Need some confirmation on M1 system setup

[sagirma]

Hello,

I have done all the reading that can be read on this site and others regarding all the preperation for a M1 motoized setup and have few questions here:

I am at 38N lat and 122 W long, dish elev 38,Motor elev 38 and true S is about 164 to 165.

1- once I set all the elevations accordingly and point the motor/dish to true south should I attempt to fine tune to a sat via USALS that is close to 122W?
for example Galaxy 10R? is this my true south sattelite?

2-can I use a universal dish mount with a motorized system or just setup my own standslone pole, this is going on a vertical wall.

3- What are some good FTA sats for NA area that are worth tuning to?

4- I have a 90cm dish, can I pick up any Cband with this dish/rec? what additinal/type LNB is needed?

any suggestions or comments are appreciated....

[rainman]

36 in. dish is to small for c band . as for good sats to pick up g10 and ia5 seems to have the most channels. :mozilla_smile:

[sagirma]

Thanks Rainman,

Well by the time I set it all up and actually found IA5 and learned that a compass doesnt work well on metal, the day was pretty much shot, so I have had the motor just sitting up there and the dish got setup as a stationary. I know for a fact I was off on my true south aiming, I was able to get the dish to move from south to IA5 via USALS and with some adjusting was only getting about 30 signal, so I just left it in stationary at IA5. I am gonna double check the pole plumbness tomorrow and make sure its good as I think its a tad hair off. I am at 121.8 long and 37.7 lat, dish elv 39, motor elev 37.7 true south is about 165 to 166 for Livermore California, so my true south sat be A7 129W?

I am using a fortec star NA, stab motor 90, fortec 90cm offset, mounting this on a pole above my chimey stack. Any suggestions or tips?

Will let you know how it turns out.

[rainman]

your true south sat would be the one closest to your longitude i would use g10 at 123 degrees.

[elgemcdlf]

I beg to differ Rainman. His true south sat would be 121 if he is at 121.8. While he can not draw any channels he can get a strong signal lock on 121 with a linear LNB. Set your dish to what you think is true south and use USALS to move it to 121 I think it is IA7 or T7 depending on where you look for info.

Now fine tune your dish to peak signal. Again this is a circular sat so you will not get any channels BUT you will get a strong signal lock. Make sure your mast is plumb. While not required it does make your life a whole lot easier. A half degree makes a difference Once you have 121 peaked use USALS to move the dish to 123 and note signal strength. Go all through your arc BEFORE making any adjustments. Once you know how you are tracking you will know how to adjust to peak your travel.

Steve

[rainman]

steve even though 121 is his closest sat i was shooting for one with a few veiwable channels and close enough to make no difference at121.8 longitude he is about in the middle of 121 and 123 anyway. and 121 is not a circular sat it is linear.

[starman]

Sagirma, you are at 121.8 longitude right in between galaxy 10 at 123 and Echostar 9 at 121. I would pick 121 as it is a lot more powerful and some people have trouble finding galaxy10 because Echostar 121 overpowers its signal. Echostar 9 is a linear satellite, set your receiver lof to 10750. I blind scanned it this morning and found 1 channel in the clear on that bird. It is the 'you have a superdish pointed at 121 degrees" channel at 12073V SR 20000. Your numbers look ok. The compass bearing for your location should be 163-164 so you are close.

[elgemcdlf]

Whoops! Sorry bout that. I didn't look when I said a circular sat. Just assumed since it had been moved to the Echo side of life. My thinking for choosing 121 over 123 was same as Starman. It is a stronger signal and easier to find. I was playing with a fixed dish one day and locked 121 while looking for 123. Never did manage to find 123 with that dish but had wonderful strength for 121 That was in my infancy when I actually believed someone who stated you could use Dish Network dishes for FTA.

Also Rainman if he locks with the stronger bird (121) 123 should be there utilizing USALS. It is only 2 degrees away. If it is not there the arc is really way off. More like a triangle. That sat 121 was moved from (I think) 127 last year or maybe even the year before. Remember the notice I got on the 922 regarding reprogramming it's location.

Oh well back to work. Have a great day
Steve

[rainman]

when i think of 121 i think of c band t 13. i forget about echo 9 being there also my fault and you have a great day also.

[sagirma]

Rec-fortec star na - Dish 90 cm offset - lnb - fortec star uni .4dB
hh 90 motor
location long 121.8W, lat 37.7N
Motor elev- 37.7 Dish elevetion- 39 ( I have some questions on this)
using USALS (or trying to at best)

so went up on the roof today to get this bad boy to work using usals , got a nice sun burn, I started at 165 for true south, set the motor to ref 0, along with the dish and motor elev above, inputed my long and lat in the reciever, and seleceted 123W or 129W for a sat and got nothing, I atempted to adjust the motor&dish side to side as well as dish elevation and nothing. I set it back to zero ref, and selected to move to IA5 since I know where exactly that is and I have no problem getting that sat on a stationary setup with my eyes blind folded and one hand tied behind my back, when the motor moved from ref 0/my true south, it didnt make it all the way to my IA5 ref point, so I moved the whole setup to the east few degrees and the best I can get is about 19 to 26 signal with no lock but this was only possible with settign the dish elevation to around 28 to 31 degrees with motor elev setting unchaged. Yes I should have tried 121W since it is KU and I will get signal on a hot TP but its all a learning process at this point. So after getting no where with USALS I tried diseq1.2 manually moving the motor, and from ref zero I can get IA5 with solid signal about 60 to 86 depending on the TP, and I was also able to get IA6 93W at 80 to 90 signal, AMC4 101W at about 46 signal and AMC1 103W at 25 signal, I tried 87 W and 123 and 129W and got NATHA.

Now the next question I have is the dish elevation, on the motor manual it says for diseq1.2 dis elevation is obtained by: fixed dish # - (45-lat) and I come up with 31.5 for that, so is this formula only used for diseq1.2 or should I be using this for USALS? cause when I set the dish to 39.0 and use USALS it looks way high.. yet Sadouns site says 39 for dish elev using usals.

so I know for a fact that my true south was way off by easy 10 degrees, my arc is way off sicne I can only get 4 sats using diseq 1.2 and that trying to adjust for any sat signal for more than few degrees after the dish has moved from ref point 0 is not the way this works. so now I am back at the drawing board and need all the help available.

Is there additiona setting on the reciever or motor I need to do or check??

Once again thanks in advance.

[sagirma]

I guess I need to try a true south of 160 to 164 and shoot for 121 W at 12073V SR 20000. If someone can calrify the dish elevation for me would be awsome..

[starman]

Hi Sagirma, USALS and diseqc1.2 don't have anything to do with the angles you set on your motor-dish. They are just different ways of your receiver and motor talking to each other. According to Sadoun's calculator your dish elevation is 39.
If when you moved your dish to IA-5 and it comes up a little short of reaching it, that means you are setting the dish/motor too far west on the mast. Put the motor back to ref point-zero, line it up the same as you did before, then move it a little to the east on the mast, try scanning Echostar9, if no luck, motor back to IA-5 and see how far you have to move the dish-motor on the pole to get it. Go back to zero and try over again. I think you are close just a little off the arc

[sagirma]

Thanks Starman,

I think you are absolutely right, I think I am way off to the west for my TS, yes I will try a bit more east on the ref0 point, set dish elev to 39 then go for IA13 at 121W suggested earlier since it closer to get rather than shooting so far eastward to IA5. Now I just have to wait for monsoon season to be over in CA so I can attempt this again. I cant wait to get this to work. Once again thanks and I will keep you all posted next time I attempt this...

[rainman]

Ia13 is c band sat use echo star 9 same location at121.

[sagirma]

got it, 121 W at 12073V SR 20000 it is, same bird just operated by 2 companies Echostar for KU, Loral Skynet for Cband.. is it Saturday yet??? , dying to get this to work.

[rainman]

not yet patience is a virtue so they say I don't beleve them.