fortec 4dtv combo

[treeman]

I have a fortec ultra with a ku feed from a 10' mesh dish looped thru to a 4dtv reciever. I get 15 ku feeds on X4(g16) clearly so I know I'm on the right sat. But when I try to view the ultra my quality meter never
budges off of 0. I've done scans and powerscans and tp scans to no avail.
My antenna set ups are standard lnb with1070 local lnb,as m1070 hemt is written on my ku lnb.Any suggestions?
Thanks, treeman

[elgemcdlf]

If all you are getting is 15 Ku channels you are not properly aligned. Your settings for the Ultra should be standard lnbf with a LO of 10750. So as long as you have everything wired correctly and your settings are correct I would align the dish using the Ultra and then reset the 4DTV box for that position. Are you certain you are getting Ku and not C band from the sat? Can you get channel 430? Even if it says it requires a sub can you receive it? 430 is on the Ku side of the sat.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by treeman

I have a fortec ultra with a ku feed from a 10' mesh dish looped thru to a 4dtv reciever. I get 15 ku feeds on X4(g16) clearly so I know I'm on the right sat. But when I try to view the ultra my quality meter never
budges off of 0. I've done scans and powerscans and tp scans to no avail.
My antenna set ups are standard lnb with1070 local lnb,as m1070 hemt is written on my ku lnb.Any suggestions?
Thanks, treeman

I agree with Steve about using 10750 not 1070 for the LO freq, although I don't think that would affect your ability to do a blind scan, but this missing digit thing is so far off that it might do strange things.
I think (as usual) that it's WAY too premature to conclude that you need to re-align. There is absolutely zero evidence of that.... yet. However Steve is right that there is something strange about what you are saying you see on Ku on this sat.
With the 4dtv, there are hundreds of scrambled DCII channels that are of the type that if you get one, you should get them all, not necessarily see video, but you should tune them. So I'm curious what 15 feeds you are receiving with the 4dtv? Steve is right that it may well be that you are seeing C-band, or it is possible that you are on the wrong sat (which is not an alignment issue), but to conclude that we'd have to see a list of just what you are seeing.

Another thing is that seeing nothing with the Ultra isn't really unexpected, depending upon how you do your scans. First of all, there isn't really much in the way of full time FTA on this sat. There are lots of transponders that you should lock, if you do the scan in the right way, but most of the transponders either don't have A/V channels (ie like Hughesnet data transponders), or they have scrambled channels that you can't view.
If you have done transponder scans or network scans or satellite scans, using default transponders, then it is not at all unexpected that you wouldn't find any channels. The power scan, however SHOULD find transponders, but since you have an Ultra, there are a lot of issues. First of all, if this is an Ultra which has been used for some time, and has a lot of channels/transponders saved, it may well be in the memory overload mode, in which it just simply won't scan in anything. If this is the case, you're best off using Gtools, and getting down under the transponder/channel limits.
If, however this is an Ultra that is "new", or has recently been reset to factory conditions, it should scan things in, *HOWEVER*, the Ultra, at least MY ULTRA, can be very flakey. It has a "Scan Range" setting that can be "Full", or "High" or "Low". You *SHOULD* be able to use the "FULL" mode, however with MY Ultra, the Full mode will generally miss transponders, whereas if I scan both in LOW and HIGH mode, I will generally pick up most transponders.
The other issue, is that if you do a scan in FTA mode, it may find the transponders, but won't find any channels, in this case, because the channels are scrambled. If you do your scans in ALL+D mode, it should find all channels, although it's likely that nothing will be viewable.
I would recommend putting your 4DTV on a vertical channel, like an even analog channel, like C-band channel 24 (I assume 24 would be the real transponder 24 on a 4dtv???). Then edit transponders on your Ultra, and add a "New" transponder at 12187V/8500 (ie frequency 12187 Symbol rate 8500, vertical polarity). Once added, go to transponder scan, and choose this transponder. See if you get both signal and quality indications. If you do tell it to scan, and use the ALL+D mode. It should scan in a handfull of channels, however they are all encrypted, so when you go to view them it will say bad or scrambled. This will insure that you are on the right sat.

Basically, I think that IF you are on the right sat, that there is really not much on that sat that can be viewed 24/7. Most of the transponders on that sat are used for DCII signals, and the channels that are in DVB mode that can be locked by a FTA receiver like the Ultra are mostly scrambled, plus the Ultra is prone to missing things anyway.

[elgemcdlf]

An additional as to alignment. Perhaps a poor choice of word. You can hit a sat with a 4DTV receiver and have a beautiful picture along with decent readings. When you switch to the DVB receiver using the same dish and settings you can have nothing at all. If you peak the 4DTV receiver using the DVB receiver as your "meter" you will / should have both 4DTV channels & the DVB FTA that is available. Also keep in mind the DVB receivers are touchy when compared to a big dish receiver. You have a tendancy to land in a different spot depending on which side you are coming from and on the bigger dishes this can amount to quite a bit for a DVB FTA receiver to deal with which is why I recommend dialing in with the DBV receiver.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

An additional as to alignment. Perhaps a poor choice of word. You can hit a sat with a 4DTV receiver and have a beautiful picture along with decent readings. When you switch to the DVB receiver using the same dish and settings you can have nothing at all. If you peak the 4DTV receiver using the DVB receiver as your "meter" you will / should have both 4DTV channels & the DVB FTA that is available. Also keep in mind the DVB receivers are touchy when compared to a big dish receiver. You have a tendancy to land in a different spot depending on which side you are coming from and on the bigger dishes this can amount to quite a bit for a DVB FTA receiver to deal with which is why I recommend dialing in with the DBV receiver.

I think what you're describing here is comparing tuning via signal meter vs via quality. If you've aimed the 4dtv via an analog signal using signal meter, then I agree that there can be a variation is where the sweet spot is since signal will be coming from sources other than the channel you're watching. Same thing with a DVB signal if you just look at signal, however if you tune via quality you're just looking at signal from the transponder in question, and this will generally do a better job than an analog signal meter.
I've found, however, that if I tune via a DCII channel, that I get more accuracy than if I tune via the DVB receivers, just because the meters on the DCII receivers are better than the meters on the various DVB receivers I have. I wish that the DVB receivers had better meters. Virtually all the receivers I have (except the Mercury), have meters that are very slow responding, and seem to not have much resolution (ie when you improve signal slightly they tend to jump from 50 ot 70, or something like that, with nothing in between). The Mercury seems to have faster response, but it just tends to jump around a lot, and is almost unuseable because it's changing so much, and as has been pointed out by others, in some menus the meters don't even register sometimes.

[elgemcdlf]

I have noticed I may high the high point for quality on the 922 and be able to bump as many as 6 times without it changing. Swap over to the DVB receiver and every bump shows an effect. When I get pixalation on the 922 with high readings I will swap over to the FTA receiver and fine tune location. When I jump back I have usually solved the problem.

[treeman]

Thanks for the responses, I've been working out of town,thus the lag time in this problem solving. As far as how many channels I get on X4, with the 922, the 15 I referred to in my original post was just an off the cuff number.
I get enough to think I'm reasonably aligned(ifc,lmn,tcm, outdoor.aande, hist,rfd,bravo). On channel 430, sometimes I get the speed channel,other times I just get the guide telling me its the speed channel and what is currently on. Some days I'll get a channel and other times it says please wait while we process your request. I must get the guide or a " need a subscription" message on at least 20 channels. The ultra has never had any channels stored so I don't think it is a memory prob.
I bought this receiver with 120cm dish and hh120 from Sadoun 3 years ago. It is a yearly fall ritual to try to get these football games. In 3 years,making 3or4 concerted efforts per fall, I have never ever, never got the quality meter to even blink off of 0. You could say I am a little frustrated, but I do get to try out a lot of new cuss word each fall as I stare at the flatline 0 in the quality column. Ihave never hooked up the motor and I got the 120cm so I would have a better chance of getting a signal,but to no avail. So now I am back to trying to get it with big dish and the set up described in my original post. I know everybody say's stick with it, it's not faulty equipment. Sometime, somewhere, it could be the equip. anyway,is there any advice out there, any thing untried? so long from satellite anti-reception center of the world

[wejones]

Originally Posted by treeman

Thanks for the responses, I've been working out of town,thus the lag time in this problem solving. As far as how many channels I get on X4, with the 922, the 15 I referred to in my original post was just an off the cuff number.
I get enough to think I'm reasonably aligned(ifc,lmn,tcm, outdoor.aande, hist,rfd,bravo). On channel 430, sometimes I get the speed channel,other times I just get the guide telling me its the speed channel and what is currently on. Some days I'll get a channel and other times it says please wait while we process your request. I must get the guide or a " need a subscription" message on at least 20 channels. The ultra has never had any channels stored so I don't think it is a memory prob.
I bought this receiver with 120cm dish and hh120 from Sadoun 3 years ago. It is a yearly fall ritual to try to get these football games. In 3 years,making 3or4 concerted efforts per fall, I have never ever, never got the quality meter to even blink off of 0. You could say I am a little frustrated, but I do get to try out a lot of new cuss word each fall as I stare at the flatline 0 in the quality column. Ihave never hooked up the motor and I got the 120cm so I would have a better chance of getting a signal,but to no avail. So now I am back to trying to get it with big dish and the set up described in my original post. I know everybody say's stick with it, it's not faulty equipment. Sometime, somewhere, it could be the equip. anyway,is there any advice out there, any thing untried? so long from satellite anti-reception center of the world

Re the Ultra never having any channels saved, that doesn't matter. It can still be over the transponder limit even if no channels have been saved, particularly if you have been trying blind scans for 3 years. The only easy way to tell is to run the Gtools channel editor and see if any of the various categories is over the limit. The default memory in the Ultra is already over half way to the transponder limit, so it doesn't take too many blind scans to go over the limit, particularly if you happen to hit on a DBS sat with lots of transponders but no FTA channels, plus you might pick up the same transponders twice if you do the default H/V scans instead of only scanning the polarity that the analog receiver is on.

But if you are receiving analog/DCII channels, you should be capable of locking DVB transponders, so it must be your settings, or an Ultra fluke.
BTW, in your previous post, you said that you were looping through the Ultra to the 4DTV. Are you using a DC-block? When you use the loop-thru, you really should separate the two receivers with a DC-block, but in that case, the Ultra will be powering the LNB, and the Ultra will be putting out either 13 or 18V depending on polarity, even though the 4DTV is still controlling the polarity. I can't remember off hand which polarity is 13, and which is 18, but some lnbs don't work well at 13 V, so you might try to do your searches both on H and V on the Ultra just to make sure you are scanning at 18V.

One other thing, rather than blind scans, you might be better off doing a transponder scan on a known transponder. That way, if it is one of the famous Ultra memory problems, it will give you a lock (signal and quality reading), whereas when you do blind scans, sometimes an Ultra in one of it's flakey modes, will just miss the transponders or miss channels, etc. If you find that you can lock known transponders in transponder scan, but still can't save any channels, then I'd recommend resetting your Ultra to factory conditions, and starting over.

[treeman]

I am still using the same set up as my original post. The target feed is now sat IA6, (L6 on 4dtv) 11890 freq, 6.149sr, 3/4 fec. I entered that info and edited it in on a new transponer happened to be number 12 on the fortec. Then did a transponder scan and found nothing. Next I scrolled through the factory transponders on IA6 and got quality readings between 40 and 82 on variuos transponders. Some transponders registered 0 including the new one I added. I then did a network scan and found 4 channels,"tv service 2" and "fox news " each of them listed twice. The fox news was just a picture bar and a tone, with some pixelation. The tv service 2 was a sports backhaul I presume(nevada and Idaho with great picture and sound). Why couldn't I get my reciever to find a known broadcast location but it picked up these other 2? Am I getting close and I just need some more peaking for signal? Thanks for the help
Treeman

[wejones]

Originally Posted by treeman

I am still using the same set up as my original post. The target feed is now sat IA6, (L6 on 4dtv) 11890 freq, 6.149sr, 3/4 fec. ...

After your original post, you got two responses saying that you were using the wrong LO freq, but you never confirmed whether that was a typo or if you really had it wrong.

Also, where did you find reference to the 11890 / 6.149 sr signal on IA6/G26? I don't see that listed in Lyngsat, and that signal is not there right now. So you're looking for a signal that simply isn't there. Also, are you trying to use that decimal point in the ultra? Ie 6.149 or 6149 ?

[treeman]

Yes, I changed the LO freq to 10750 right after those first posts. The broadcast is a sportys backhaul only used saturday for the game so I'm not surprised it isn't listed on Lyngesat. The school wewbsite gives it out each week before the game. I would like to use the decimal point but don't know how to get it in, so I amjust entering 6149. As for the DC block thing, I am just looping through the in/out on the back of the fortec.(from the dish to the fortec and then out to the KU in on the 4dtv. If I shut off the lnb power in settings on the fortec then I get nothing.
Thanks for the help, I'm kind of fired up again, now that I got something with a scan.
Treeman

[wejones]

Originally Posted by treeman

Yes, I changed the LO freq to 10750 right after those first posts. The broadcast is a sportys backhaul only used saturday for the game so I'm not surprised it isn't listed on Lyngesat.

Oh, OK. That explains why I don't see anything there during the week.

Originally Posted by treeman

The school wewbsite gives it out each week before the game. I would like to use the decimal point but don't know how to get it in, so I amjust entering 6149.

Yeah. That's what you should enter.

Originally Posted by treeman

As for the DC block thing, I am just looping through the in/out on the back of the fortec.(from the dish to the fortec and then out to the KU in on the 4dtv. If I shut off the lnb power in settings on the fortec then I get nothing.

It is usually safer to use a DC block, otherwise, you're feeding lnb voltage from the 4DTV into the Fortec, and it's not clear what that might do. One person here has had luck doing that, and the analog receiver worked when the DVB receiver was turned off, but it's a lot better to put in a DC block. Radio Shack used to sell them, and they were only a couple dollars. I don't see them listed anymore at the RS web page, but they may still have them in stores.
From what you say, ie it not working when the Fortec power is off, it sounds like the voltage from the 4DTV must not be getting through.
I assume that you are changing polarity with the 4DTV, because the Fortec will not be able to change polarity on a big dish feed, unless you're using an lnbf on the big dish. Also, again assuming that you're controlling polarity of a polarotor feed via the 4DTV, AND, if the Fortec is indeed providing the power to the LNB, it is best to choose the polarity on the Fortec that gives 18V, not 13V (I forget whether H or V is 18V). Ie some LNBs don't work well when powered at 13V, and since you don't need the 13V for selecting polarity, leave it at 18V (or try both polarities on the Fortec).

[treeman]

I originally said if I shut the lnb power off on the fortec I get nothing. I actually get nothing on the fortec, but the 4dtv works just fine. The 4dtv works the same with the fortec turned on or off. Right now the channel saved from last saturday that was the fox news color bar comes in with a strong green quality bar. Where do I find the place to change the power of my scans on the ultra,i.e. full or high or low? Also where is the 13vor18v setting adjustment? One last thing, if I put a DC block on the ku feed the way it is set up now, wouldn't it block ther lnb power continuously, Thanks for the help.
Treeman

[wejones]

Originally Posted by treeman

... Where do I find the place to change the power of my scans on the ultra,i.e. full or high or low? Also where is the 13vor18v setting adjustment? One last thing, if I put a DC block on the ku feed the way it is set up now, wouldn't it block ther lnb power continuously, Thanks for the help.
Treeman

Re the Full/High/Low thing, that is in the power scan, Symbol range, and with the Ultra, if you do a power scan, the "full" setting doesn't work very well. I do scans both in high and low. If you know what the SR value is, you can select the appropriate one, ie since you know it 6149, use the low setting if you're doing a power scan.

Re the 13V vs 18V, the fortec uses an lnb voltage of 13V for one polarity, and 18V for the other polarity (I can't remember which is which. And since your ULTRA is powering an LNB which prefers 18V, you should try to use the appropriate polarity, regardless of which polarity the signal actually is, because your 4DTV is controlling the polarity.

Re the DC-block, I'd put that between the Fortec and the 4DTV, just to protect the Ultra from the external power source. Your Ultra will be providing power to the LNB, since the DC block isn't between the ULTRA and the LNB. The DC block may not be absolutely necessary, but it is safer to use it.

[treeman]

After having limited success with my ultra and big dish combo, I thought I would try my hh120 w/fc120 again. Following the instructions on this website,I was able to get a signal on my due south sat.(G10@123 W).The quality bounces around from 75 to 92 but more importantly Iam finally"in the green". Now I have to eat crow as i have harbored secret feelings that is was not me ,but my equipment that was faulty. After locking up G10, I moved to IA6 and had no quality so either my trues south is off or is it possible that there is nothing to lock onto on that sat? What other sat's would be best for testing my traking the arc?
Thank's the Treeman