Motorized Dish, How long does it take to change channels from different sats?

[saulin]

Hey people, Someone is selling me a Viewsat Max 9000 HD with a 8PSK unit installed fairly cheap. I'm considering buying it. Currently i have a 36" with 110, 119, I tried to also get 129 on the same dish but the signal was just too weak for 129. I understand that I can get a motor for around $60 and then I just need 1 LNB centered in the dish right?

Then you find your sats and save them and when you switch channels between sats the reciver tells the motor to find and lock on the bird that you need?

Is this how it works with motorized dishes? How long does it take to change a channel in say 110 to a channel in sat 129?


Also do you only need to find 1 satellite to start and the motor should be able to lock on the other near by satellites. I only plan on getting 110, 119 and 129. I can't really add another dish since I live on a Condo and I'm limited to 1 dish mounted on a tripod.

[StanW]

Speed will depend on tp that its currently on (H -V),this is due to the voltages involved (13 - 18v) and obviously distance of travel.

Many ppl will have a stationary dish for their 'bread and butter' sat(s).

If the dish is set up correctly it is just a matter of enterin your lat/long (once) and the motor will move to all sats available from your location.

[Glatt]

Try ne plus ultra LNB on youtube. Running 129,119,110 on 1 dish all at 99% nf HD

[StanW]

Probably the most versatile lnb for a motorized dish would be an invacom qph031 - you can get cicrular and linear pol satellites with one lnb.

[satchick]

They're reasonably quick, most of them will cover 2.5 degrees/second at 18v... So you could go from say 58w to 129w in under a minute.

I would recommend the Invacom QPH-031 as well...

[saulin]

Try ne plus ultra LNB on youtube. Running 129,119,110 on 1 dish all at 99% nf HD

The thing is that I'm in Canada and I just don't think a 36" offset Dish will be enough for 129,119, 110 @ my location. I did hold the LNB next to 119 and the best I could get on 1 TP was about 45% signal and about 10-15% signal on other TPs. I think 129 actually needs a bigger dish than 110 and 119 here. I'm sure that if I was to center the LNB I would be able to get very good signal.

I also did the same thing to find 110, I did hold the LNB next to 119 on the other side and it got me very good signal. Then I just used a hose clamp and a big zip tie and put some styrofoam between the LNBs and I have pretty good signal on both 110 and 119.

The thing is also that my wife would probably hate it if she has to wait say 30 secs to 1 min to switch between some channels.

If I just leave 110 and 119, like how many HD channels I'm likely to get say if I'm with NFPS

[satchick]

It would take from 8 to 15 seconds to go from 110 to 129...

[saulin]

It would take from 8 to 15 seconds to go from 110 to 129...

That doesn't sound too bad. Plus I guess if we were to get most of the channels we watch on 129, then we would rarely have to switch sats. Now do you think it would be around 15 seconds for the picture to come or just to get to 129 from 110?

Do these motors support more than 1 receiver too?

I'm looking at the SG-2100

[kingdomcome]

Motor only support one receiver controlling movement. If u use a invacom lnb u will be able to have one more receiver seeing what the main receiver is watching but will have no control over changing sats tho

[saulin]

Ok. Thanks for the info guys. Now, I'm looking at satbeams and it says for Edmonton, Alberta a 1.2m dish is needed for 129. Mmmmm I wonder if that's correct. Mine is only 90cm, I do remember that back in Oct I was looking for 119 on a 32" Dish and I locked on 129" with very strong signal but maybe that was just on 1 transponder?

I just talked to a local installer and he said a 36" should do it. I hope satbeams is wrong. I would not want to order a motor to find out I also need a bigger dish for 129. Then again I'm getting both 110 and 119 on the 36" so one would think it should be able to get 129.

**Edit**

2 installers have told me 36" should be good for 129. I'm going to order the motor.

Is the SG2100 a good one to order? Also I was checking out dishpointer.com and it has cordinates for my location for that motor. Once installed do I just configure the receiver with those coordinates and technically it should be able to find all the sats I can hit?

[kingdomcome]

Well with motor u can swing it the other
way and hit 77/72. Just a thought.

[Terryl]

I'd go with at least a 1 meter dish, and that motor can swing a 1.2 meter dish, so in my professional opinion go for the bigger dish, you wont have fadeout problems during bad weather.

The Invacom LNB is a great choice, also use good hi quality RG-6 quad coax with the pure copper center conductor, you will have less of a voltage drop when the motor starts up.

I have the SG2100 with a 39" dish and the Invacom LNB, it gets a better signal on 129 then my Dish 1000 does.

[StanW]

... pure copper center conductor wire on a rg-6 cable ? why not rg-11 ? In my neck of the woos that wood be cheaper , and easier to find ,than the solid copper rg6 ( if you can find it ) .lol

[saulin]

I'd go with at least a 1 meter dish, and that motor can swing a 1.2 meter dish, so in my professional opinion go for the bigger dish, you wont have fadeout problems during bad weather.

The Invacom LNB is a great choice, also use good hi quality RG-6 quad coax with the pure copper center conductor, you will have less of a voltage drop when the motor starts up.

I have the SG2100 with a 39" dish and the Invacom LNB, it gets a better signal on 129 then my Dish 1000 does.

The thing is that I already have a 32" dish that I need to get rid of and I think 1m dishes are about $150 local. Such a rip off. Also shipping costs a lot on big dishes.

I do also have a 39" 1m Dish but it sat on the yard all winter and people stepped on the snow and it's bent; so I don't trust it much. I tried to fix it but all around it looks bent on the sides only. The shape doesn't seem normal anymore lol

As for getting 77/72 like kingdomcome mentioned. I don't think NFPS has any HD channels there. But those sats might be easier to get I guess.

[StanW]

Motor only support one receiver controlling movement. If u use a invacom lnb u will be able to have one more receiver seeing what the main receiver is watching but will have no control over changing sats tho
You can connect to 2 receivers with a regular legacy lnb.

[saulin]

Ok guys I picked up a SG2100 locally.

I want to make sure I have everything I need. For those that have this setup please help me out. I will try to set it up with a Nano 2 that was converted to I-Link 220 untill I get my ViewSat 9000 HD. I will be using a legacy LNB, like the ones used for Direct TV. It's a dual LNB and it works with both 110 and 119 so it should work for 129 as well.

Since it's on a motor I take it I don't need any switches? This is the first time I'm doing this so I'm not sure but I would think that the motor connects to the LNB and then to the receiver?

I'm thinking of getting my settings from dishpointer.com, I still have to read on how to get the true south for my location. I do have an Iphone app that actually shows me exactly where the satellites are on the sky using the Iphone 4 camera and GPS and has many coordinates. I think it may have the true south there.

Also I need to find my nearest satellite first right? Which would be the closest satellite for me. I'm in Edmonton, AB

[bkr™]

That lnb will work for 129w. The motor is connected between the receiver and the lnb. True south for your local is -15.6 degrees deviation for magnetic south, so 164.4 magnetic is your true south. The nearest sat due south is 113w Satmex 6 at 179.4 true or 163.8 magnetic, but you will not pick that up on the dtv dual circular legacy lnb. 110w would be the closest southern dn sat for you at 175.7 true or 160.1 magnetic. Since you are 53.50 north you will put the A elevation angle of the motor at 36.5 on the scale, and put your dish elevation B at 30 - 7.6 = 22.4 on the dish. Then you will rotate the dish using your motor approx 5 degrees to the east to hit the 110w dn sat. Hope this makes sense to you. They are not that hard to set up if you understand how they work.

[satchick]

... pure copper center conductor wire on a rg-6 cable ? why not rg-11 ? In my neck of the woos that wood be cheaper , and easier to find ,than the solid copper rg6 ( if you can find it ) .lol


Solid copper is easy enough to find, it's all that the "professionals" that Bell sends out are allowed to use. RG-11 is a necessity in some installations with long cable runs (I use RG-11 with my OTA antenna), and with a long run to a motor the heavier gauge will compensate for some voltage drop. The problem with it is that the connectors and the compression tool are twice as expensive as RG-6 connectors, and it's stiff, heavy stuff that doesn't bend well. Forget about terminating it to a wall plate without a right angle connector on it.

[saulin]

I've been playing with the SG2100 and the converted Nano 2. First it was hard to get it going. Trying to get the pole to be perfect and then trying to find my true south satellite. The Nano 2 does allow you to manually find and set the location of the satellites though. Once I locked on 110 with the right coordinates, it also found 119 and 129. The signal wasn't as impressive as thought it would be though.

For 110 and 119 shows 75/95 and for 129 75/95 only on 1 transponder and it doesn't lock on any other transponder. Since I picked up a Viewsat 9000 HD, I managed to tweak the signal with that receiver, it has controls to move the dish with the receiver. For that receiver the 75 signal on the converted Nano 2 is around 50-55, so I got all three to about 70-75/95 on the Viewsat. The picture comes very nice on 110 and 119. But again on 129 I only get TP 12516 and nothing else. Also Sat 61.5 is not within my reach

The converted Nano 2 drives the motor pretty sweet using USALS but the Viewsat always gives me an error with USALS when entering my coordinates. Something about been out of reach and the coordinates are correct.

[StanW]

Q is relative - it will vary from receiver to receiver . Viewsats have traditionally displayed lower values than other brands .

You are getting an error in the vs because you have your lon/lat or ne/sw reversed .

Try setting 129 to diseqc and nudge the dish for optimal signal - if it works save the setting as diseqc for that satellite ( and any others)

[bkr™]

For 110 and 119 shows 75/95 and for 129 75/95 only on 1 transponder and it doesn't lock on any other transponder. Since I picked up a Viewsat 9000 HD, I managed to tweak the signal with that receiver, it has controls to move the dish with the receiver. For that receiver the 75 signal on the converted Nano 2 is around 50-55, so I got all three to about 70-75/95 on the Viewsat. The picture comes very nice on 110 and 119. But again on 129 I only get TP 12516 and nothing else. Also Sat 61.5 is not within my reach

You may want to check this out for your 129w problem;
http://www.satfix.net/showthread.php?t=63145

[saulin]

You may want to check this out for your 129w problem;
http://www.satfix.net/showthread.php?t=63145

I hope that's the problem and I just need to edit the TPs. I will try that in a bit, unfortunatelly I'm not able to test any HD channels since I need to order a X-FTA for the Viewsat 9000 HD, does anyone know where to order a X-FTA cheaper than ebay? I have seen it for 69+15 of shipping on ebay

[bkr™]

The only other place I have seen them lately is ;

http://www.dreaminthebox.com/

[saulin]

Mmmmm the guy who sold me the Viewsat 9000 HD told me it had the 8PSK module installed. I just looked ta pics of the 8psk unit they sell and it looks different.

This is what I see on Ebay and some sites

http://www.o-digital.com/uploads/2227/2285-1/Viewsat_9000HD_8PSK_Module_HW_DVB012_850.jpg

What's installed looks like this

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/177/img0914p.th.jpg (http://img151.imageshack.us/i/img0914p.jpg/)

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/1464/img0913t.jpg (http://img856.imageshack.us/i/img0913t.jpg/)

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to play with it yet. I tried editing the TPs and no signal on anything but 12516 still. However I can't turn on/off the EXT Tuner, so I'm starting to wonder if the 8PSK is the correct one. Also I didn't have the little coax loop connected. I just found out today it needs to be connected.

When I get home, I will update the receiver with the latest files and connect the 8PSK unit with the coax cable to the loop connection on the receiver and see if I get control of the EXT Tuner. Maybe that's the problem.

However I'm starting to think that I don't have the correct 8PSK unit too since it looks differenet.

[kingdomcome]

that looks like the factory tuner that the box came with. It was suppose to be a dual tuner but that never got done. Im pretty sure youll need to purchase a 8psk and that will solve that issue

[saulin]

Yeah it does look like a factory tuner. I looked at it and there was nothing that said 8PSK and searching online the numbers on the unit didn't really give me any results pointing at a 8psk. Anyways I just ordered a 8psk unit and a X-FTA dongle/router

I'm thinking since I'm getting signal on TP 12516 on Sat 129, I should be able to get some signal from the Conus TPs too. The receiver cost me $160 so I don't think is too bad, I was hoping that I didn't have to get the 8psk module though. I got the 8PSK unit that works for Viewsat/Nfusion and I-Link 9500. The one I showed in the picture above. That is the correct one right?

[bkr™]

Yep you ordered the correct module. All the tps #17 thru 32 except tp #21 12516 are only MEG4 HD.
The tps #1 thru 16 are dvb spot beam only and you will not get those.

[saulin]

Ok cool. Well for now my converted Nano 2 is working great with the SG2100. Now I just have to wait for the 8PSK and the X-FTA dongle, I have tweaked 110, 119 and 129 to get the max signal. I have tried cruising all three sats and I get great signal. However I didn't do it by the book. Basically my closest sat for my location was 110, so I manually locked on that one. But in order to get the best signal I had to put my Longitude as 110 also; and technically my longitude is 113. Then I use the Viewsat receiver just to control the motor and tweak the signal. Then I saved the Sat position for all 3 sats once I felt I have found the best signal on the converted Nano 2 receiver.

I swear I was putting the Longitude and Latitude correctly in the Viewsat 9000 HD receiver

Latitude: 53° 34' North

Longitude: 113° 25' West

And I tried copying the exact same settings from the converted Nano 2 but it kept giving me an error saying that sat 110 was out of reach for my location. I would hate to have to set everything up from scratch with the VS 9000 HD to get the VS to control the motor. Because ventually what I will do is have the Viewsat receiver control the motor and the converted Nano 2 will just be connected direct from the other port of the LNB so I can just watch whatever channels are available to it upstairs.

How do I go about having the SV 9000 HD control the motor without having to change anything right now? Technically I should be able to just set the same coordinates that I have in the other receiver right?

[Terryl]

Check your users manual to see if your entering the Longitude correctly, on some you have to use a minus sign before the Longitude to tell the receiver your west of the Prime Meridian. (0 degrees Longitude)

And you should have used 113W (Satmex 6) as your due South reference satellite, but you may be a bit too far North to be inside its foot print.

You can look here to see if you within its foot print.
http://www.satbeams.com/footprints?norad=29162

Also some USALS settings need decimal longitude and latitude settings, like 113.25 W by 53.34 N, again you will have to check the manual on how it wants the info

[saulin]

That might just be it then, according to Dishpointer. This is what I should use:

Latitude: 53.5436° and Longitude: -113.4905°

So maybe the Viewsat needs the -

And yeah there is no way I can get Satmex 6 from my location plus I don't have the proper LNB for it. Again with my current receiver, it let me use whatever position the Dish was on as 110. However when moving to 119, I got no signal and that's where I had to set my longitude as 110.5; Once I did that I was able to hit 119 and 129. Then I tweaked the signal for all 3, and saved the locations for all 3.

I'm thinking I will have to setup everything again with the Viewsat to get it to control the motor then. The problem I was having is that I wasn't even able to input the Longitude and Latitude on the Viewsat because it would not accept it. I think once I get that in, I should be able to save the exact same location I have for all 3 sats and it should work the same as the other receiver.

Also I believe I restored to factory defaults too but now that I think about it and from I was reading in another forum. This receiver was being used for Bev and I think it may have been set with limits. Tomorrow I should have more time to play with it. I will reload new files and make sure everything is reset and see if it takes the location this time.

[Terryl]

This is another reason I don't like using the USALS, it's not that accurate in some locations for finding the birds as you can't enter a fine enough resolution on the long/lat settings.

As long as you get it on the arc and find the end point satellites (furthest West and East from your location) you should be able to tweak in all the birds viewable from your location. (I get about 29)


Oooohhh you should get the Invacom LNB you will get every Ku band birds (but 118) with that one.

[saulin]

Well I figured out the problem with sat 110 and the error I was getting. I did put the same coordinates as in the other receiver, then I found and locked on 110. The problem was that 119 and 129 come with the right settings which are 119W and 129W but when I pick 110 it would show as 110 0.0E, so all I had to do is changed it to 110W and save it. Now I can control get to all 3 sats with both receivers. Of course 1 at a time.


Of course I still can't get any signal on 129 except for TP 12516 but that's because I don't have the 8psk module yet. Lets see how long it takes to get here.

[bkr™]

Well you are making progress, that's good to hear.

[saulin]

Well you are making progress, that's good to hear.

Yeah man, so far so good.

So it looks like NFPS gets HD on sat 72.7W, I will try to hit that one as well. What worries me is that the elevation is pretty low. It's at 18.5 and my Dish is in a tripod on my balcony and it doesn't go higher than the roof, unfortunatelly I don't get a clear view at the sky. All the sats are on the other side of the roof. I get a clear view on 110/119/129 for sure but I'm not too sure about 72.7W.

If I can hit it, it'll be sweet though because I can get a strong signal with a 30" Dish here in Edmonton, so most TPs will be strong like they are for 119W.

Also I'm not sure if 72.7 has any SD TP that I can use to find the signal since I haven't received my 8PSK module yet and it won't get any signal without it.

[bkr™]

You could find out this info at lyngsat.com and look at 72.7, will give sid, tp freqs and tp numbers.

[saulin]

You could find out this info at lyngsat.com and look at 72.7, will give sid, tp freqs and tp numbers.

I'm looking here


hxxp://www.lyngsat.com/packages/dish73.html

So if it says

MPEG-4/HD
Nagravision 3

Then it's HD

and if it says

MPEG-4
Nagravision 3

Then it's SD?

So technically I should be able to get signal from 12428 R, tp 15

Using these settings?

SR 21500
FEC 2/3

I was also looking at 77W whichs seems to have SD/HD channels but satbeams says I need a huge dish for 77W Echostar 8, I might be able to get some from E8Mexico, it says 135cm dish recommended. But not from E8High or E8Medium

Ok I did some search and looks like both 77W and 72.7W also use the same Circular LNB Standard 11250 LNB type. I will try to get something from them later on.

[timster]

both standard and high-definition channels on 72.7w are turbo 8psk. until you get the addon card, 72.7w will not show up at all

77w is a different story since it is Turbo QPSK 5/6. i've yet to see a box that will get that satellite (except for the ViP receivers from Dish Network)

[saulin]

both standard and high-definition channels on 72.7w are turbo 8psk. until you get the addon card, 72.7w will not show up at all

77w is a different story since it is Turbo QPSK 5/6. i've yet to see a box that will get that satellite (except for the ViP receivers from Dish Network)

Oh that might be why when I went from 110 to 82 on my motor it didn't seem to be able to pick up anything but 91 in between. I guess I can't do anything about 72.7 right now then and you say that 77W can't be picked up by anything by some Dish receivers then?

I guess I'll make sure I can get really good reception on 82 then, then I might be able to pick up 72.7 pretty good then. I seem to get a weak signal on 82 right now using USALS but I haven't tweaked it yet. I don't know if it's because of the roof or because of the way I setup my motor. All I know is that here in Canada we get 82 and 91 on a 20" Dish with awesome signal so something is not right. It might just need a little tweak though. But if it's my roof though arrrrrg

I hate not being able to setup my dish on the roof. Dumb condo rules

***Edit***

Last night I tweaked 82W and 129W and I get 91/110/119 pretty good. I just did some minor adjustments and saved each sat position, I hope 72.7W comes in good. Last night it was raining though and it really sucks how much signal you lose. On sat 82 I lose about 12 points, on 119 about 13, on 110 about 14 and on 129 about 14 points. This is on the usual transponders I use to tweak the signal.

This morning though 82W was at S88, 119W @ S90, 110W @ S77, 129W @ S77, I didn't check 91W but the signal there is pretty strong.