HH100 and QPH031 Help!

[dennise]

Can anyone help with this setup:

Pansat 3500SD Receiver (nearly new genuine STB)
Invacom QPH 031 LNB, New.
STAB HH100 Motor, New.
Fortec 90cm dish, New.
My lat = 34.2N
My lon = 117.2W
Dish elevation = 24.4 (supplied by STAB)


First, just to be noted, with my 3500SD and a DPro LNB on a Dish 500 dish. I get great performance. But with a new HH100 motor, QPH031 LNB and Fortec 90 cm dish ...... no go.

I recently decided to set up a STAB HH100 motor turning a Fortec 90cm dish using an Invacom QPH 031 LNB with my Pansat 3500SD to get more channels including true FTA. Well after being meticulous with the physical dish installation (plumb pole etc.) I can't seem to get anywhere with this setup. The motor turns the dish OK, but I can't get more than 67% signal and 0% quality.

To simplify things, I tried connecting just one QPH 031 circular output directly to the HH100 motor's LNB connector and the motor's receiver connector directly to my Pansat 3500SD. Then, using the USALS installation setup in the STAB manual, I tried to get 119W (close to south at my location) and failed miserably. In my 3500SD antenna setup, I tried every LNB setting that resulted in a Local Oscillator frequency of 11250. What the hell, I tried ALL the LNB settings. All I see is a signal level between 58% and 67%, with 0% quality, no matter where I point the Fortec dish (any azimuth, any elevation) and no matter which LNB setting I choose. Also, all the TPs show V or H polarization ... none show L or H circular. OK, so much for 119W circular..

Next I tried to get 121W, a linear polarized bird using one of the QPH 031's linear output connector. Well I got pretty much the same results after trying ALL the 3500 LNB settings together with STAB's USALS setup procedure. I never see more than 67% and the quality is always zero.

What am I doing wrong? I can't even get the Invacom LNB to work.The 3500SD antenna settings are somewhat intimidating to me at this point. Could the Invacom QPH 031 be dead out of the box?

Appreciate any help or suggestions.

[satnutwillb]

Did you try setting it to 10750 on a linear sat? Try finding a known transponder on an echo sat.and use 11250 and do the same on a linear sat,but set the lof to 10750 and make small movements from side to side and up and down for the elevation and see if that does anything.Hope that helps until some of the more experienced members with that kind of set up get here.

[rainman]

try dropping the dish elevation by 5 degrees and then look for signal.

[dennise]

Originally Posted by satnutwillb

Did you try setting it to 10750 on a linear sat? Try finding a known transponder on an echo sat.and use 11250 and do the same on a linear sat,but set the lof to 10750 and make small movements from side to side and up and down for the elevation and see if that does anything.Hope that helps until some of the more experienced members with that kind of set up get here.

Well, yes I did try for a linear bird (121W) using 10750 MHz LNB settings with no luck. I always try every TP.

To simplify ever more, and to check the Invacom LNB itself, I connected the Invacom directly to my Pansat 3500SD. No motor, no switch just a direct LNB _ receiver connection. Now the signal strength (on the 3500SD's installation antenna page) is a little higher and seems to stay around 65% - 70% and independent of dish position. The quality is always zero. There are two things for sure that I don't understand:

1. Why do I get a virtually constant sig strength of around 60 - 70% no matter where I point the dish? Is there some kind of 'background' radiation I'm picking up? I live in a remote mountain location and find this unlikely. At this point, the 3500's (STB) sig strength feature seem useless. Is it time to get a real coax based sig meter. Sadoun was supposed to supply one with my M-3 bundled motorized dish/LNB/motor system purchase, but they never did.

2. If I ignore the Pansat 3500SD sig strength, should I only watch the quality bar when looking for birds? What exactly does the 'quality' bar indicate?

.............. I'll keep trying but I'm running out of things to try.

[satnutwillb]

The quality meter is what you want to watch.When you start to receive a quality reading,no matter how small,stop and start making very small adjustments to get it as high as you can.Scan and see what you pick up and compare it with Lyngsat to help see where you are at.

[dennise]

OK, now I understand why my signal strength bar is independent of dish pointing. This indicator is just a measure of the LNB-to-STB connection and has nothing to do with the bird-to-LNB link. Still though I can't get past zero quality (this is the actual measure of bird-to-LNB link). All I know is that the LNB-to-STB connection is pretty good ....... around 75%. I just can't get any quality more than zero, after hours of fruitless pointing attempts. So here's my current approach. I try manually switching the STB-to-LNB cable between a working stationary Dish 500 dish and my new Fortec 90cm dish.

With my STB connected to a nearby stationary Dish 500 dish with a DishPro LNB I'm getting good signal strength, great quality and the expected channels are working fine on the Echo 7 and Echo 8.9 birds at 110W and 119W. Nineteen of the 21 TP have 90% quality (the other two are zero). What I do next is to disconnect (power off of course) the DishPro LNB and instead, using the same RG-6 cable, make a DIRECT STB-to-LNB (new Invacom QPH031) on a new Fortec 90cm dish nearby. I point the Fortec as close as I can to the same working stationary Dish 500 pointing. Then, on my STB's installation-antenna page, I set the LNB type to STANDARD and LO=11250. The signal strength is about 75% but the quality is still zero on all the TPs. Finally I try moving the Fortec slowly east and west of the stationary Dish 500 dish pointing and also changing the Fortec elevation up and down as well. The quality never gets above zero. the Sadoun tech said to use LO=10750 for ALL birds (which I know is wrong for circular birds) but I tried this anyway with no success.

The Invacom QPH031 is supposed to be a good LNB, and mine is brand new. But other than the good LNB-to-STB connection indication, it sure looks to me like this LNB is dead. I have worn off the Fortec's dish paint slewing back and forth and up and down trying to get an above zero quality indication.

I'm out of ideas. HELP!

[satnutwillb]

Try setting up on your true south sat.,which at 117.2 would be closer to satmex 5.Try small adjustments to the elevation and move the whole thing on the pole left and right.The elevation listed for your location may be off by 5 degrees up or down on your type of dish.It takes patience,but if you find your true south sat.,then lift up or push down to see if the signal improves or gets worse and tweak it in good,then you should be able to find and tweek in the other sats.Maybe someone will chime in here and give you some more info.Hope you get it going.

[dennise]

Originally Posted by satnutwillb

Try setting up on your true south sat.,which at 117.2 would be closer to satmex 5.Try small adjustments to the elevation and move the whole thing on the pole left and right.The elevation listed for your location may be off by 5 degrees up or down on your type of dish.It takes patience,but if you find your true south sat.,then lift up or push down to see if the signal improves or gets worse and tweak it in good,then you should be able to find and tweek in the other sats.Maybe someone will chime in here and give you some more info.Hope you get it going.

OK, I'll try to hit satmex 5. Lyngsat says it's a linear bird so I'll use one of the QPH's linear outputs and set the LNB type to "standard" with LO = 10750. Looks like satmex 5 has about 20 TPs. Can you recommend a strong one? Satmex 5 is not now in my Pansat's bird list on the install-antenna page. Can you advise how to add it to the list so I can choose a working TP on satmex 5?

Also, can you please explain exactly what you mean by "setting up on your true south satelite"? Do you mean begin by pointing at true south (here south is magnetic 167) and then watching my Pansat's quality bar while moving my dish manually slightly from there to hit satmex 5? Remember, I am not using the HH100 motor at this time just to see if I can get ANY bird with the Invacom LNB/Fortec 90. I'm trying to keep my setup simple with a DIRECT LNB-toSTB connection (i.e. NO motor or switches) just to be certain the QPH LNB really works.

[satnutwillb]

Yes,by true south sat,I meant to point your dish at true south and sometimes you're lucky enough to have a sat. close enough to true south that you just have to make small adjustments to tweek it in.Once you have it nailed,then the next few sats.to the east and west are pretty easy to find.If you're just trying to find anything,then sadoun has instructions on how to set up a dish with a motor or stationary.You'd do better if you had some kind of meter and a small tv and your receiver out at the dish with you.I've never set up an offset ku dish before,so you're probably doing better than I would.

[dennise]

Originally Posted by satnutwillb

Yes,by true south sat,I meant to point your dish at true south and sometimes you're lucky enough to have a sat. close enough to true south that you just have to make small adjustments to tweek it in.Once you have it nailed,then the next few sats.to the east and west are pretty easy to find.If you're just trying to find anything,then sadoun has instructions on how to set up a dish with a motor or stationary.You'd do better if you had some kind of meter and a small tv and your receiver out at the dish with you.I've never set up an offset ku dish before,so you're probably doing better than I would.

Progress finally! Thanks for staying with me satnutwillb. I did manage to find satmex5 in my Pansat satellite list and wahlah ..... I was able to get the quality up to 60% by tweaking the dish position manually after putting in some new Ku TPs from Lyngsat and setting up for linear polarization. Also I dropped my dish elevation by 5 deg. as suggested. The resluting satmex5 channels have good picture/audio quality. This of course confirms my Invacom LNB is good so I can move on now to my USALS HH100 motor setup.

Thanks again satnutwillb and other posters for helping me get this far.

I'll post my experience with the STAB HH100 motor setup soon. The (STAB) owners manual is quite confusing though, and has I believe left out a step(s?) is setting up for USALS.

[satnutwillb]

Congratulations,glad I could help.