One Motor For Two Boxes

[Coral]

Hi All,

This is my first question in the forum and I thank you in anticipation for
any reply.

I have 3 boxes 2 are Arion clones and the third which is not.
If I swap between the Arion clones I have no problems but whenever
I change to my third receiver I will have to set the positions again.
Going back to Arion I would again have to set the positions again.

This appears to be an incompatibility between brands of receivers, since
all sattelite positions are the same for all receivers.

I am on a Motech Digipower SG-2100A.

Cheers

[elgemcdlf]

What is your question? What are you using for aligning the dish? USALS or DiSEqC 1.2? How is this system wired?

[Coral]

Thanks foe your reply.
DiSEqC 1.2. Wired LNB to motor. Motor to receiver.

Question:
Can I use 2 different brands of receivers (change boxes) without having
to reset the positions each time, or do I have to go on USALS for this ?

[elgemcdlf]

If I understand you correctly you do not have the receivers tied together but are actually unhooking one and hooking up another everytime. Have you tried parking the dish on the same sat prior to switch? In other words before unhooking the receiver park the dish on G10R. Now when you unhook the other receiver do the same. An alternative potential solution would be to utilize the loop thru on the receivers and chain them together using only one to drive the dish.

[Coral]

Thanks for your reply. I am aware of the "parking" method but have been
hoping for a compleatly indipendent solution. Do you think using Goto X
Function (USALS) will do the trick ?

[wejones]

You should be able to do that with different receivers, however, I'm guessing that you may have the sats saved as different DiseqC1.2 sat numbers on the different receivers.
Using DiseqC1.2, there is really nothing stored in the receiver. It's only your motor that remembers where the sats are, so it shouldn't matter which receiver sends the command to go to a sat unless you have the sats saved under different sat numbers.. ie if say AMC3 was saved as sat 29 on one receiver, and 30 on another... Ie after the second save, AMC3 might be on position 30, and some other sat might be on position 29, but when you go back to the first receiver, it thinks that AMC3 is at 29, but when it give the goto29 command, it actually goes to some other sat and your channels won't lock in. That's what I'm guessing happened here, so check to see what DiseqC1.2 sat numbers are used on each receiver, because the sat NAME means NOTHING. The motor only knows the number.

[Coral]

wejones, I think your guess is correct. I have been using the same order
on both receivers and to some extent I had improved results. My only
problem is that one of my receivers is messing up the order (I think,)
because threy do not appear in the way I sort them when I look at it's
sat. list.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Coral

wejones, I think your guess is correct. I have been using the same order
on both receivers and to some extent I hab improved results. My only
problem is that one of my receivers is messing up the order (I think,)
because threy do not appear in the way I sort them when I look at it's
sat. list.

The order isn't that important, but with DiseqC1.2, each sat gets assigned to a specific number between 1 and something like 50, although some receivers reserve the first 25 or so.

I used one receiver to save the sat positions on my motor, and wrote down what number corresponded to each satellite, then I went to the 2nd receiver, and made sure that each satellite on the second receiver used that same number. I don't know how the DiseqC1.2 pages work in the receivers you use, but it wasn't too hard for me, although it took a long time. It also helps if you have a computer channel editor program that will let you make these changes without actually using your remote though, because when you make the change to change the sat number, you might also be saving some different sat position into the motor too, unless you are careful. You can also save the sat numbers when the motor isn't attached to the second receiver, so that you don't accidently change the sat position in the motor. It can get confusing though. At one point I couldn't find any sat with either receiver.

[Coral]

I found a way of editing the sat. list using the software editor. Fingers
crossed

BTW, this is a compleatly new box. the other two have the same channel
list and no problems.

[Coral]

It didn't work. Identical satellite order on both boxes as per motor table
but only the last receiver that has been set gets the motor to stop on the
requested sat.

[elgemcdlf]

That is not what Bill is talking about if I understand your posts correctly. Just because the order is the same on the receiver does not mean it is the same in the motor. Are your receivers USALS compliant? If so try that. Let's pretend you are consuming 30 sat spaces with receiver 1. So you set the first 30 spaces in the motor to the sats you are wanting. Now receiver 2, starts saving at position 31 and through to position 10. You original 10 positions have now been overwritten by the last 10 of receiver 2. Proceed with receiver 3 and you have now written over the original remaining 20 with the first 20 of receiver 3 and the first 10 of receiver 2 have been written over by the last 10 of receiver 3.

Try this: Move the dish to a sat and save in receiver 1. Now hook up receiver 2 and just save the position again for the same sat, do not move anything. Same for receiver 3. Repeat for all the sats you wish to keep.

[Coral]

elgemcdlf,
Thank you for your reply. Belive me tis box is driving me "up the wall".
What you wrote in your last paragraph is exactly what I did a couple of
days ago. The last position I save on one box is lost on the other.
Thre's no conflict between my 2 Liberty (Arion) clones. The problem
started when I tried to setup my third receiver which is also a Liberty, the Liberty MCCI 2500+ which is definitly not an Arion clone.

I've been over 5 day now trying anyting that comes to mind. I'll give the
prosrdure in your last paragraph another try perhaps now that I have
reset the motor to default ...........

[wejones]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

..
Try this: Move the dish to a sat and save in receiver 1. Now hook up receiver 2 and just save the position again for the same sat, do not move anything. Same for receiver 3. Repeat for all the sats you wish to keep.

This MAY work, but also this MAY be what he already did, which didn't work. Ie since the satellites are saved in the motor, not the receiver, it doesn't help to hook up the 2nd receiver and save again unless you are careful to make sure that the 2 receivers are set to the same satellite number, and if the second receiver has a different sat # on the screen, you'll be saving that sat in a different position, and will then be over writing some sat position already saved by the first receiver. Ie it isn't necessary or recommended to even have the 2nd receiver hooked up when you save on it, because all you want to save is the satellite number. And if you can change these satellite numbers via a computer channel editor, it can all be done quickly, and the channel editor can also help you reclaim some of those pre-defined sat positions that can't be used otherwise.

What I'm thinking is that even though the "order" is the same on the 2 receivers that the sats may have different numbers. Ie on one receiver the sats might be 27 thru 49 , and on the 2nd receiver they might be 26 thru 48 or something like that. Let's say on the first receiver, you try to save AMC6 , SBS6, AMC5, and AMC3, and they are set to #27, 28, 29, and 30,, etc. Then you go to 2nd receiver and start to save the same satellites, but you start out on #26, 27, 28 and 29. What will happen is that the 2nd receiver overwrites position 27 with the position for SBS6, and overwrites the position # 28 with the position for AMC5, and position #29 with the position of AMC3, etc, so when you go back to receiver #1, and tell it to go to say AMC5, it tells the motor to go to #29, but 29 is now the position for AMC3, since it was overwritten by receiver #2.

What I would do, is whichever receiver is connected now, and working, go to the setup for each sat, and check to see what DISEQC1.2 sat position number is used for each satellite, and write that down. THen, go to the 2nd receiver, and don't connect it to the coax, but instead just go into the sat setup page, and check to see what DiseqC 1.2 sat position is stored there, and if it is different, change it to be equal to what was used in the first receiver.

Basically each receiver has a list of what sat position number is what sat, and all it does is send a go to sat position #29 or whatever is defined for that sat, so as long as the sats have the same sat number defined, there should be no problem. If it doesn't work, it means that the sat/position list in the 2 receivers must be different.

[Coral]

Thanks very much, wejones et all

I think that the problem is in the Liberty MCCI 2500+ because thare are
NO DISEQC1.2 sat positions. It gives you a choice of Motor and Usals. You can create a sat. list with name and position and put the sats. in any order you want, but that does'nt mean that the number will
corispond to the position on the motor. "Damn cleaver these chinese" !!!

So what are the odds now ?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Coral

Thanks very much, wejones et all

I think that the problem is in the Liberty MCCI 2500+ because thare are
NO DISEQC1.2 sat positions. It gives you a choice of Motor and Usals. You can create a sat. list with name and position and put the sats. in any order you want, but that does'nt mean that the number will
corispond to the position on the motor. "Damn cleaver these chinese" !!!

So what are the odds now ?

Well I assume that the "motor" option is DiseqC1.2, and it has to have a DiseqC1.2 sat position assigned to each sat, but apparently you just can't see what that number is???? Could take a bit of experimentation, but you can probably eventually figure out via the other receiver, what number that Liberty receiver is using, then change the numbers on the other receiver. I'd guess that it starts on either 27 or 1 though. What numbers are used by the other receiver??

[Coral]

The other receivers give the sat. name and number that matches the list
in the motor manual 1 to 26 + Other 1 to ??

I best see if the dealer can contact the engeneer that is responsable for
the software and see what he has to say. I will add this to the list !!!

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Coral

The other receivers give the sat. name and number that matches the list
in the motor manual 1 to 26 + Other 1 to ??

I best see if the dealer can contact the engeneer that is responsable for
the software and see what he has to say. I will add this to the list !!!

I don't know where you are located (reading what you say, it's starting to sound like you're located in Europe), but usually that "1 to 26" are for sats that most of us in the US can't hit. Some receivers make it hard to reassign these numbers, so most people who define sats visible in the US use numbers above 26. Ie on the Fortec Lifetimes, I think the only way to use the first 26 numbers was to re-name sats that used those numbers, because the firmware didn't allow you to enter those numbers.

I'm curious what sats you stored, that you are actually viewing, and what numbers were used for those, as I assume that unless you are located in Europe, that you wouldn't be using many from the first 26?

It's all kind of guesswork since I'm not familiar with your receivers, but if you have a manual, it should tell you how to create a new satellite, and assign that satellite a position number, unless it does it sequentially, starting with 27.

[Coral]

I am located in Malta, Europe.
This is my sat. list:
1 Hotbird
2 Astra 1
3 Eutelsat W2
4 Eutelsat W1
5 Wutelsat W3
14 Hispast
17 Badr 3
18 Astra 2
22 Turksat C1
28 Nilesat
29 Telstar 12

The numbers are those that corispond to the motor positions as per manual and
work fin on both my other two boxes.