Zero percent signal after install Help

alfi · #1 (**permalink**) 10-12-2005, 06:44 PM

I have a M1 FTA system with STAB HH90 motor, 90U dish and universal dual LNBF FSKU2v. I installed the system per instructions from Sadoun website. I am in Hartford Connecticut at lat 41.8 E and long 72.7 W. I set the motor to 41.8 degrees elevation and the dish to 38.5 degrees elevation. My true south is set for 180 + 14 degrees. The post is mounted perfectly straight. The motor works, it moves the dish to selected satellite but I am getting 0 percent signal, does not matter what satellite I am pointing to. Is it possible that LNBF is defective? I changed two cables going from the LNBF to the motor and still nothing. The setting at the receiver's Antenna Installation is correct also, LNBF is Universal, Polarity set to USALS. I called the Sadoun's tech support but they did not returned my call. Any help greatly appreciated.

DruzeTito · #2 (**permalink**) 10-12-2005, 07:51 PM

did you actually tune the motor/dish to find a signal? Or did you except to get a signal right off? And also did you input your latitude and longitude in your USALS menu?

You must try to get signal/quality on your southernmost satellite. And use an active transponder.

For example, try to move your motor to SBS 6 @ 74 west on transponder 11931 V 4297 .. this satellte is relatively close to your south.

Then move the motor left or right and carefully adjust the dish up or down to get signal. Do not deviate too much from your calculated elevation (declination) angle.

alfi · #3 (**permalink**) 10-12-2005, 08:31 PM

Thanks for these instractions. I will try it tomorrow.

alfi · #4 (**permalink**) 10-13-2005, 06:30 PM

So today I follow the instructions and still 0% signal. I moved the dish West and East, up and down and still nothing. Any idea? I thing that the LNB is no good.

Alfi

DruzeTito · #5 (**permalink**) 10-13-2005, 09:39 PM

your doing something wrong. reread the sadoun instructions step by step. Do you have a clear view to your souther sky? Did you plug in the lnb to the motor LNB IN and plug from the motor to the receiver in the receiver's IF IN port? Where did you plug the cable in on the receiver?

alfi · #6 (**permalink**) 10-13-2005, 10:03 PM

I have a clear view on my southern sky. My connections are correct otherwise the receiver would not turn the motor. The LNB goes to LNB IN on the motor. Receiver Out from the motor goes to LNB In on the receiver. You do not think that it could be a bad LNB. Thank you for your help.

Alfi

DruzeTito · #7 (**permalink**) 10-14-2005, 12:30 AM

well everyone first usually thinks they have a bad lnb and really 95 percent of them are just doing something wrong.

How about you take the motor off and just put the dish on the pole.

Calculate elevation, azimuth, and skew for a specific satellite and see if you can pull in a signal. If you can, obviously the lnb is good.

Make sure you are also using active transponders to tune to a satellite or else you won't pick up signal.

Satellites are VERY sensitive, you MUST MUST MUST move all aspects slowly..

alfi · #8 (**permalink**) 10-14-2005, 11:02 AM

DruzeTito,
Thank you for your advise, this weekend I will try to set it up again but this time without the motor. One more question, when you say "try to get signal/quality on your southernmost satellite, for example, try to move your motor to SBS 6 @ 74 west on transponder 11931 V 4297", how this transfer to a compass reading. My true south is 180 + 14 degrees = 194 degrees on the compass, what this would this be as a west position in degrees?. I am trying to understand the whole concept and how it relates to the compass readings.

Alfi

DruzeTito · #9 (**permalink**) 10-14-2005, 03:13 PM

you only need one compass reading and that's your true south as you calculated it. 180+14 ... point your motor as close as you can to that setting. After that, dont worry about compass settings anymore. When you tell the motor through the receiver to goto a specific satellite, the motor adjusts it's own azimuth, elevation, and skew to point to it.

double check that you have inputted your latitude and longitude numbers correctly in the USALS menu. A lot of times intead of W, you forget to change from E.

I see that you say you latitude is 41.8 E in your first post. WRONG!! Unless youve mistyped, your latitude is 41.8 N , and long is 72.2 W.

When your motor moves to SBS 6, your motor should move the dish slightly to the right.

alfi · #10 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 02:34 PM

Finally it stopped raining hare in Connecticut so I could spend more time adjusting my dish. DruzeToto, I followed your directions and I setup the dish without the motor. I know that the post is perfectly straight. I set the dish on the post with elevation set to 41.8 degrees and azimuth set to 194 degrees. Then I connected the LNB to the LNB IN in the receiver. I made shorter cable, about 20' and tested it for short or open. The cable is good. I set the receiver in the Antenna Setup screen to SBC 6 at 74 degrees, UNV for LNB, Lat at 41.8 N and Long at 71.8 W. Than I moved the dish in right direction one degree at the time watching the screen of my 12" TV for any better signal than 0. And guess what, nada, zero. I also tried adjust the dish for different elevation, between 40 and 45 degrees and this did not helped. I am still saying that the LNB is no good. I know you guys do not want to hear it but what else would be in this case. The view in the front of the dish is clear. Should I call Sadoun to replace the LNB?

Alfi

DruzeTito · #11 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 04:04 PM

before you do anything, I am going to tell you how to point to echostar 121 W because this satellite is very strong and getting a signal is easy.

Again, we are doing this so we can rule out a bad LNB.

Still, you are going to put the dish on without a motor.

Set your dish elevation to 21 degrees on it's scale.

Point your dish to as close as 254-255 compass heading as possible.

TURN your LNB COUNTERCLOCK WISE (looking IN the dish's center) to 40 degrees. If you dont have a protractor or angle measure, estimate about 45 degrees.

and MAKE SURE the LNB is pulled back as far away from the dish as possible on the LNB holder bracket.

now when you are done doing this..

goto your antenna setup/installation menu and find echostar 9/ku or however it is written. Set lnb to universal 1, positioner setting disable, diseqc off, 22 khz off, and set the transponder to any of the transponders. All of echostar 9's transponders start with a 12xxx on their frequency.

If you do not have signal go out to your dish again and tweak azimuth and lnb skew very slowly.. do not deviate from your 40 degrees lnb skew too much.

Also, leave the dish to 21 elevation setting and just adjust azimuth left or right very slowly around 250-255 compass heading.

YOU SOULD be able to catch this signal.

by attempting to get a signal/quality here, you will make sure that the lnb is not defective.

follow these instructions carefully. When your dish is fixed you do not need to worry about setting your latitude or longitude.

DruzeTito · #12 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 04:05 PM

oh yea one more question.. when you say your signal is 0 do you mean signal or quality or both?

alfi · #13 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 06:28 PM

By saying 0 signal I mean the Level at the Antenna setup screen shows red to the very left and at the right it says 0%.
I did everything per your instruction and the result is that I am getting up to 20% on the Level but it fluctuates between 0% and 20%. Setup at 21% elevation is little bit low. I think I am hitting tops of the trees (they are about 400 yard front of the dish)
But I could not get no signal at all for SBS6 at 74W with 42 degrees elevation, which the view is clear. I thing I will just return the whole thing, I did not know that this will be so frustrating. Thanks for all your help.

Alfi

DruzeTito · #14 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 07:23 PM

If you are at least seeing 20 percent that means your lnb is working. Usually i think if an lnb doesn't work it will show you 0 signal and no fluctuation at all.

to see if you have a clear signal, measure the angle between which the dish is pointing to and add 25 more degrees and thats where the signal is coming from.

I am sorry I cannot help you. The signal is there, but you just have to find it.

Yes, I know it is frustrating, but if you miss a step, even one single tiny eeny weeny step, you will get no signal.

Perhaps sending some pictures of your setup can help us.

I won't remind you again to check for level pole; the single most important step.

Also, research a little more and read more threads. Do you know what skew is ? Azimuth? are you understanding the technical side between things?

And for a last attempt, can you give me your zip code so i can calculate something?

alfi · #15 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 08:52 PM

Thanks DruzTito, my Zip is 06106. I will take some pics tomorrow and publish them at some location.

Alfi

DruzeTito · #16 (**permalink**) 10-15-2005, 09:15 PM

Instead of 41.8 I would use 41.7. That probably won't make a huge difference.

Otherwise your calculations of the dish elevation with the HH90 is right.
Other than that, I have no more ideas about how to get your stuff working. It very difficult to troubleshoot this type of hands on stuff over the internet.

Maybe some other guys here can give some input?

bobkat · #17 (**permalink**) 10-16-2005, 12:02 AM

Guys:

Experimenting with Echostar 9 at 121 degrees may be opening up a real pandora's box. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what kind of LNBs work with this bird; I'm not sure myself. Read over this thread ---> http://sadoun.net/viewtopic.php?t=5036&highlight=

alfi:

Druzey has given you some really good tips and advice. Here's one more:

set up your receiver for AMC 4 at 101 degrees. Its a real solid bird with a decent signal. Use the calculator to figure out the coordinates for your area: ---> http://www.sadoun.com/Sat/Installati...Calculator.htm

Looks like around 32 degrees elevation and 220 degrees azimuth. LNB skew is 28 degrees (somewhere around the 4:30 position when facing the dish).

Set your active transponder to 12,120 MHz, VER, 30,000 SR and dial in that bird. Then you will know if the LNB is good. Like Druzey says, 95% of the time it is. Its easy to blame the hardware but in all actuality its user error most of the time. One other hint: make sure LNB POWER is "ON"; seems obvious but lots of folks make this mistake.

So tune in AMC 4 and then report back with your results. Good luck.

kat

DruzeTito · #18 (**permalink**) 10-16-2005, 12:16 AM

hmmm Bob I don't know. I read some of that thread. All tps on 121 come in here with my universal lnb at 99 percent. That's why I recommended for him to point because it is the strongest linear sat i have used.

bobkat · #19 (**permalink**) 10-16-2005, 12:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DruzeTito

hmmm Bob I don't know. I read some of that thread. All tps on 121 come in here with my universal lnb at 99 percent. That's why I recommended for him to point because it is the strongest linear sat i have used.

OK; well, like I said, I'm not sure myself since I have never tried it. Seems some guys make it work and others can't. Just seems safer for alfi to try to lock onto a strong FTA bird like AMC4 or IA5.

kat