My three woks survived alright. Mind you, I have them mounted as low as possible and that includes below the fence line for two of them. I did this more for discretion than anything else, but when I move I'll still keep 'em as low as I can. The highest average speed my annenometer reported was 41Mph. I'm sure the gusts were more than that though.

The highest average speed my annemeter recorded was 85 km/h (53 mph). And my power was out for about 20 hours as a result of the storm.

Let me say I was more than a little concerned about my 3 antennas 40 feet up in the air, but everything survived. My two dishes (only 26" ones, one mounted on the roof and one on the side of the antenna tower) were also OK.

I've had a tower for about 25 years. I don't even bother looking at it unless I hear a crash. :)

Back in the 80's there *was* a crash... not of the tower, but the antenna mast folded in half during high winds. So I tend to keep an eye on things, especially since that was just a single UHF/VHF combo back then...

hello

am new to this place. really i want to know how to observe or note the strongest transponder of a satelite. am in ghana . for example i want to track intelsat nss 703 c band . but i dont know which frequency is the strongest transponder to use and track . i will be glad if any one can help me and guide me with this issue of knowing the strongest transponder of a satelite.

thanks


emmy

Welcome Emmy.

For a list of frecuencies or TP's for any satellite up there go to www.lyngsat.com. It takes a while to learn how to read the info there but it is very usefull. It does not list how strong a particular frecuency is though. Unfortunaelly for us here in North America that bird is too far low in the horizon , as a matter of fact , below for me. I would suggest you to search for a European-based SAT board as more likely their members have Line Of Sight of that bird and therefore can get that signal and post reception results.

Try [Link: satellites.co.uk] for more info. We will be glad to help you of course but being on the other side of the Atlantic does not help at all. I just checked Lyngsat and some frecuencies are not DVB and some others are on a Global beam with low power for your Country. Try ETV from Ethiopia at 3910L and 3931L frecuencies since those 2 signals are DVB. Both use Symbol Rate 2893 and FEC 3/4 and 1/2 respectively.

Good luck with your C-Band endevours and be very patient when aiming the big DISH. I am planning adding C-Band to my existing motorised Ku I already have.

Okay, I bought myself one of these dish motors. But no joy in receiving any signals. The motor appears to be working fine and the signal from the LNB itself is good. Finding perfect 180° is a bit of a challenge in my location so here's what I'm trying. I turned the motor to 180° using my eye and a carpenters level on the antenna backet, set my TP to 12177MHz, put the LNB at 0° skew and tried hunting for AMC5's NY Network (off track betting garbage). Nothing! :( Is this signal still there? Any other transponders on AMC5 I should be aiming for?

yes the signal it is still there. you can also try KTEL TeleMundo (spanish network) on that very same sat 11900H I guess. Other than that the rest are feeds.

I do not get what you mean by 180 degrees?. The pole or J arm where the motor sits has to be plumb or perfectly vertical in other words 90 degrees with respect of the horizontal. Let me stress it again , perfectly plumb for the Dish to track the Clarke Belt Arc properly otherwise it will work for some sats but not for others.

Again make sure it is plumb in every direction, yes it is that important.

Then , install the motor and set the motor elevation scale to your latitude , for us living in the GTA around 43.7. Some motors have a declination angle but most not , I prefer the italian Stab that BTW does not. Also set the elevation scale on the Dish as recommended by www.dishpointer or other calculation method. Set the LNB SKEW to 0 since the motor will skew the whole dish as it travels accross the arc.

Then using the receiver menu drive the motor to the USALS location (the receiver will use the USALS algorith to calculate how many degrees to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise accordingly. Most people start with the true south sat (the sat closest to your longitude, 79W in this case) but this is just to make it easier you could in theory use any sat in the arc.

Then rotate the WHOLE DISH MOTOR assembly to find the signal you might have to also adjust the Dish elevation a bit as well (not the motor elevation which is fixed at your latitude). Make sure you rotate the whole DISH motor assembly and not only the dish. After you find that signal , that is it, the rest will fall in place provided you made sure the pole was PLUMB. Just check the farthest east and west satellite and enjoy the ever less unscrambled programming. Soon between new broadcast formats and more channels being scrambled there will be nothing to watch , well, for communist spanish speaking people you will still get the cuban tv on Hispasat at 30 W , lol.

For hard to get Sats with USALS you can use DisecQ 1.2 to fine drive the motor to improve signal but USALS should get you almost everything if not all.

Anyhow no matter how the motor is set or if the pole is not plumb , you should get the first sat no matter what. make sure all conections are ok and that you are selecting an active TP. I am assuming you are.

Okay, when I say 180° what I'm meaning is directly south, or true-south if you will (0° being true north).

Sadly, it would appear my Viewsat Ultra doesn't have any provisions USALS or DISEQ1.2. All you can do is manually move it east/west and memorize the location. This is annoying, but perhaps not that big of an issue once its aimed properly.

You've confirmed I was on the right track with my approach so I'll try again when I get a chance. I think what may be happening is my receiver on the installation screen is only looking at one polarity on the LNB. I'll have to force it Vert and Hor and try each.

ok I got it now (the carpenter level comment made me think you were refering to the pole). Do not worry about true south 180 degrees. what you need is to drive the motor using Usals to SAT AMC 5 @ 79W (that is the closest to true south 180 degrees for our location) and then manually rotate the whole motor/dish assembly to get the signal. I did an install for a friend with 2 motors and 3 viewsats (ultra and extreme) receivers and they all had the USALS in the menu , I just do not remember exactly where now. and yes the usals on viewsat works perfectly. I beleive you had to exit the USALS menu for the receiver to actually drive the motor (on my coolsats as soon as you select USALS it drives the motor accordingly). It also has diseqC 1.2 provisions since every receiver at least have that one.

check lyngsat.com for the exact parameters for each TP. make sure you also select an active TP. you might have to adjust the Dish elevation as well since most are up to 4 degrees off.

LAST but not least , make sure there is no switch between the receiver and the motor. any switch has to be installed after the motor. first start without any switch (some ecoda 22khz switches will work with the current draw by the motor but most switches will get blown at some point) then add the switches between the lnb and the motor as needed.

Interesting on the USALS. I did upgrade the firmware to a revision dated last spring. This being a bonafide Viewsat revision of course. It took fine. Does the USALS swing the wok full east-west as part of its autoconfig (like a TV rotor)? If so, I need to adjust my hardware limit to the east first as the dish hits the wall at about 60° east and the motor goes to 70° east. I'm sure it has enough torque to damage things.

No switches in-line, just receiver-motor-(linear)LNB. The LNB was working 100% when I removed it in August too. I have a spare anyway.

the motor has a 70 degree mechanical limit but the electronic limit will not allow it to go further 65 degrees. as part of the USALS menu you can also set limits with in +- 5 to +- 65 which I recommend you to do in this case. but do not worry unless you select a sat so far away east (beyond 30W since that one is 54 degrees) the motor will never drive the dish to the limits as part of its configuration. the motor knows where Cero is and all it cares is how many degrees east or west it has to rotate for a particular sat. for instance we live at 79W yet the 30W needs the motor to rotate 54 degrees counterclockwise. for my location even 15W (telestar 12) is just out of the USALS limits therefore the motor will not drive there using USALS (you can still drive it manually using DiseqC 1.2 though). for most of GTA Hispasat at 30W is the farthest east sat with LOS. even the sat at 22 is for most people probably blocked by buildings or trees.

I am assuming the motor is STAB but most motors work very similar if not the same. If in the future you no longer need the limits then using the USALS menu again you can delete those limits you set previously. My hat goes off to the italians from STAB who designed the USALS systems and motors. they are so easy to install and set up once you understand how it works (provided that the pole was plumb otherwise it could become a nightmare).

If the receiver looses power when driving the motor or in some other cases that the motor does not keep driving the dish to the exact location so you loose signal , then just using USALS perform a Go To Cero function so the motor once again knows where Cero is. in most cases it solves the problem. For the most part you do not have to do this. You can also combine USALS for some sats and DiseqC 1.2 for some others although I prefer to set it up properly to use USALS only.

BTW for us living in the GTA , next week from Monday Oct 5 to Oct 12 there will be Sun Outages (Solar Interference) due to the SUN placing exactly behind the SATs in the Clark Belt. For sats as low East as Hispasat 30W it will happen everyday around 9:25 am , for sats as low West as 125W then it will happen everyday around 4:25 pm. Although it only last from 3 to 12 minutes depending on the day and Dish size it is a usefull time of year (unless it is cloudy then the other would be the spring equinox) to do a site survey in your property for potential locations for your Dish since it will tell you the places where you could not see the sun due to a tree or building at those times therefore you wont have LOS for those extreme SATS throught the year either. Well If you had a compass and an inclinometer then you would not need the Sun Outages neither, lol. Nothing we can do about mother nature just to try to make the best of it , eh?.

For more info and how to calculate this dates either go the SAT operator website or try this: [Link: satellite-calculations.com]

Alright, excellent input HDfan. I'm making progress. I was able to lock in AMC5 last night after I got the kiddos to bed. Perhaps more importantly, I found the USALS setup in my receiver buried in the Installer's sub-meny on the Antenna Alignment page - yay! I tested the dish functions for return to zero and also set the software limits so the wok wouldn't twist too far to the east. All I need to do now is figure out how to point the dish to 79W and re-align the collective thing to lock it in again. I *think* once I do this I should be tracking properly. Full report to follow.

Hey HDfan, how far east and west can you "see" satellites with your motor?