USALS not taking me to the correct satellite, maybe

[channel7]

I am using a motor with my dish and I am having a problem when trying to view channels on two particular satellites. All the other satellites display the correct satellite name when viewing a channel on that satellite and then going to the antenna settings menu.

When I go to change the antenna settings while viewing a channel on a certain satellite the name at the top of the antenna settings menu of my receiver shows at a different satellite's name and I have to switch over to the satellite I am viewing from the list of satellites in order to change the settings.

I have tried several different settings and combinations of settings. I have scanned left and right from the default USALS position but still cannot get the signal quality to come off of zero. Signal strength ranges from 60-64.

LNB Power: ON (even tried power cycling this but it didn't help)
LNB Type: Legacy Quad LNB 1 (also tried all others including Standard)
LNB Freq: 11250
22khz: Off
TP Freq: 12224 (won't stay on 12239 but I understand there is a fix for that)
DiSEqC 1.0: Port 1 (nothing on Port 2 either)
Motor: USALS
Legacy SW: SW42 Dish1 (also tried the others plus OFF)

[elgemcdlf]

Originally Posted by channel7

I am using a motor with my dish and I am having a problem when trying to view channels on two particular satellites. All the other satellites display the correct satellite name when viewing a channel on that satellite and then going to the antenna settings menu.

When I go to change the antenna settings while viewing a channel on a certain satellite the name at the top of the antenna settings menu of my receiver shows at a different satellite's name and I have to switch over to the satellite I am viewing from the list of satellites in order to change the settings.

I have tried several different settings and combinations of settings. I have scanned left and right from the default USALS position but still cannot get the signal quality to come off of zero. Signal strength ranges from 60-64.

LNB Power: ON (even tried power cycling this but it didn't help)
LNB Type: Legacy Quad LNB 1 (also tried all others including Standard)
LNB Freq: 11250
22khz: Off
TP Freq: 12224 (won't stay on 12239 but I understand there is a fix for that)
DiSEqC 1.0: Port 1 (nothing on Port 2 either)
Motor: USALS
Legacy SW: SW42 Dish1 (also tried the others plus OFF)

What receiver are you using and what sats are you trying to get a lock on that you are not?

[Muad'Dib]

Is possible, USALS is not always correct.

Try with 1.2.

[Bibbler]

Originally Posted by Muad'Dib

Is possible, USALS is not always correct.

Try with 1.2.

NO!!!! If the dish is properly aligned and you have the correct coordinates in, USALS is ALWAYS CORRECT!

[rainman]

Originally Posted by Bibbler

NO!!!! If the dish is properly aligned and you have the correct coordinates in, USALS is ALWAYS CORRECT!

Agreed Al it's have always work for me.

[wejones]

Regardless of whether the dish is aligned perfectly or not, USALS assumes that the motor's zero position is correct. The motor's zero point is not always correct. Mine was off a couple degrees, and therefore USALS won't work (unless I lie to it about my longitude).
So unless you assume that calibrating the motor's zero position is part of the alignment, then USALS doesn't always work.
I *THINK* that with most motors, that you can calibrate the zero position just by manually setting it to zero and doing a hard reset. I've never bothered doing that on mine, because I was afraid that it would change all my diseqC-1.2 positions, but I think it would work.

[Bibbler]

Originally Posted by wejones

Regardless of whether the dish is aligned perfectly or not, USALS assumes that the motor's zero position is correct. The motor's zero point is not always correct. Mine was off a couple degrees, and therefore USALS won't work (unless I lie to it about my longitude).
So unless you assume that calibrating the motor's zero position is part of the alignment, then USALS doesn't always work.
I *THINK* that with most motors, that you can calibrate the zero position just by manually setting it to zero and doing a hard reset. I've never bothered doing that on mine, because I was afraid that it would change all my diseqC-1.2 positions, but I think it would work.

At least with the HH90 Bill, I never had a problem. Once I got it aligned, it would track 72 and track 123 and everywhere else in between.

Now, I have indeed fine tuned the thing with 1.2 for the strongest signal, but I assume I could of done away with that by putting a bit more time in tweaking the alignment.

At any rate, little of this matters. This guy said that USALS on his dish was so far off that it was tracking the WRONG Satellites. I never seen one that far off......

[rainman]

Originally Posted by wejones

Regardless of whether the dish is aligned perfectly or not, USALS assumes that the motor's zero position is correct. The motor's zero point is not always correct. Mine was off a couple degrees, and therefore USALS won't work (unless I lie to it about my longitude).
So unless you assume that calibrating the motor's zero position is part of the alignment, then USALS doesn't always work.
I *THINK* that with most motors, that you can calibrate the zero position just by manually setting it to zero and doing a hard reset. I've never bothered doing that on mine, because I was afraid that it would change all my diseqC-1.2 positions, but I think it would work.

I do consider part of the alignment process is making sure the motor is set to zero. besides it makes the rest of the setup a lot easier once you get zeroed in on your true south sat the rest just fall in to place. I am not saying usals is better just easier to align the dish.

[Muad'Dib]

Originally Posted by Bibbler

NO!!!! If the dish is properly aligned and you have the correct coordinates in, USALS is ALWAYS CORRECT!

Sorry, this is not true.
Read around in some other forums and you will see that it doesnt work always.
Don't forget the big factor which is the RECEIVER used.

[Bibbler]

Originally Posted by Muad'Dib

Sorry, this is not true.
Read around in some other forums and you will see that it doesnt work always.
Don't forget the big factor which is the RECEIVER used.

Ahhhh, OK, USALS depends on what receiver you are using. Please explain. I'm really interested in hearing this..

[wejones]

Originally Posted by rainman

I do consider part of the alignment process is making sure the motor is set to zero. besides it makes the rest of the setup a lot easier once you get zeroed in on your true south sat the rest just fall in to place. I am not saying usals is better just easier to align the dish.

Ok, although I consider that syncing rather than alignment. But I've never seen this mentioned in anyone's list of alignment steps. Plus it is unclear whether it's even possible with some motors. I know my SG2100 has the hard reset button, but some other motors don't, and it's never quite spelled out anywhere exactly what these hard and soft resets do, which is part of the reason I've never done it to my motor.

Re the above suggestion that somehow the receiver is involved, that's very possible, but I've not seen it. Ie the receiver is responsible for calculating the actual "X", ie the USALS angle that it has to tell the motor to go to in the GOTO-X command. THis isn't just a simple calculation, as it requires trigonometry, or perhaps it could be done via a lookup table. It's possible that some receivers don't have the required math subroutines in the firmware and just do an approximation, or perhaps they actually made a mistake.
I know that I"ve checked the calculations that the Lifetime and Ultra do, and they seem to be correct to within a tenth of a degree or so (ie they list the USALS angle by the "MOVE" button). I don't think the Mercury tells you what angle it's going to, so I don't know about it. However TSREADER, which isn't actually a receiver, but it's a program that controls receiver cards like the Twinhan, seems to do the calculation wrong, although I'm not positive. I posted about this a couple weeks ago after I tried using that feature for the first time, and it sent my dish to a different place than my other receivers did. Perhaps it isn't a finished feature of TSREADER yet. The DiseqC-1.2 in TSREADER works fine. But anyway, it's possible that some receivers don't do the calculation right, but I've never heard of any examples other than TSREADER.

[rainman]

I have found this to be a subject that will always be debated on. the best thing to do is whatever works for the individual.

[Bibbler]

Originally Posted by wejones

I know that I"ve checked the calculations that the Lifetime and Ultra do, and they seem to be correct to within a tenth of a degree or so (ie they list the USALS angle by the "MOVE" button).

Agree Bill.... If everything is aligned correctly, the USALS ought to get you really close (as you rightly mention, within a fraction of a degree)....

In my case, I can verify that this is the case with the Lifetime and the MII.

My point was, I believe the guy was watching one sat - and he said he moved the dish using USALS and it was tracking the arc correctly except for 1 Sat.

Doesn't make sense. The USALS has to be working correctly. Either the dish is slightly out of alignment or there is a tree in the way.

I'm going to guess that either the dish is out (in which case all signals will come up, notice he only has a Max reading in the 60s), or he has a case of bend LNB arm (remember that one Bill?? ) , or he simply has the coordinates for the sat entered incorrectly....

It doesn't appear that the fault is with the USALS or the receiver.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Bibbler

Agree Bill.... If everything is aligned correctly, the USALS ought to get you really close (as you rightly mention, within a fraction of a degree)....

In my case, I can verify that this is the case with the Lifetime and the MII.

My point was, I believe the guy was watching one sat - and he said he moved the dish using USALS and it was tracking the arc correctly except for 1 Sat.

Doesn't make sense. The USALS has to be working correctly. Either the dish is slightly out of alignment or there is a tree in the way.

I'm going to guess that either the dish is out (in which case all signals will come up, notice he only has a Max reading in the 60s), or he has a case of bend LNB arm (remember that one Bill?? ) , or he simply has the coordinates for the sat entered incorrectly....

It doesn't appear that the fault is with the USALS or the receiver.

OK. I was kind of forgetting/ignoring the original post, since it was about 95% likely from someone pirating Dishnet, since he was talking about Dishnet freqs and circular LO freqs, and sats that had network info popping up.
But you're right, that if USALS is working for a few sats, it should work for all, particularly for the DBS things the guy was likely looking at.

USALS works fairly well for me if I subtract a degree or two from my actual longitude, which corresponds to how much the Zero position is off on my motor.

Speaking of one sat being possibly blocked by a tree. Yesterday, I decided to go to a sat that I don't often go to, because it only has one signal, which is a DCII signal I rarely watch. Tried to go there yesterday with my big dish, but the signal wouldn't come in. Then I remembered a pine tree was growing up right around where that sat would be, so I switched to my 90CM figuring that if the big dish was blocked, surely the 90CM would see it, But I couldn't find the signal with it either. I was using USALS to get me in the ballpark, then moving the dish around in little steps. Finally decided to get out of my recliner and went outside, and another pine tree was blocking that same sat, and only that sat, with my little dish. So I guess I don't get to see that sat for a while.... until my wife lets me cut down one of those trees. Either that or until I move my 90CM to a more open spot. But USALS WAS taking me to the right spot. I ran a spectrum scan, and could see the transponder I was looking for, but it wasn't quite strong enough to lock. Although I may try again going directly to my DCII receiver instead of being the 4th receiver in my chain of slaved receivers.

[Bibbler]

Cut it down when she's out shopping and tell her lightning must of hit it

[Muad'Dib]

Originally Posted by Bibbler

Ahhhh, OK, USALS depends on what receiver you are using. Please explain. I'm really interested in hearing this..

NP, I just read it in the dxtv forum. dxtv.de > usals problems