Testing cable and signal meters

[skyphyr]

Hi All,

I got a cable tester and signal meter from maplin.

The tester says the cable out to my dish is fine (lights up and noise comes out).

Though when I try attach anything on the other end I'm getting nothing - no signal reported on my card, and even the backlight of the signal meter doesn't come on - as though it's not pulling any power over the cable.

So I'm a bit stuck now. Where should I be looking to figure out the issue?

Cheers,

Alan.

[Robbo]

Which signal meter is it?

Is it like this one:-

a96fg.jpeg

If so , how have you connected it?

You need to take the cable from the LNB and plug it onto the meter plug labelled 'REC'. Another cable goes onto the meter connector labelled 'LNB' and goes to the LNB.

If you dish is up, and pointing near a satellite, you should be able to wiggle the dish about and watch the needle move.

[skyphyr]

Hi Robbo,

The problem was a bug in the linux drivers for the card. I installed windows on this machine and it enables power (light on the motor goes green), the signal test unit has the backlight come on and needle does its thing.

Software on windows that I've tried still doesn't seem to show any signal strangely. Dishpointer gave me the following for Thor
Elevation:30.9°
Azimuth (true): 180.9°
Azimuth (magn.): 183.2°
LNB skew: 0.6°

I'm not sure I set that one up correctly as the dish was twisted a fair way further left than I expected (though it may still be correct).

In order to set this up I put the motor's elevation angle to 30.9 and the dish one to 22 (I read that it's supposed to be 30-declination angle - which a lookup table said was 8 for an elevation of 30). Is this correct or do I need to shift the motor's elevation angle up by the declination angle? I tried this while the signal meter was attached and it dropped to nothing, but if the direction was wrong I may have been pointing at another satellite.

Cheers,

Alan.

[Robbo]

Hi again,

You have the motor elevation setting wrong.

The scale on the motor itself should be set to the site elevation or latitude.

Some motors have latitude marked on them, some have latitude and elevation.

If it has latitude, set the motor vertical angle to your latitude, eg 54, if your latitude happened to be 54N. Elevation is simply 90-latitude.

To be honest, I have never set the dish elevation using the scale on the back. I find it easier to just wiggle the dish up and down until I get a signal.

As for the azimuth for the whole lot, just send the motor to 1W, using USALS/goto x if you have it. Then go outside and swivel the motor round the pole, and wiggle the dish up and down until you get the best signal on 11325H (BBC World). Make sure you are in the centre of the beam, and do a scan of the transponder to ensure you have the right satellite.

Once you have that right, you can go ahead and store the positions of all the other satellites in Diseqc1.2, or use USALS. (your choice).

Robbo

[skyphyr]

Thanks Robbo,

Good to know I was doing something wrong. So I adjusted all the settings and I'm looking at 80-90% for the signal level, but 2% for the quality. I got a TM-6900 to get it to a standard setup, but nothing I do shifts the signal quality %.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Cheers,

Alan.

[Robbo]

Ok,

First you have to select a transponder that we know you can get in the UK from 1W. Like 11325H.

Use USALS to send you dish to 1W.

Then go outside, making sure you have a good view of the TV screen, and set the dish elevation so that the dish face is point just slightly upwards.

Then loosen the U-bolts that hold the motor onto the pole very slightly, so you can just swivel it round a bit.

Swivel the motor round the pole until the quality on the receiver reads something decent. If nothing found, try differing the dish elevation a bit, and repeating.

The motor body itself, should end up pointing at true south when its in the right place.

Give that a go.

Robbo

[skyphyr]

Hi Robbo,

Thanks again for the help.

I gave up for the day and got a guy in to align it (was starting to worry there simply wasn't enough clearance over the roof of the house), unfortunately he was just a sky sat guy so wasn't familiar with motorized satellites. Anyway I set it to point at 28.2 and we got it aligned to that.

It adjusts between a few different satellites in that general area (from appox 7 up to 28). My guess is that while overall angle of the dish for 28.2 is correct that I need to adjust the angle on the motor and the angle on the dish so it works out to the same when pointed in that direction, but would mean that it stays on the ark when going to the others. Does that sound like what I need to do?

When I'm feeling brave enough to risk making it not work at all I'll give it a swing.

Cheers,

Alan.

[Robbo]

Yes, that is correct, as per BGonaSTICK's tutorial in the FAQs section, it ideally should be lined up on your nearest due south satelite, after sending the dish there with the motor.

With USALS it will most probably work not to badly, if you sent the dish to 28E FIRST, and then went outside and swivelled the dish up and down, and the motor round the pole to get the best signal. You can then send the dish to your nearest due south satellite (1W for me) and check or re-adjust if necessary.

As long as the pole is vertical, the elevation scale on the motor is correct, and the dish is mounted on the rotor arm of the motor correctly ( as per the instructions, i.e lined up with the vertical line on the rotor arm) it will all work.

Robbo