31" to small?

[DougJH]

HI,

Well, since I got my FTA setup up and running, I seem to be able to get 3 satellites with good enough signal to lock onto. The rotor does a good job going from one to the other.

I really wanted AMC3 but it seems to elude me. Can my dish perhaps be too small? Does anyone have any tips or tricks for improving the signal strength?

Thanks, DOug

[rainman]

won't be much help as my smallest dish is 36" lock amc 3 with a 85% quality.
the bigger the dish the better the quality but you still should be able to get enough quality from the 31" to lock amc 3. you may need to tweak your alignment a little more.

[elgemcdlf]

Agree with Rainman. Sounds like alignment to me unless you are just in a fringe area for the beam. I have a 31" dish and never had any problems with it. I upgraded to a 36" and have really seem no appreciable difference other than slightly higher signal and quality readings. Less drop out in storms.

If you are only getting 3 sats you sound like alignment is off a bit. Again depending on your location you should be getting pretty much every sat roughly 55 degrees each way from center. There are sats at almost every 2 degrees. Lyngsat can provide a list of sats and channels.

[William Eng]

No problem getting AMC3 with my 31 inch dish, most of the PBS stuff is at 46% signal strength.

Try this before you loosen the nuts and bolts and go changing the elevation, etc. Loosen your LNB holder and skew it a little to the left/right and see if you get any signal change, but make sure you are looking at an active transponder frequency. It best to perform this with 2 people, have your spouse watch the reading from the TV and give you feedback.

[elgemcdlf]

Originally Posted by William Eng

No problem getting AMC3 with my 31 inch dish, most of the PBS stuff is at 46% signal strength.

Try this before you loosen the nuts and bolts and go changing the elevation, etc. Loosen your LNB holder and skew it a little to the left/right and see if you get any signal change, but make sure you are looking at an active transponder frequency. It best to perform this with 2 people, have your spouse watch the reading from the TV and give you feedback.

Don't forget to stay below the dish while doing this. In other words loosen the lnbf and only put your hand up there trying to keep your arm in line with the arm of the dish. Or you can move and stand away. Move again stand away. Getting the picture?

[William Eng]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

Don't forget to stay below the dish while doing this. In other words loosen the lnbf and only put your hand up there trying to keep your arm in line with the arm of the dish. Or you can move and stand away. Move again stand away. Getting the picture?

Another words, don't block the signal with your body . While we are on the topic of the LNB, also make sure that you have your LNB pushed all the way back on the holder so that it is as far away from the dish as possible. Sometimes people think that having the LNB closer to dish gives them a better signal

If this doesn't work. Try re-scanning AMC3 with again, but set the receiver to receive "ALL" not just "FTA", also adjust the search frequency increments lower to "3". This way, your receiver won't skip over any of the transponder frequencies.

[DougJH]

Well, I figured out what was going on! The transponder freqeuncy was not being scanned. I had to manually enter it, and bingo! 60%!

One thing Ive been wondering is how I would go about figuring transponder frequencies and the s/r? Its easy enough to check out Lyngsat, but what if I want to try and find new ones?

Thanks for the help. Doug

[DougJH]

ALso, why do the PBS feeds not have any sound?

[rainman]

Originally Posted by DougJH

ALso, why do the PBS feeds not have any sound?

They are broadcast in AC3 format you need to hook your receiver to a surround system by the optical cable.

[satnutwillb]

They are in AC3 audio.You need to hook it to a stereo receiver capable of decoding dolby digital.

[William Eng]

Originally Posted by DougJH

Well, I figured out what was going on! The transponder freqeuncy was not being scanned. I had to manually enter it, and bingo! 60%!

One thing Ive been wondering is how I would go about figuring transponder frequencies and the s/r? Its easy enough to check out Lyngsat, but what if I want to try and find new ones?

Thanks for the help. Doug

The reason why your receiver did not scan it in was because your scan interval is set to far (the default is 6). I would recommend you set it at 3. This way when you scan in a new satellite, you will not miss any transponder. Also, you can rescan AMC3 with a lower interval and you will see that the receiver can pick up all the PBS, Patient channel, Montana, etc. In the ALL mode, the receiver will find everything for you, so you don't have to worry about finding the freq or SR or VID, PID, etc.

[DougJH]

Thanks for all your help...This is turning into a fun hobby for me. Im into building ham radio stuff, but Ive never messed with satellites and SHF before. Ive already learned a lot!