Another newbie on board

[ahoss2000]

Hi,

My M1 system with 90cm dish is on the way, and I have read all the helps and guides and a ton of excellent posts on dish aiming. Without all the help I have seen on this superb website, I would not able to figure this thing even mentally, and probably would not have ordered this motor system from Sadoun. I have setup few directv systems in the past.

I appreciate if some one with experience and familiar with Fortec Star CLASSIC NA can walk me thru so I will have a better mental picture for this weekend installation:

My lat is 28.66 , long is 81.4 . True south is 185, and south sat is Nimq2. After the dish is pointed at 185, with proper elevation, I enter my coordinates in the receiver (Fortec Star CLASSIC NA), I pick the nimq2 from the list of sats, and let USALS find it. At this point, I do not know if I just have to look for signal strength and make minor adjustments to peak the signal, or I will be looking at some video too? Do I have to enter the transponder #'s to see a video? From the :http://www.lyngsat.com/nimiq2.html I see that tp14 12414L is free. Also tp19 12486R, tp31 12661R Weather Network are free.
What does R and L refer to in the freq.'s above? Some times, I see DVB and F ( free ) in the channels, and some times F, sometimes DVB? Do they all mean free? Is there a good site that describes everything about lyngsat info?

Assuming I find Nimq2 and peak my signal, I understand that I am done tuning/aiming the dish. Is the next step checking for east and west satellites and make sure the dish can sweep the arc?

Final unrelated question, I was curious to know what happens if I connect my directv dish/lnb to an FTA receiver, or a directv receiver to an FTA dish.

Thanks so much in advance.

[boroda1]

No, you don't need to see any video, you will see two progess bars for each transponder, does not matter, are the channels on these transponders free or not. After you align the dish so both bars show some decent percent,
you may scan the transponder, even video is not free, after scan you will see channel names, confirming, which satellite you are pointing at. Then compare this info to Lyngsat. My receiver is different brand, but they all are alike

[DruzeTito]

Originally Posted by ahoss2000

Hi,

My M1 system with 90cm dish is on the way, and I have read all the helps and guides and a ton of excellent posts on dish aiming. Without all the help I have seen on this superb website, I would not able to figure this thing even mentally, and probably would not have ordered this motor system from Sadoun. I have setup few directv systems in the past.

I appreciate if some one with experience and familiar with Fortec Star CLASSIC NA can walk me thru so I will have a better mental picture for this weekend installation:

My lat is 28.66 , long is 81.4 . True south is 185, and south sat is Nimq2. After the dish is pointed at 185, with proper elevation, I enter my coordinates in the receiver (Fortec Star CLASSIC NA), I pick the nimq2 from the list of sats, and let USALS find it. At this point, I do not know if I just have to look for signal strength and make minor adjustments to peak the signal, or I will be looking at some video too? Do I have to enter the transponder #'s to see a video? From the :http://www.lyngsat.com/nimiq2.html I see that tp14 12414L is free. Also tp19 12486R, tp31 12661R Weather Network are free.
What does R and L refer to in the freq.'s above? Some times, I see DVB and F ( free ) in the channels, and some times F, sometimes DVB? Do they all mean free? Is there a good site that describes everything about lyngsat info?

Assuming I find Nimq2 and peak my signal, I understand that I am done tuning/aiming the dish. Is the next step checking for east and west satellites and make sure the dish can sweep the arc?

Final unrelated question, I was curious to know what happens if I connect my directv dish/lnb to an FTA receiver, or a directv receiver to an FTA dish.

Thanks so much in advance.

Ah looks like your in Florida. Here are some tips:

The golden tip: MAKE THE POLE AS LEVEL AND AS STABLE AS POSSIBLE (motor+dish = a lot of weight)

1) Do not aim and use nimiq 2. It is a circular polarity satellite and your lnb is LINEAR.

2) To aim your motor, first use AMC 5 @ 79w, tp 12182 H 23000. Use USALS and input your lat/long. The motor will move just very little for this. From here on continue to move the motor/dish slightly left or right, and then the elevation of the dish. Motor setup aint easy. Especially getting it to track from horizon to horizon!

We're here to help. And if you need personal help I live in Tampa so I can help you if you really need it :-)

[rainman]

R stands for right and L stands for left polarity on circular sats.don,t know what lnb you are using if its the one that comes with the M1 system than it is a linear won't get circular sats. also www.sadoun.com has a chart to help you understand lyngsat.sorry don,t remember the page search arround and you will find it.

[rainman]

did a little check on the lyngsat guide click on technical support and you will see the icon.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by rainman

R stands for right and L stands for left polarity on circular sats.don,t know what lnb you are using if its the one that comes with the M1 system than it is a linear won't get circular sats. also www.sadoun.com has a chart to help you understand lyngsat.sorry don,t remember the page search arround and you will find it.

A linear lnb like the one that comes with the M1 WILL get circular sats, it just can't differentiate between right and left, so it won't get them as well, and won't pick up all the channels. Usually it will get some of them. Every time I do a blind scan on G11, I usually scan in one or two of the low transponders on Nimiq-1. So I don't see a problem with using one of the Nimiq sats to tune on, particularly one of the lower transponders, like the 12224 or 12239.
Re to the free channels on Nimiq2, you may or may not be able to receive them with a linear LNB, it's hard to predict. Sort of like receiving the NASA-TV on the Dishnet sat, sometimes it comes in other times it doesn't.
Re to what is free on Lyngsat, it's usually the white colored channels (I think it's white, maybe cream colored, I'm color blind), but with a FTA receiver you can't watch things that are labeled DCII or NTSC, even if they are free. Usually the ones you can watch either have the "F" or are labeled DVB without an encryption designation, but it's the color code that is the key. I see that they label even the encrypted channels on Nimiq as "DVB", which I didn't think was accurate.... ie I thought that if it was encrypted that it wasn't technically DVB, but perhaps I'm wrong on that. Or perhaps it's just to show that the unencrypted streams will be FTA even though they are part of an otherwise encrypted mux???

[rainman]

it's cream colored Bill for the unscrambled channels.

[elgemcdlf]

If you connect a DN/DTV receiver to a FTA dish with a DN/DTV lnbf and you are pointed at a DN/DTV sat and have a sub for the receiver you will receive DN/DTV and it should be of higher quality and less problems with signal loss during rain or clouds.

[ahoss2000]

The M1 system with 90CM dish arrived, and I assembled and installed the dish on a wood pallet/cart ( see pictures ).

Thanks for everyone's comments, in particular DruzeTito for recommending to use AMC5 as my south Sat. After about 2 hours of messing with the dish alignment, I saw my first video from this system on AMC5 79W. Initially I was barely getting enough signal to lock, and not knowing that I may be working with weak transponders did not help the matters either. But once AMC5 was scanned, then the Fortec NA picked up other channels that were much stronger.





At this time, I am getting a max of 88 % on one AMC5 channel, and the rest of AMC5 coming 66-73 % . IA5 97W comes around 60-70 %. Should I get more signal from IA5? After tuning in on IA5 via USALS, further manual tuning by hand does not provide any further increase in signal. PBS channels on AMC3 are weak 30% or so. Does it mean I am not sweeping the arc right on the money? I experimented with moving the LNBF slightly forward and back to/from the dish, also slightly turning the LNBF. None helped with any increase in signal.

The next task would be to install a fixed free standing pole 4-5 ft above ground in the back yard. Is there any good web site that shows how deep of a hole and how much concrete is needed?

Again, I thank everyone for the comments/suggestions. This forum is one of the best I have encountered online.

[rainman]

rule of thumb is to dig hole below frost line. and 1 bag of cement per 1 foot of dish.

[DruzeTito]

quite interesting setup.. in the garage.. lol. We're glad that you found signal. Now, your goal is to get channels on Galaxy 10R, IA5, all the way to hispasat @30W. I cant even do this i think the pole is a bit off.

The signal of AMC 3 is weak on mine too. I guess 30 percent is borderline. Im not sure it can get any better (for pbs)

[wejones]

Originally Posted by ahoss2000

The M1 system with 90CM dish arrived, and I assembled and installed the dish on a wood pallet/cart ( see pictures ).
.....

Sorry for changing the subject, but I see you have video capture card of some kind on your laptop. Was that something that came built in with the laptop, or did you buy some pcmcia card or something? Just curious, as that looks like a very handy way to view video at a dish. I have a little 3" screen battery power TV, but I can barely see the screen in the shade, and can't see it at all in the sunlight. Plus a laptop, with wireless net would give connection back to stuff in the house.

But this just gave me another idea, which should work for anyone with a Twinhan card instead of the fortec. Ie you wouldn't even need to bring the receiver outside, as you could send video over the network. Ie I could use VNC to control the Twinhan, and watch signal levels and identify satellites with TSREADER, etc. Now, if only I could find a reasonably priced way of having a computer send IR commands to my analog receiver to move my big dish. If I had one of these little dishes, I could use the Twinhan to move the dish via VNC.

Anyway, nice setup. I set up a DTV dish on a utility trailer once, just to check all the angles and such. It's a good way to make sure things work before you commit to a permanent location. I hope you just moved into that house. I can't comprehend a garage with so little clutter.

[ahoss2000]

I have Avermedia Cardbus tuner/capture card that came in handy, plus with the wireless laptop I had access to lyngsat.com for frequencies/transponders info. With a PCI FTA card, one could use Netmeeting and share desktop with another PC or laptop on the network and give control over to the guest laptop.

My view of southern sky is limited due to tall trees on all sides, with my setup I was able to scan sats from 74W to 105W. SO I will be missing the 30W and G10R sats. But there are not a whole lot of channels on the FTA channels that I get that have any entertaining value. I like few on IA5, but that's about it.

For the permanent pole ( location in Orlando with sandy soil ), I plan to dig a hole 3' deep, 2' wide , and add some rebars in there to hold the pole. The pole would be about 5' above ground. Would this be stable enough?

One question that I have , once the Fortec NA scans the sat, it shows lists of TV and Radio channels then it jumps to viewing the TV channels, how can I access the radio channels?

wejones, I try to keep the garage clear of clutter so I can park two cars and few bikes , etc.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by ahoss2000

I have Avermedia Cardbus tuner/capture card that came in handy, .......

Thanks. I'm going to look that up.

Originally Posted by ahoss2000

For the permanent pole ( location in Orlando with sandy soil ), I plan to dig a hole 3' deep, 2' wide , and add some rebars in there to hold the pole. The pole would be about 5' above ground. Would this be stable enough?

I would think that would be plenty stable for a dish that size, so long as the soil doesn't settle under it or something, and if the soil is that bad, it probably wouldn't matter if you had it deeper/wider. Not sure rebar is really necessary. On my big 10' dishes, up even higher, I usually just put a bolt through the pipe to keep it from twisting. But I think what you have planned should be fine.

Originally Posted by ahoss2000

One question that I have , once the Fortec NA scans the sat, it shows lists of TV and Radio channels then it jumps to viewing the TV channels, how can I access the radio channels?

I have a couple Fortec receivers of different models, and there is a TV/Radio button on the remote.

Originally Posted by ahoss2000

wejones, I try to keep the garage clear of clutter so I can park two cars and few bikes , etc.

My garage is so cluttered that if I have a passenger, I have to let the passenger out first before going into the garage, and sometimes I've had to open my window and move things to get out of the car myself.

[jpasint]

Originally Posted by wejones

My garage is so cluttered that if I have a passenger, I have to let the passenger out first before going into the garage, and sometimes I've had to open my window and move things to get out of the car myself.

What? You guys actually have enough room to park “a” car in your garage? I had to explain to my wife that they only use the term “2 car garage” to give you an idea of how much stuff/toys you can fit in it!

Joe