Fortec 90CM setup

blusky · #1 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 08:20 AM

Still having a little problem with pipe and side support rods. I am mounting the dish on a wall. I am a one man operation.

The problem I have is when I get the pipe plum and I go to mark where the side brackets screws are going to be the pipe moves. Can I keep tightening the screw for the pipe mount fixer so the pipe will hold its position when its plum. Just afraid to over tighten and mess it up. Most other dishes I have installed have two screws in the pipe mount fixer.

Any Ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

bobkat · #2 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 10:12 AM

Once you tighten the mast securely the support arms should not pull the mast out of position. The mast is stronger than the support arms. Just bend the arms a little until they touch the wall.

kat

blusky · #3 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 12:52 PM

Appreciate the help bobcat. I finally got it up. The pipe mount fixer is definetly level side to side. The Mast was level front -to-back on three sides. Could not get the fourth side, I don't know why. That should still level enough?
I have not been able to find a satellite yet. Here is my procedure as detailed in the Sadoun website. My equipment. Pansat 3500S. Fortec 90cm dish, Stab HH100 motor and a Invacom quad polar QPH-031. My location is FT. Lauderdale FL. Coordinates N26.06 W 80.3 I set the elevation of the motor to 26 which is my Latitude. I set the dish elevation to 25.6 I connected cable from motor to lnb, on the LP side only, and from motor to Pansat 3500S. Set dish to 180 +6 variation for 186 for true south.
In the pansat I went to antenna setup and put these settings.
AMC-5/KU Closest south Sat
LNB local Frequency- 10750
22KHZ- off
Diseqc-off
skew-0
TP- (1)11742v11.110
Sat Scan- FTA only
Im put in my coordinates
The Pansat could not find the Amc-5 Sat. I went outside and moved the Dish Around a bit to see if I can find it but did not. I am moving the whole motor assemly and dish. The motor is working because I saw it go back and forth searing for the sat. Am I missing something? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

bobkat · #4 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 02:01 PM

One of our motor gurus will be with you shortly. Motors are not my specialty.

kat

DruzeTito · #5 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 07:33 PM

blusky im not too familiar with the invacom lnb.. but try to set it to "universal 1" lnb setting and see if you pull in a signal.

Basically tweaking the motor/dish philisophy is easy. There are two things you need to tweak: dish elevation and then the motor/dish assembly. (the one which you try to point to true south)

First adjust very very small movement on the dish elevation (up or down) and then after that very very small movements left or right on the motor.

keep doing this and expirmenting untill you find quality.

Make sure you USALS to AMC 5 also.

pmb1010 · #6 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 08:28 PM

Make sure your cable is attached to LNB port 1 for Linear sat use.
(ports 1 & 3 are linear, ports 2 and 4 are circular)

This is a single freq linear LNB at 10750.
Druze, isn't Universal 1 a "dual freq" LNB selection?
I'd think he would want "Standard".

Make sure LNB power is set to "on".
Not sure how that's done in a Pansat.

All your numbers seem OK.
A small TV out by the dish make adjustments easier.

DruzeTito · #7 (**permalink**) 10-02-2005, 10:43 PM

Yea see.. as I said.. not too familiar with the invacom so you are probably right.

blusky · #8 (**permalink**) 10-03-2005, 01:57 AM

Thanks Druze Tito and pmb1010 for your help.

In reference to the Invacom Quad polar I have done a search on it and from what I have read it should be set to Standard.

I just checked the front to aft of the mast with a level and it is off. In other words the mast is not perfectly verticle. I had a hard time with the two support brackets since I had to bend them so they can reach the wall. As I bent them it must have moved the mast because the wall bracket flexes a little. Can it still be succesfully set up this way?

DruzeTito · #9 (**permalink**) 10-03-2005, 02:28 AM

hmm. The support arms should not move the actual pole at all... when you tighten the large bolt on the horseshoe type thingy all it does is squeeze itself on the pole to support it.

What you should or should have done is first setup the pole like it should be then finall add the support arms on.

bobkat · #10 (**permalink**) 10-03-2005, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DruzeTito

What you should or should have done is first setup the pole like it should be then finall add the support arms on.

Yeah, and don't put the horeshoe collar on backwards. Maybe this is the problem.

kat

blusky · #11 (**permalink**) 10-03-2005, 09:09 PM

Thanks DruzeTito and Bobcat for your help.

When I was mounting the the wall bracket I am sure it is plum. When I installed the pole into wall bracket I used the long bolt to secure it. I was afraid to tighten this bolt to tight for fear of damaging or bending the pole. Can I tighten this bolt strong enough to hold the pole in a plum position so then I can install the two support brackets? I think this is where the problem lies. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

DruzeTito · #12 (**permalink**) 10-04-2005, 01:33 AM

well you know.. the two small screws on the wall bracket actually hold the whole pole really good. The other long screw im not sure why it's there but you can tighten that pretty good too. Its the other screws that hold the bulk of the weight. That's why adding support arms is good to relieve them a bit of the burden when plopping on a motor+dish. (I am not talking of the screws you drill in wall)

blusky · #13 (**permalink**) 10-04-2005, 12:24 PM

Thanks for your responce DruzeTito. The help is greatly appreciated.

I agree witth you that the small screws on the wall bracket hold the pole really well. That wall bracket supports the whole setup.

There is a bolt that goes through the wall bracket and also through the mast. This bolt holds the mast to the wall bracket and the bolt is in a horizontal position. My question is can I tighten this bolt enough to hold the mast in a plum position so that I can then install the two support brackets?

The problem I had originally was that I was scared of tightening this bolt to much in fear of bending the mast, so I had to hold the mast in a plum position with one hand and try to intall the two support brackets with the other hand. There was a shortage of hands and it was dificult to hold the mast in position. Thanks.

bobkat · #14 (**permalink**) 10-04-2005, 04:55 PM

blusky:

I think you are going about this all wrong. First you mount the mast assembly to the wall and then you install the support brackets. Mount the mast assembly to the wall as if there was no support bracket. Plumb the mast with a pocket level. Fully tighten the mast in a level position. Then bolt the two support brackets to the mast using that horizontal bolt you mentioned. Do not fully tighten it yet. Now screw the other ends of the two support brackets to the wall and fully tighten them. Now firmly tighten the bolt in the mast. Done. Now the support brackets won't try to pull the mast out of plumb as you tighten them because you tighten the "horseshoe type thingy" (HeHeHe; good name, Druzey... :mozilla_laughing: ) after the support brackets are secured firmly to the wall.

kat

blusky · #15 (**permalink**) 10-05-2005, 12:21 AM

Thanks bobcat. Will give it a try tomorrow and post back results.

blusky · #16 (**permalink**) 10-06-2005, 12:37 PM

well, I will give you the good news first. Bobcat after following your instructions I finally installed the dish mount in a plum position. The steps that you posted worked well.

Now for the bad news. I could not find any sats and after two full days of trying I consulted a pro installer. We were able to get some satellites but not all the ones he normally gets in this region. He spent about 2 hours trying to fine tune the dish and eventaully came up with the Dish is warped.

How can we resolve this problem?

DruzeTito · #17 (**permalink**) 10-06-2005, 05:05 PM

you have a motor? Tell us your equipment so we can check just what you have calculated. Don't give up just yet. is the dish really warped?

blusky · #18 (**permalink**) 10-06-2005, 11:06 PM

Thanks for all the help. The motot I am using is the Stab HH100. The dish elevation is set to 25.6 and the motor is set to my latitude of 26.

Its hard to tell if the dish is warped by just looking at it. It seems some sats come in with a good signal others are about 1 degree off. The quality sometimes goes to 99 then zero.

The Installer says that this is highly unusual. He spent about 1.5 hours on it today and went over all the settings on the dish. He says they are all correct. I have checked them many times myself. He has good signals on some sats and others that are normally picked up in my area we cannot get. It seems that some are 1 to 2 degrees off. Any Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

DruzeTito · #19 (**permalink**) 10-07-2005, 01:13 AM

give us more info: your zip, model of your receiver and LNB, any switch(es) you might be using, etc..

also tell me which satellites you are receiving and which ones you are not (the ones that your installer says you can usually get in the area)

send us any pictures if you can to check the installation..

blusky · #20 (**permalink**) 10-07-2005, 06:54 PM

I have a Fortec 90CM Dish with a Stab HH100 motor and a Invacom QPH-031 Quad Polar LNB (Both Circular and Linear) to work with a Pansat 3500s FTA reciever. I am recieving some sats like Echo 8.6 I get gol tv and echo3 nasa channel. I get no signal on t-5 and amc4 and amc5. On echo 9 somtimes the quality will fluctuate from 10% to 99 for about a second then down to 1)% a