Setup menu question- Merc II

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Hello:

First the specs: typical motorized FTA system, Fortec 31" dish, DG-280 motor, Invacom quad LFNB, Merc II reciever, 22khz switch. Location: in West Virginia lat. 38.75, long. 81.80 according to the satellite look angles calculator.

Now: before I tear the system down and give it to a thrift store out of frustration...I need to make sure I have the set up menu correct. Unlike what the Fortec manual says, the first menu is installation with no other options (which I assume is right unless you've already set something up). Anyway- I tried to use Galaxy 25 to start, since that's what the Sadoun page recommends. With the Invacom LFNB, I presume I should set the LFNB to "User Defined", and enter 10750 as the LO and 12500 as the HI, then store. The 22Khz should be "on", and the Switch should "off". (Turning on "switch" gives you the DiSEcQ options, which I don't have.)

It was the same thing I read so many times, 40 level/0 quality no matter what. Checking and checking and replumbing the post didn't do anything; using the Satellite finder signal meter and peaking it out didn't do anything. Finally this morning I took a tv and the reciever up on the roof, and found that usually the motor will not go to any position automatically even though the screen says "moving to satellite position", but the manual "step" movements, and "westward" and "eastward" and "go to 0" work perfectly. Now, I don't know how I got it to do it but it did go to the 97W initially, which is where I worked on peaking the signal, and it seemed pretty good. Am I not seeing something, for example, it has to lock on to a signal first from a given satellite, then it'll move automatically? I assumed the positions were already programmed in, and once you positioned the system everything was relative to that point, so it didn't need to find a signal first.

Thanks in advance,
CN

[Vitruvius]

CNA, Do not dispair .. you are close.

1. Make sure your mast is perfectly vertical and plumb.
2. Connect the coax only to the linear coax of that LNB. Not many circular sats and you can get them after you have tuned properly.
3. Confirm angle of motor... usually your latitude on one side, and 90 degrees minus your latitude on the other.
4. Confirm your dish angle to the motor manual setting. This number is usually the angle of the motor's tube minus the declination angle based on your latitude.
5. Aim the dish to your south position the best you can.
6. Set up your tuner and tv adjacent to your dish and use it as the meter. Connect all cables.
7. Tune your receiver to G25 (97), and this will move your motor from 0 to point to where 97 should be. You probably won't hit it, but it gets the motor pointed correctly.
8. Now slowly move (rotate) your entire dish and motor assembly left and right. Use one degree or two degree movements. After about 10 minutes you should be locking in on some signal.
9. Confirm this signal is 97 sat by scanning for stations.
10. If it is 97 then you can fine tune some more to get a stronger signal. Do this by moving dish up and down in 1 degree increments and repeating the horizontal 1 degree movements.
11. If it is not 97, and you get stations, search Lyngsat to find out which sat you are aiming to and go back to your dish set up. By knowing which satellite it is you should be able to figure out which way you need to adjust your entire assembly.

Good luck.

[Iceberg]

Originally Posted by cnagorka@gmail.com

With the Invacom LFNB, I presume I should set the LFNB to "User Defined", and enter 10750 as the LO and 12500 as the HI, then store. The 22Khz should be "on", and the Switch should "off". (Turning on "switch" gives you the DiSEcQ options, which I don't have.)

nope. only need one LNB LO and that is 10750 for linear. There should be an option for just 10750

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Hello:

Okay...I won't tear it down yet

One question, though- if I'm only connected to the linear output, should I just bypass the 22khz switch altogether for the time being, and leave the 22khz switch option "off" (although with the switch bypassed it probably doesn't make any difference).

Thanks already!
CN

[Vitruvius]

Oh yea, that's right Iceberg... the Invacom is a linear LNB and to set a linear LNB in the Mercury you toggle between Universal, 12XXX, 10XXX and 5XXX in the satellite setup. I don't remember the exact number.
10XXX is for a linear LNB,
12XXX is for a circular LNB,
5XXX is for a Cband LNB.

Yes, don't use the switch until you have the dish tuned. Then you can play with the different settings afteward. Take the switch off.

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Okay- thanks for the help so far, now one last thing before I can start the aiming for real. The Mercury reciever absolutely will not let me move the dish automatically. Since I turned it on the first time a few days ago, it won't go to that default screen I saw the first time. I've tried the "factory reset", I've tried unplugging it for hours at a time, left the LNB cable off then plugged it in after it was on, etc. The first screen that comes up now is the language menu, no matter what- that wasn't what happend that first time. Is there some reset I don't know about? Until that's figured out I'm dead in the water.

Thanks again,
CN

[pmb1010]

can't you just pick English on the menu and move on?

You can work from your most south satellite on the other setup screens to get your dish lined up.

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Hello:

Sure you can pick english and move on, but absolutely nothing happens in the rest of the antenna set up menu (as far as moving the dish). The first time I turned it on and picked Galaxy 25 it moved the dish. Now it won't, it's at 0 and won't budge. But, as I said, I know the motor/cable/etc is working because the manual options (east moving, west moving, step, and go to 0) are working fine. You can go from satellite to satellite and the screen will say "moving to satellite location" but the dish is not actually moving.

CN

[Vitruvius]

This is a warning... do not remove and reattach the coax when the Mercury II is on. The instructions clearly say to turn off the receiver and power toggle and unplug it before installing or removing the coax.

When you reset the factory settings, it set the receiver to its virgin state. You have to now select which language to use... no choice of not doing it. Like PMB said... just set it...

I would recommend that you set the meter sound on by going to the 'Other's menu in the receiver's 'System Setup'. The beeping will help you tune the dish. This is to set the 'Signal Beep Sound' to on. I like to set the 'Satellite Sort' to Position and the 'Display SID' to OFF. The Display Sid to off will number the stations sequentially. When you set the Satellite Sort to 'Position', it will list all your channels in satellite order and not a random chaos of sats.

Make sure you have a lot of different transponders available to you in the Antenna Setup for sat 97. Set it to 12177 because I get a good signal quality of 53% for that one. If it is set to a non active transponder then you won't find the sat. Once it is locked in, I usually to a power scan to get additional transponders. When you did the factory reset you may have lost some transponders and need to find them again.

Good luck...

[pmb1010]

if you have a physical "satellite meter" take it out of the line.

Take your receiver and a small TV set out to your dish and hook things up with 10 foot cables.

(I did not read back thru these messages to see if you did this or not...)

Make sure you have USALS selected, and your coordinates (Lat & Long) are entered into the box. (I dont have that box so I can't specfically say what to do...)

With that, selecting a few satellites should make the dish move. If it doesn't you've got some diagnosis to do.

Make sure you have cable connected to LNBF port (and not "antenna" ) on back of box.
Make sure you have the cable from box going to right port on motor. (one goes to box, one goes to LNBF).

Maybe you can take some JPG's and host them someplace and send us some links to see what you have going on?

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I didn't realize that this system was compatible with USALS- the packaging of the motor has DiSEcQ in big letters, and I assumed it was one or the other. I went to the USALS menu, entered the coordinates and just like that, off the motor went to what I'm sure is the right position. No signal yet, but I'm on the right track.

BTW, the heading angle calculator has the longitude listed with a minus sign in front of it; I take it that doesn't mean anything because these headings are on a 360 degree scale, and negatives don't apply. Right?

BTW#2- Looking around on the forums for motor installations, and the DG-280 motor in particular, there is more than one post talking about problems with the DiSEqC system- I didn't see any resolutions posted.

I think I'm good for now.
CN

[pmb1010]

Longitude is defined in terms of meridians, which are half-circles running from pole to pole. A reference meridian, called the prime meridian , is selected, and this forms the reference by which longitudes are defined. On the earth, the prime meridian passes through Greenwich, England; for this reason it is also called the Greenwich meridian . The longitude of a point P on the surface is defined as the angle that the plane containing the meridian passing through P subtends with respect to the plane containing the prime meridian. If P is to the east of the prime meridian, the longitude is positive; if P is to the west of the prime meridian, the longitude is negative. Longitude angles can range up to +180 degrees (180 degrees east), and down to -180 degrees (180 degrees west). The +180 and -180 degree longitude meridians coincide directly opposite the prime meridian.

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Right- I forgot the prime meridian business- I should have remembered the time in AM and PM, etc.

One question out of curiousity: is there anything to exact location of the LFNB in its holder? It could move forward or backward 3/4 of an inch; as finicky as everything is, dealing in one degree increments, it would seem that the focal point of the dish as it hits the LFNB would be critical, but I don't see anything specific mentioned. I see skew mentioned everywhere (which I don't have to worry about with a motor) but not the "focus", as such, of the LFNB.

CN

[Vitruvius]

With most setups try to keep the LNB as far away from the dish as possible.

Once you have signal, you can play with its location to see if you get a stronger signal. You can also twist the LNB a little to see if you get stronger signal with change in skew, but, yes for a motorized Ku system you should not worry about the skew.

good luck..

[Vitruvius]

Oh yea, PMB is right, you have to make sure you set the receiver to the USALS and input your Lat and Long. That motor and the receiver can use either USALS (which is also sometimes called Diseqc 1.3) or Diseqc 1.2. USALS makes moving to the sats automatic, and Diseqc 1.2 requires that you program the motor location for each satellite (or you set the furthest west and furthest east sats and the ones in betweeen become automatic).
Duh... sorry I missed the obvious. Good catch PMB and thanks for the meridian info.

[cnagorka@gmail.com]

Hello:

I thought you guys would find this entertaining.

After that last post, I went up on the roof and tried for several more hours to get the system working, and failed. I never found any signal anywhere, period. I got so mad I gave up, and took the dish down off the roof, replacing it with a big TV antenna from a nationwide electronics chain whose initials are RS. I was ready to get rid of the FTA system altogether and walk away.

Today, though, I didn't have much to do and decided to give it one last shot, setting it up temporarily on my deck railing. I figured nothing would happen, chalking up the failure to a high tree line. Long story short, I get everything going, and lock on to Galaxy 25 IN ABOUT ONE MINUTE!!! What's bizarre is that the deck is lower than the roof, naturally, and the dish looks like its pointed squarely at a huge pine tree in the neighbors yard. But it's no fluke, I got another one, I can't remember off the top of my head- one of the AMC sats that has the Pentagon channel, and the adjacent one is Pentagon Channel in AC-3.

One thing that trips me up is finding an active transponder when you're looking in the first place. Now I know that you have to have the right one when you're looking (which I did in the case of Galaxy 25 originally).

Anyway, it's a very happy ending. Now I need to figure out a good way to mount the thing permanently because the pieces of angle iron and pipe screwed to the railing is really ugly.

Thanks again guys!
CN

[rainman]

when all else fails back off wait awhile and try again.lol

[jdbob]

This is off topic, but seeing that you just got a Mercury II...

I have one coming on the 10th. Does it include a component video cable (the RGB one)?

Thanks,

Bob