FORTEC STAR FC100CM with Digipower SG2100

[Greer]

I recently purchased a SG2100 Motor and then decided I wanted to try out a quad LNB. My dish wouldn't work with LNB so I then ordered the FC100CM dish.

Did I make a mistake? Does the SG2100 motor work with the FC100CM dish?

I can't seem to make it track.

I replaced the shaft with the larger shaft for the bigger dish.

I have set up a bunch of dishes in the past - includeing C/Ku dishes but this one is killing me!

I'm at (40.51218413026553, -111.95495367050171) and I'm setting the motor latitude to as close to 40.5 as possible. (not easy to do with the funky washer pointers) Due south should be pretty close but I'll double check at high-noon today. The dish angle (elevation) is kind of crap shoot - not sure where to line up the 23.7 on the dish (30 - my declination angle of 6.3) but I peaked 110 using the dish angle. 110 is the closest to due south.

Problem is it doesn't seem to matter what I do - I can't get anything other than 1 satellite at a time. I know this is a problem tracking but I'm begining to think I am doing something stupid. Maybe I assembled the dish/lnb incorrectly? Seems pretty striaght forward.

Any suggestions? Anyone have an FC100CM working with a SG2100?

Thanks!

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Greer

I recently purchased a SG2100 Motor and then decided I wanted to try out a quad LNB. My dish wouldn't work with LNB so I then ordered the FC100CM dish.

Did I make a mistake? Does the SG2100 motor work with the FC100CM dish?

I can't seem to make it track.

I replaced the shaft with the larger shaft for the bigger dish.

I have set up a bunch of dishes in the past - includeing C/Ku dishes but this one is killing me!

I'm at (40.51218413026553, -111.95495367050171) and I'm setting the motor latitude to as close to 40.5 as possible. (not easy to do with the funky washer pointers) Due south should be pretty close but I'll double check at high-noon today. The dish angle (elevation) is kind of crap shoot - not sure where to line up the 23.7 on the dish (30 - my declination angle of 6.3) but I peaked 110 using the dish angle. 110 is the closest to due south.

Problem is it doesn't seem to matter what I do - I can't get anything other than 1 satellite at a time. I know this is a problem tracking but I'm begining to think I am doing something stupid. Maybe I assembled the dish/lnb incorrectly? Seems pretty striaght forward.

Any suggestions? Anyone have an FC100CM working with a SG2100?

Thanks!

I don't have that dish, but it should work fine with SG2100.
If your motor is the same as mine, look at :
http://eskerridge.com/bj/motorscaleind.jpg
this shows where I found the"funky washers" indicated best.

Re high noon, make sure you use astronomical noon. There are several web sites. I use Sun or Moon Altitude/Azimuth Table
get the table for your location, and find the time that corresponds to the sun being at 180 deg. Make sure you convert from std time to daylight time.

Make sure you enter latitude (and I recommend that you use 41.2 instead of 40.5 .. see:
BJDISCALC2 ), on the "latitude scale, not the elevation scale. Elevation is 90-lat.

Also, I recommend using a declination of 5.7 , again from above calculator.

Also, your dish elevation calculation is assuming a shaft bend of 30 degrees. Make sure that your motor shaft isn't one of those that has a bend of 35 degrees. Some SG2100s use 35-declination, others use 30-declination.

[Greer]

Great info - thank you.

I haven't finished setting it up but I did check for due south yesterday afternoon and I was way off.

I'll set the elevation and declination as you suggested and see how it goes.

Thanks again!

[Greer]

Hmmm... Sorry to bother you again but...

How did you come up with the numbers? When I put my numbers into the calc I get different answers.

Did I miss a step?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Greer

Hmmm... Sorry to bother you again but...

How did you come up with the numbers? When I put my numbers into the calc I get different answers.

Did I miss a step?

I assume you're talking about the declination calculation?
Are you talking about MY calculator, or the Sadoun chart?
If you put your 40.5 latitude into the Sadoun chart, it will tell you the declination of a sat to your south, roughly 6.32 . This is not the best number to use, however.
If you put a latitude of 40.5 into my calculator, it will give you this same south declination, but then recommend that you use a declination of 5.645, ie the declination of a sat near your east or west horizon {I rounded this off to 5.7 below, perhaps 5.6 would have been more correct rounding}. It also calculates a modified latitude setting of 41.19 . This is from just entering 40.5 into the calculator and clicking the calculate button.
What number did you input and what result?