Darkman HD 2008 + Motorised Dish Set up

[badgb21]

Following so much help from people here and on other forums, I have written up my experience in the hope it will be of use to others:-

Before you buy:
Plan where you will mount the dish and the coax routing.
Make sure your dish location has a clear view of the sky looking south.
N.B. the dish doesn’t need to be that high, (so long as it’s clear it’ll probably work at patio level)
Make sure the dish won’t snag on anything as it rotates. You can limit the movement of the motor, either East or West if you do have an obstruction.

Read up as much as you can stand J on the whole satellite scene, some ideal forums and info here;

external sat forum
Alsat
Kingofsat
Lyngsat



In order to get the various angles set up on your dish, you’ll need to know your own location bearings.
Find your Latitude and Longitude and true south angle from dishpointer and make a note of the readings.

You will also need to know the name of a satellite which is the most due south of your longitude.
Match you longitude from the above with sats listed at lyngsat


My longitude is 0.67 West, so my most southerly satellite is Thor 2/3 at 0.8w

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The kit ; Darkbox REV2008 HD, 80cm orbital dish, Moteck SG2100a diseqc motor and 0.2 ICE LNB
U shaped wall bracket - part of dish kit. – All via a reputable dealer with a warranty.
Compass - well known auction site
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There are many guides on the above forums on assembly etc. There’s one really good one with photos.
I have tried to add bits of extra info to help;

Unpack an assemble everything in the garage, read the instructions, particularly the motor ones and double check the angles from table supplied with the motor.
Take your time here.
Firstly place dish face down on a mat on floor and bolt motor to dish. Make sure motor is at zero degrees beforehand and ensure it is inline with the dish.
(If it’s not at zero you’ll be able to make you final adjustment later)
I used a spirit level across the back of the motor to get this spot on.
Cut the all the u bolts down as they are generally too long. This is a drag but will look better and prevent any snagging later on.
Fix LNB to arm and fit arm to dish.

You then need to run a coax cable from the LNB to the Motor (this passes through the arm) and add connectors.
Use self amalgamating tape – see well known auction site - and seal both connections.

Now attach the wall bracket to the wall.
It is recommended to use T & K brackets and a vertical pole.- see ebay for info on these.
I used the U bracket that came with the dish and so long as you are patient and get it truly vertical it should be fine.
It’s recommended to drill into the brick and not the mortar. I used 45mm anchor bolts from a Hardware chain.

Now attach dish/motor assembly to bracket. Note this bit can be heavy especially up a ladder – Be careful and watch out if it’s windy!
Point the dish to true south.
You may want to fix a tight jubilee clip under the bottom U bolt of the motor to stop it slipping down the pole as you will be rotating it later.

Now you need to load some channels on your Darkbox so it’ll be easy to find a satellite. This is done by loading someone’s hard work onto your Darkbox using a USB memory stick.
Go to Alsat; A very kind user called JimiHendrix has a great set of channels.
Now copy the unzipped channel list onto your memory stick and transfer into your receiver.
Connect the receiver box to your TV, you will get a message to select the language do this first.
Then use the left and right arrow keys to scroll through menu and select ‘USB’ and add the channels.

Now in my opinion, you need to set up a TV and the Darkbox receiver outside so that you can see them as you are setting the dish.
For me it would be impossible to set the dish without doing this.
It’s a pain, but just run a power extension lead outside and rig a TV to the box.

Cut your required length of coax you are going to need if it’s on a reel or just use all that you have for now if it’s pre-cut.
Add connectors to both ends.
Connect the coax to the motor and the receiver before turning the receiver on.
Turn on box and TV.
Use the button on the actual motor to drive it to south and press the reset button on the motor.

Now you need to go to the Antenna setup menu. Press menu (maybe twice) and you’ll need to enter password to get into menu which is ‘0000’

In antenna set up Select the satellite which is most southerly to you (In my case Thor2/3)
Make sure the satellite has a red tick at the side of it (left arrow does this) and select ok. On right hand menu I selected a ‘Universal’ LNB for mine.
Turn off Diseqc and select USALS
You can now enter your house longitude and latitude here. Press OK to reference, move and store.
Ignore the signal meters on this page.
Now exit right out of the menu and get to channel selection. Select your southerly satellite and a Free to air channel.(no $ sign)

In my case I chose “DigiTV info” on Thor2/3 and the motor moved just slightly off south.
Now the really clever bit - To find the best signal meter for a given channel press the green key twice to get the tuning scale up.
This is the scale to use!

You can now try to locate Thor by moving the dish/motor assembly around manually, you will have to try various dish elevations until you get a picture.
Try and be methodical, set the declination and do a very slow sweep either side of south. Then change the Declination angle and repeat and so on.

This is where you might need patience. It took me 3 sessions before I even found a blip. I was convinced it was broken!
But you will find it eventually.

Once found tighten up your bolts a bit and check other satellites for reception.

When everything is ok, fully tighten all bolts, while keeping an eye on the signal meter, more patience here also!

Fix coax to wall with quality clips, then drill hole if necessary for coax. General consensus is drill from inside to outside. You may get brick burst on the outside, but these can be covered with special covers.
Don’t underestimate the thickness of your wall, the drill bit needs to be long.

The rest is logical and this is where I’m up to now, so I’m off for a channel surf……..

Bye and good luck.

[fackie]

Great tips! It's refreshing to see people taking the time to be helpful. Thanks a lot! :-)