help a newbie out with programming?

[ryanocerous]

Hi there--

New to the satellite thing, but have inherited a system by moving into my stepfathers house. I am excited to break the constrains of paying the cable co. so much money. Whoo hoo!

Could I please bother you all with the simplest information? I have lookd for answers, but am missing a piece of the puzzle.

Its a 10" dish with a GI 450i receiver, I am in Maine.

The actuator was frozen so I took it off and got it working again by lubing it and connecting 12v battery charger to it to make it move. When I put it back on, it obviously wasn't on the same exact spot that I had left it. Is this why everything is screwed up?

I see things on line about tuning to a satellite at xxxx degrees, but I don't see a way to do that. All I show is a number for the actuator movement. I have set my E/W limits (which were very different than what was set before when my stepdad had it working), and those numbers are 4200(ish) to 5900(ish).

I can tune sats in, but it really is just by chance. I scroll the actuator and find something. My confusion is compounded by the fact that the two sats I have found, and figured out what they were (by chance some color bars were showing the sat name), are actually programmed by another name on my receiver. One was galaxy 3 and the other slips my mind.

Should I erase the whole reciever and start from scratch? I have the manual, but it just does not tell you how to FIND the satellites. I can program them once i find them...how do yo do this? I have seen the lyngsat site, but I just don't get how to find these things.

Am I making sense?

Thanks is advance for any help.

ryan

[jcarva]

http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Satellites/Satellite-List.htm

[bobkat]

Yes Ryan you make perfect sense, and you bring back (fond?) memories... :?

After changing or adjusting the actuator arm, as you have done, you must reprogram the receiver to memorize the satellite positions. First erase all sats in the receiver's memory. Next, pick up a copy of ORBIT magazine (if they still publish it) and in the front cover there will be a channel guide showing each channel on each of the 24 transponders (C-band) for most of the major satellites covering North America.

Its been awhile since I worked on a General Instrument but I recall them having an AUTOPEAK feature. This is neat. You have to know what channel on what satellite you are looking for (don't pick a scrambled channel), then manually move the actuator and look for that channel. Set your east and west limits first - usually 50 or so points past the easternmost and westernmost satellites. Be careful not to go too far east or you will overextend the actuator and throw the dish over - major PIA to get it back !!! :shock:

When you find the channel you are looking for, hit AUTOPEAK and the receiver automatically peaks the dish for maximum signal strength and skew. Then name that satellite (G5, C3, etc.) Once that channel, and hence that satellite, are stored in memory, go on to the next satellite. Repeat the procedure until you have stored all the satellites you want to receive.

kat

[ryanocerous]

Oh thank you so much for your help! You are very kind.

Believe it or not, I actually started to figure it out that far. ( I know I can't believe it). I guess I thought I was missing something because there are so few available channels. Its all snow. I thought maybe I could get some European Football and foreign news (esp BBC to see some actual reporting on actual facts), but I dont really see much of anything up on this dish. I saw talk of middle eastern channels on this board and I think that would be beyond interesting, if not completely annoying to my girlfriend!

I only found content on 6 satellites with my 450i, scrolling back and forth with the actuator. G5 looks like it could be fun if I subscribed to something, but I don't want to subscribe if this dish doesn't work properly.

Is it that this is an old school reciever? Should I get a new one? Could you point me to an informative source for where this satellite thing has gone since the days of this reciever? Should I get a MPEG-2 or a digital reviever? Whats the story with those? Should I just give up and pay Adelphia's ransom for my television fix?

Thanks!
Ryan

[bobkat]

Hi Ryan:

Good work on figuring it out this far!! You now have a grasp on programming a C-band receiver. Yes, there is not much free these days on C-band; I know others on this board will disagree and jump in here and chew me out :lol: but its true that programming (free) content on the big dish is dwindling away.

I guess before you spend any more time and money on your big dish is for you to decide what type of programming you want. If you want an alternative to cable then consider DishNetwork or DirecTv. The free channels we talk about on this board are mainly ethnic channels with a few exceptions such as various local channels.

kat