Fortec Platinum NA/SG2100

pr1947 · #1 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 08:47 AM

I have a situation with my receiver Fortec Platinum NA and the SG2100 motor. Peaking my dish becomes critical when attempting to lock in a weak signal. When I move the dish either East or West the motor never stop were is suppose to. The only way I can make a micro adjustment is by using the micro adjustment bottom on the motor. Is this a common problem with this unit or is it just me? I have one more question concerning SBS 6, AMC 3 & and AMC 1, are they hard to fine tune? Most of the signals I get from these birds are weak.

thanks,

elgemcdlf · #2 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 09:06 AM

Your dish is not aligned properly. With a properly aligned dish utilizing USALS the Platinum combined with the SG2100 will land on every sat just fine. I run the same config and with an old dish was tracking from 30 in the east to 123 in the west with 87 being my center. Physical obstruction kept me from going any further west. Make small changes to both motor elevation and dish elevation until you have the dish tracking the arc correctly.

I am currently setting up a 90cm dish that is not complete yet but at this time is tracking from 123 to 43 with no problems.

wejones · #3 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr1947

I have a situation with my receiver Fortec Platinum NA and the SG2100 motor. Peaking my dish becomes critical when attempting to lock in a weak signal. When I move the dish either East or West the motor never stop were is suppose to. The only way I can make a micro adjustment is by using the micro adjustment bottom on the motor. Is this a common problem with this unit or is it just me? I have one more question concerning SBS 6, AMC 3 & and AMC 1, are they hard to fine tune? Most of the signals I get from these birds are weak.

thanks,

In my opinion, I'd bet that it's the SG2100 motor at fault. My motor will not stop at the same place. I had my whole arc saved, then went back to go back to positions I had previously saved, and it wouldn't go back to sats it was previously going to. Also, I tried a goto zero, or whatever it's called, and went out to see where the motor had stopped, and it wasn't even close to zero.... I couldn't get my head in there to read the markings, but it looked to be about 5 degrees off zero. Out of the box, it was maybe 1 degree off.
I am becoming convinced that they have some quality control problems with this motor, because mine will just not remember where it's at.

Someone else posted that it might have to do with the motor losing data when it loses power, which is very possible. In my case, I'm removing power from the thing a lot, but the motor problems don't seem to coincide with the power outages, they seem more related to how far off zero I've driven the thing.

Ie, for example, if I keep the thing between AMC-5 and G-16, the thing doesn't seem to get lost, but if I go further east or west, it will often find the sat there, but not be able to find it's way back to AMC3. Sometimes it has been WAY off, like I checked where it had gone, and it was about 3 satellites away!

It is possible that I am confusing the thing, because I've been using 3 different programs to run the thing, but it shouldn't be forgetting where it's zero is, which seems to be the case with my 2100.

I think this motor has QA/QC issues. Obviously some are OK, but too many people are having problems for this to be user error.

wejones · #4 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr1947

I have one more question concerning SBS 6, AMC 3 & and AMC 1, are they hard to fine tune? Most of the signals I get from these birds are weak.

Forgot to respond to this one.
On SBS6, that religious channel is about the strongest signal I've run into. The NBC NETUI thing is moderate, but not difficult to tune. Over the years, I've seen signal strength vary quite a bit on SBS6 on the occasional video things. I think they often try to use minimum power, so some are strong and some are weak. But that religious thing is always strong.

AMC3 is just average, doesn't give me any problems.

AMC1, however is always a problem for systems with LNBFs, because the polarization is off by about 22 deg on this sat, and there is no way to adjust it with an lnbf. I was able to receive a couple of the strong signals on it, but didn't waste too much time on that sat, because I know I'd do better on my big dish that has a polarotor. So if you have problems on that sat, it's probably polarity.

pr1947 · #5 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 11:11 AM

I believe I have the dish were is suppose to be. I also realize that I need to fine tune it a bit. The problems I have are mostly with SBS 6 and AMC 3. For what ever reason I can get a good signal. By the way the religion ch is on AMC 6 and it comes in at 80%. But, I tend to agree that the motor has gone loco on me. When ever I move the dish, some kind of tweaking has to be done to fine tune the dish. Maybe I should be looking into buy a new motor. Thank you guy for your help.

Jose

reho33 · #6 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 11:45 AM

That is the GBN Gospel Broadcasting Network. It is on AMC6 at 72W You need to come back west a bit to get SBS6 at 74W. It is my true south sat as I am at 74.47W. Scan 11741 V at 6616SR for ONN, that should get you going right. I use an SG2100 motor and DISQeC for movement. Aside fro the occasional "touch up" everything seems to line up quite nicely.

wejones · #7 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 12:23 PM

Oh, yeah. Sorry, re the religious channel and NBC, you're right, that WAS on AMC6. Sorry. I guess it's Ohio News that's on SBS6. I can't remember, but I think that's a reasonably strong signal too, at least I didn't have any problem with it. But as I said, anything O/V on SBS6 could be weak or strong. SBS6 has always been a very variable sat for me, even 8 or 9 years ago when it was all analog, some things would come in boominb, and other things I could barely see. It used to annoy me, because every year in the fall they used to have the Miramar Air Show on SBS6, but it was always quite weak for me. Last year I lost it completely, but that was because the pine trees finally took over that part of the arc, but I cut one down, so I'll have to check to see when the air show is this year. Maybe I can get it again.

Anyway, sorry about mixing up SBS6 and AMC6. At least I got the 6 right.

reho33 · #8 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 02:31 PM

And remember too Bill that SBS6 is an "old" sat (launched 1990. It is already 1 year over it's usable life. Sometimes ONN is 40-45 % lock and sometimes it ain't there at all.

boroda1 · #9 (**permalink**) 09-05-2006, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr1947

I believe I have the dish were is suppose to be. I also realize that I need to fine tune it a bit. The problems I have are mostly with SBS 6 and AMC 3. For what ever reason I can get a good signal. By the way the religion ch is on AMC 6 and it comes in at 80%. But, I tend to agree that the motor has gone loco on me. When ever I move the dish, some kind of tweaking has to be done to fine tune the dish. Maybe I should be looking into buy a new motor. Thank you guy for your help.

Jose

Did you check a dish for freeplay around that bent motor poll?
I remember, my dish baracket was wiggling around that poll, and it took just to tighten two bolts to overcome this!