It's Driving me crazy!

powderburn2 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-03-2008, 09:36 PM

I am new to all this and so far I have been unable to pick up a good signal. I am located in Bartlesville, OK.74003 At
Lat: 36.738 and Long: -95.987.
I am trying to pick up IA5 at Freq. 12122H . I have my Motor Lat set @ about 37 and the dish declination at 24. I have it zeroed at true south. I have moved the dish side to side at 1 degree increments as well as up and down in 1 degree increments for hours at a time and cannot receive any signal other than it jumps from zero to 3 or 4 for a split second and drops back to zero. When I am not moving or anything the signal just jumps around from 0 to 4 erratically.
once in awhile the quality meter on the receiver will jump to 75 or 80 for a split second and drop back to zero instantly.I have read on here where others dishes are off by as much as 8 degrees. I have tried lowering and raising the declination angle by as much as 20 degrees at one degree increments to no avail.
Does any one think I may have a hardware problem. The instructions say it should only take around twenty minutes and I have jacked with this thing for at least ten hours. Could I have a bad component or am I just a nincompoop?
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am at the point I am about ready to throw this all off the roof and in the junk pile!

Here is a list Of the equipment I just received from Sadoun last week Mercury II Receiver.FS80P 31" Dish.Digipower SG-2100 Motor.

ULN1 0.4dBcPanel®.
Universal wall mount.Bonus 1: Sadoun Hat.Bonus 2: Sadoun SF95LK Signal Meter Kit.

Thank you, Dave

nhulst · #2 (**permalink**) 03-03-2008, 10:40 PM

I'll throw in a few suggestions for what it's worth.

I'd like to offer two fundamental things first. I'm sure you're sick of hearing everyone talk about how important it is that your mast is perfectly vertical, but I can tell you I wasted hours of time myself before I took this seriously. Second, are you sure you have a clear line of sight? This is actually the perfect time of year to take advantage of the sun's angle... the website below will help you. Just punch in your lat/lon and the position of the satellite (97 W for Galaxy 25) and it'll tell you when the sun is at the same position as the satellite. Go outside and make sure there's nothing casting a shadow on your dish. If you have trees nearby, you'll probably have to use your judgment if the leaves aren't on them right now.

With those out of the way, a couple more suggestions. Make sure you have the frequency, polarity, AND symbol rate set correctly in the Antenna Setup or TP Scan screen, or you won't see anything on the signal meter. Make sure you're set up for a universal LNBF also.

If you come up empty on all of these, I'd suggest if at all possible taking the motor out of the equation for now. Just put the dish right up on the pole, use only a single piece of coax (or two if you have the SF-95 in line) and see if you have any more luck.

Regarding your comment about being several degrees off: the place where the dish ends up may be several degrees off from what the angle calculator tells you as you read it off the dish mount, but you can't be several degrees off from the proper angle and still have it work... two different things

Hope this helps...

DougRuss · #3 (**permalink**) 03-03-2008, 10:41 PM

Have you tried on that Sat. 12177v 23000 ?

nhulst · #4 (**permalink**) 03-03-2008, 10:41 PM

Sorry, forgot to add the link

Place satellite dish using sun or moon

pmb1010 · #5 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 06:06 AM

- take the meter out of the line.

make sure coax goes from LBF to motor to receiver
Make sure the coax goes into the LNBF input on back of receiver (not ANT input)

Using USALS, put motor at "reference" or "zero" position. Make sure your location coordinates are eintered into the receiver.
Align the whole thing to your magnetically corrected south heading using a compass
Now, have the motor drive to your highest "south sat" - it should not move too much
Finally, hunt for quality indication on the reciever, while being tuned to an active transponder.
Have a small TV out by the dish and receiver with short cables while doing this. Moving the dish 1/8" will lose the signal, it is quite touchy as the spot to find is very small.

good luck

Jim-S · #6 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 07:20 AM

Being new to FTA as you are (7months). I'm not able to give you a lot of tech talk but I will say this it took me a long time also. It is important, if you have not done so, is to have the complete setup at or near the dish. Check and recheck all connections, read and re-read all instructions from the Sadoun web site. I thought I knew what I was doing but after I read the instructions over and over again it began to sink in. I had my setup on the tailgate of my pickup truck. Just relax and be PATIENT.
I can't say this enought read,read,read and read.
Good luck
Jim

powderburn2 · #7 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 09:37 AM

Thanks for the replys, I will not be able to work on it again til this weekend but I will try all these suggestions. I am sure my mount is ok. I must just not be hitting the sweet spot. I know it sure is frustrating .
Thanks again, Dave

elgemcdlf · #8 (**permalink**) 03-04-2008, 10:07 AM

You also need to be moving very very slow. A tortoise is a speed demon! A snail should be winning the race. If it helps any the first time is the worst. Once you lock in a few times it starts to become second nature. When first playing with these little dishes I would intentionally take it down and do it again to get better. Shoot I can get one lined up in less than a month now! Seriously many here spend up to 2 weeks before actually finding signal. Don't get discouraged. It will come when you can take the pebble from my hand Grasshopper.

OK I think I have a couple wires crossed here

powderburn2 · #9 (**permalink**) 03-21-2008, 09:53 PM

I finally was able to get the system fixed. I tried and tried to get a signal using everyones suggestions but the darn thing just wouldn't do it! I knew i was not so dumb that I could be screwing something up that bad.
I got to thinking that something was wrong so I ordered a new LNB off of ebay and lo and behold- I had a good strong signal within minutes of installing! The thing picks up great off of IA5, Now all I have to do is some fine tuning on the motor pointer and it will be good as gold.
I wonder if Sadoun will send me another LNB to replace the defective one? I am not really worried about it as it was inexpensive from ebay. It would probably cost as much to send it back as the new one cost to buy.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
I have a suggestion also. If you mess with your system for days and still cant get a signal maybe you have a defective LNB. I know I was to the point I was going to throw the whole thing off the roof and stomp it.

William Eng · #10 (**permalink**) 03-21-2008, 10:27 PM

Is your new LNB also a universal? Is your receiver set to "UNI" for the universal? Did you connect the LNB while you had the receiver turned on? If so, you could have shorted the LNB. Always connect everything with the electricity off. Seems odd the LNB went bad so soon.

powderburn2 · #11 (**permalink**) 03-21-2008, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by William Eng

Is your new LNB also a universal? Is your receiver set to "UNI" for the universal? Did you connect the LNB while you had the receiver turned on? If so, you could have shorted the LNB. Always connect everything with the electricity off. Seems odd the LNB went bad so soon.

Yes, It is a universal and the receiver was set right. I had it all unplugged from electricity when I hooked it up.
The one that came with my package from Sadoun never worked from the start. I think it was defective from the factory. I had everything set the same and hooked it up while unplugged also.The new one seems to be fine.it is a universal 0.3db. Hopefully it will continue to be good.