 1.2?

I'm hoping I can adjust the allen bolt and get the slop out of my motor. I only installed it last summer!

[rainman]

the only problem with using 1.2 or cheating the longitude settings when the motor has slop is if you go to the sat from the west it will be a different position when coming from the east what I did when I had the problem was leave it in usals then when I got to the sat switch to 1.2 bump it for best quality then watch the program I wanted to see. then switch it back to usals and go to the next sat and start the process over. it was a nusiance but work untill i got a new motor.

[glen4cindy]

Originally Posted by rainman

the only problem with using 1.2 or cheating the longitude settings when the motor has slop is if you go to the sat from the west it will be a different position when coming from the east what I did when I had the problem was leave it in usals then when I got to the sat switch to 1.2 bump it for best quality then watch the program I wanted to see. then switch it back to usals and go to the next sat and start the process over. it was a nusiance but work untill i got a new motor.

I was afraid a new motor was my only choice. I have been messing with it today. When I set go to ref, I was like 2 to 3 degrees off 0. I have motored to 3 different satellites okay but I am still testing. I hate to have to buy a new motor!

There was no tightening the allen bolt. It was tight as it could get.

What is a better motor to get than the one I have?

I have thought about a whole new setup with a T90, but, I cannot get all the sats I wish to get with that setup, plus, it's alot cheaper just to buy a new motor.

[rainman]

I have a DG 240 and I love it it even has a adjustment for shaft backlash if you need it been on and running great for about 7 months now.

[glen4cindy]

Just to update this thread, turns out that my Reference point was about 2 degrees off.

I went out when it was warm, re-zeroed the motor and did a reset and now I am hitting all the satellites again without any problems.

Thanks again.

[rainman]

glad to here it wasn't a motor.