Can't get a signal

[Miklos]

Ok, I set up my system - as per instructions provided on hardware - and I cannot get a signal from a single satellite.

I have given up today because the weather was completely against me and I can no longer feel my fingers!!!!!!!!

The strength & quality meters on my antenna set-up menu in my receiver are locked at 0%
I have moved the dish east to west manually..... nothing!
I have moved it using the motor...... nothing!
The only thing left to do is alter the elevation.... COULD THIS BE THE PROBLEM?
I set the motor & dish elevation settings as per the motor instruction booklet.
I must admit, it does look a bit straight as opposed to pointing to the sky somewhat.

I have it low down, on the side garage wall. maybe it needs to be elevated upwards more??????

The f-connectors supplied with my dish pack were not enough. I was supplied only TWO when in actual fact I need FOUR.
Receiver - Motor
Motor - LNB
I had to buy some more myself, but they were right poxy quality and did not grip the cable well enough. But I will improve the connections tomorrow. I don't think that was the reason for my lack of signal, however.

I will have a go at the elevation settings tomorrow, when I both have some daylight and some feeling back in my fingers!!!!
I thought things were going so well this morning when I started too [cross face].

Can anyone advise what needs to be done?
Cheers, [scratching his head]

Mike

[bigtee]

Give some details e.g.:

your general location; what size dish; what satellites you are trying to get; what type receiver; how you set the receiver; whether you are using a sat meter etc etc?

[Yorks]

As bigtee says we really need a bit more info on your location, equipment and what you have done so far.

Just to give you an idea of dish elevation, in Yorkshire when setting to Thor 1W (my nearest due south sat) my offset type dish is only tilted back by about 7 degrees from vertical (in London this would be 8.6 degrees). When pointing at Astra 28.2 the dish is tilted back less than 2 degrees from the vertical plain (in London this would be 3.2 degrees).

There several useful tools here to confirm your dish settings.

Dish Setup - Angle Calculators

Yorks

[Miklos]

OK!

Hardware:
Fortec Star Passion HD receiver
Triax 88cm dish
Motek 2100 motor

Location:
South facing garage wall about 9ft from the ground.
Directly facing the dish (about 14ft away) are some leylandi hedging, about 12ft tall - but the dish should clear these!!!
Beyond that are no buildings, only neighbours' gardens.
So, I can't see any restrictions/obstacles in that sense.
The dish is pointing roughly in the same direction as my Sky dish on the front of the house, so surely I should pick up something???????

Satellite:
Mainly Hotbird, but anything within range.

Not using a sat meter or a compass.
I used the information from DishPointer.com - Satellite Dish Pointer / Alignment Calculator with Google Maps and followed the direction of Thor 2,3 which just happened to cross at a specific point on my opposite fence. I used this as a marker for pointing the dish.
When I didn't get a signal, I moved the dish (little by little) from east to west, whilst the wife watched the TV signal meter on the receiver.
Nothing happened. Both the 'S' and the 'Q' meters at the bottom of the screen didn't move from 0%

Will have another crack at it tomorrow morning, but I was at it from 10am until 3pm with NO success.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?

[Miklos]

Lat = 53.77
Long = 0.38

Elevation = 53.4/37 (on motor)

Kingston Upon Hull

[Miklos]

And yes, the wall bracket is completely vertical

[daryaz]

mike it seems we are having the same problems

[Robbo]

Hi Miklos, your problem could be one of 4 things:-

Your cabling is faulty,
Your receiver is faulty.
Your LNB is faulty.
Your alignment skills need more work

You can check your cable and receiver by plugging it into your sky dish, with the receiver setup for 28E. If it works OK you can rule out the cable and receiver.

The LNB is difficult to check without an aligned dish.

You can practice your skills on the Sky dish, as it will be far easier to align than a large dish ( mark old position first).

You may even be able to substitute your LNB with the Sky one to test it out, if you can bodge something up to make it fit.( I have a standard LNB on a Sky dish and it works fine, just get the angle the same as the Sky lnb, and put loads of tape round it)

If all equipment checks out, then it is just a matter of having a bit of practise aligning a dish. Try it without the motor connected, trying to find 28E, the signal from there is huge.

Robbo

[Yorks]

To confirm your settings. Yes your motor (I presume it's the later SG2100A) elevation angle should be set a 37 degrees. Your dish bracket angle should be set to 22.4 degrees.

To clear an object 4m away 1m high - you need an elevation angle greater than 14 degrees. As your dish is 3m high and the trees are approx 4m high you should be able to see over them easily. The elevation angle of your dish when pointing at 13e will be 27.4 degrees and at 1w will be 28.6 degrees.

Yorks

[Miklos]

I've just connected the coax from the back of my Sky box to the new Fortec receiver.

Selected 'Astra' satellite on the new receiver and it found a signal, and started scanning for channels.
The signal strength was about 66% and the quality 88%

The channels were clear enough, but without sound (hence the 66% strength), so I suppose that rules out the receiver being faulty!!??

The cable from the house to the motor worked fine this afternoon, because the receiver moved the motor/dish ok and the green LED light was on. It just wouldn't pick up a signal. I nudged it east/nudged it west to fine tune it.... nothing!

I will check (in daylight) the connections again. I will run the cable direct to the LNB (bypassing the motor) and see if I can pick up the 28E signal.

Maybe it is my motor to LNB cable which is proving to be a problem?

Or, the elevation of the dish.

It just pisses me off, because I took so much care whilst doing things and even researched my plan of action for weeks leading up to the actual job in hand.
I thought I had it sussed.
I didn't think it would be this difficult

Hey, but thanks for your help guys. That's why I came here....