Hispasat Day

[PopcornNMore]

For the past several years I have been wanting to work on the following two FTA satellite projects:
1) Setup a dedicated dish for Hispasat at 30.0W
2) Install an inverted satellite dish

Since I'm not getting any younger I've decided to declare tomorrow "Hispasat Day" and install a dedicated inverted satellite dish to gain access to Cubavision. I don't care if I need to cut down a tree, install the dish in the front yard or on the roof and spend the entire day doing it. Tomorrow night I'm going to be watching Cubavision no matter what.

The weather is going to be beautiful and my wife and daughter will be away for the day, so now is my chance to get these two projects crossed off my list.

 

[Mr Tony]

21 elevation looks like....easily doable

 

[KE4EST]

Yeah you can do it. When I first started out I could not even get my true south or anything east. I burn wood for heat so every few weeks I take down another tree and work it up. I selectively cut the trees too based on Sats. It's funny my wife still asks why did cut that one and that one and just not get that one or that one..etc....I am now down to barley getting 45W...so I am almost to 30.....but mind you I live in the woods and believe me there are a lot more trees to cut to get the arc all the way down there. Because of trees behind trees etc. I'll get there someday. Best thing I did this spring was drop 500 on a decent chainsaw, it is the difference in night and day. I could already have it but I don't want just a bunch of trees laying down and look like a mess. So maybe another year or so.

 

[toucan-man]

For the past several years I have been wanting to work on the following two FTA satellite projects:
1) Setup a dedicated dish for Hispasat at 30.0W

Good for you, be sure to let us how you like Hispasat. I caught the tail end of an auto racing feed on Hispasat last weekend.

Here's my set-up over at our rental place, 30W just clears the trees, the other dish is on 87W

2) Install an inverted satellite dish

Be sure to put your baseball cap on backwards while you're working, you'll get a lock a lot quicker that way.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Hispasat Day isn't going so well.

Equipment List:
1) Channel Master 60cm Offset Dish
2) Coolsat 4000 Pro Receiver
3) DMS International Avenger PLL Universal KU LNBF

Within an hour I had the mount attached to the deck railing and the dish installed. During my first blind scan I saw the signal quality move from 5% to around 30% on a few frequencies, but they weren't strong enough to lock. I thought "this is going to be easy", because I knew I must be aimed near Hispasat and after a few minutes of adjusting I'll be inside enjoying the programming. Well, sometimes things don't go as expected.

I spent the next 4 or 5 hours adjusting and scanning without any signal. The signal quality remained at 5% no matter what I did. I swapped out the universal LNBF to a known good Sadoun standard LNBF. Still no signal. I then swapped out the coax thinking it might be bad and again no signal.

Iceberg is correct the elevation should be 21 degrees. With the dish inverted I believe I should be seeing a signal at approx 45 degrees. I even tried receiving AMC 6, AMC 9 and other KU band satellites with no success.

I never had this happen to me before. Since I've been adjusting satellite dishes since the early 80's I usually can eye ball it and receive signals within minutes. This has got me baffled.

I might remove the 60cm dish tomorrow and install a larger Channel Master dish I have which is like the Primestar dishes. However, I believe that I should be receiving something using this 60cm dish even if the signal is weak.

 

[FaT Air]

Second pic - dish face looks too low to be 'looking' at 21° elevation. If dish is 24° offset, to 'look up' 21° the dish face would be at 90 - (24 + 21) = 45°
Think your elevation scale on the mount will read "off" by double the dishes offset angle.

 

[Cham]

Might be an idea to skew the LNBF 180 degrees so water won't run down the feedline into the device. Also in the picture it looks like your skew is almost zero. Should be about 40 degrees (maybe less for you). Connector should be pointing more to the right looking at the satellite from behind the dish.
At 21 degrees do you really need to invert the dish? For a dedicated stationary dish your post does not have to be vertical. I had to invert mine because there just wasn't enough adjustment and my post was too short to angle enough to "make it work".

 

[concord]

If you have an old plastic protractor, use it with a piece of string and something to weight down the to see if you are at 21° or see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7thWAa0xXsU

 

[Jim S.]

I agree with Fat Air, no way is that dish pointed at 21 elevation. It looks like it's pointing below the horizon.

 

[PopcornNMore]

I went out again and spend a few more hours adjusting the dish with no success. The quality never goes above 5% no matter what I do. I even replaced the LNBF again as well as the coax cable.

Tomorrow I'm going to try your suggestions to see if I have better luck.

FatAir, this caught my attention (Think your elevation scale on the mount will read "off" by double the dishes offset angle). I'm going to think more about this tonight.

Question: When inverting a dish does the zero mark on the LNBF face up or down (normal) when facing the dish? I kept the LNBF at zero until I receive a signal, but I might have better success if I adjusted the LNBF before.

 

[Babadem]

Hispasat Day isn't going so well.

Equipment List:
1) Channel Master 60cm Offset Dish
2) Coolsat 4000 Pro Receiver
3) DMS International Avenger PLL Universal KU LNBF

Within an hour I had the mount attached to the deck railing and the dish installed. During my first blind scan I saw the signal quality move from 5% to around 30% on a few frequencies, but they weren't strong enough to lock. I thought "this is going to be easy", because I knew I must be aimed near Hispasat and after a few minutes of adjusting I'll be inside enjoying the programming. Well, sometimes things don't go as expected.

I spent the next 4 or 5 hours adjusting and scanning without any signal. The signal quality remained at 5% no matter what I did. I swapped out the universal LNBF to a known good Sadoun standard LNBF. Still no signal. I then swapped out the coax thinking it might be bad and again no signal.

Iceberg is correct the elevation should be 21 degrees. With the dish inverted I believe I should be seeing a signal at approx 45 degrees. I even tried receiving AMC 6, AMC 9 and other KU band satellites with no success.

I never had this happen to me before. Since I've been adjusting satellite dishes since the early 80's I usually can eye ball it and receive signals within minutes. This has got me baffled.

I might remove the 60cm dish tomorrow and install a larger Channel Master dish I have which is like the Primestar dishes. However, I believe that I should be receiving something using this 60cm dish even if the signal is weak.

The reversed dish elevation is way too low.

 

[Mr Tony]

why are we doing an inverted dish? Are there trees involves?

21 elevation isnt that bad and would be easier to put the dish on "normally" unless there are trees involved

 

[Bob2011]

Back in the spring I played with a 20" Directv dish inverted and was able to lock Cubavision. Here are some pictures of it that should help with your setup. I am at 24 degrees elevation here so yours should be quite close to this. The picture may look a little strange because I had it temporarily installed on a piece of PVC pipe jammed in the ground. This caused the setup to flex forward a few degrees. Good thing I had a meter.

 

[danristheman]

What comes on Hispasat at 30.0W? What tv programs do they have?

Dan Rose

 

[Mr Tony]

mainly stuff from Cuba but from other areas too like Uruguay, Columbia and Argentina
http://www.satelliteguys.us/thelist/index.php?page=30+Hispasat+1D

There is Fashion TV too

I like it in the winter as they have baseball on the stations

A couple transponders have stuff that is readily available on 97W

 

[Phottoman]

PopcornNMore, I don't think you are seeing what others are trying to tell you.

I may be WAY off on my angles here, but this is what I see your LNB pointing at and where it is reflecting off the dish.



If you look at the way your LNB is pointing at the center of your dish, then think about how it is bouncing off the dish straight into the ground. You'll have to tip your dish WAY back in order to get it to point at the sky, and as Iceberg said, why go upside down in the first place?

Photto

ps: Sorry about the black line, I couldn't figure out how to make it red.

 

[PopcornNMore]

Success

After giving it some thought last night and reading your suggestions (Thank You!) this morning I...

• 7:30AM Got out of bed
• 7:45AM Got dressed and made coffee
• 8:00AM Setup satellite equipment outside
• 8:15AM Reinstalled DMS International PLL LNBF
• 8:20AM Adjusted dish to proper elevation
• 8:25AM Performed a blindscan and received CNN

Now I simply need to figure out what satellite CNN is on and readjust to Hispasat.

Why install an inverted dish:

1. Because I'm a Satellite Guy
2. Always wanted to experiment using an inverted dish to gain additional knowledge
3. A tree is located straight in front of the dish, but is dying and has no leaves
4. The dish is mounted lower than the rest of my dishes on the back deck aimed right at my larger 4' and 6' dishes

 

[Jim S.]

Word is, there was a CNN feed on 37.6W for the Olympics. I can't check if it's still there because I have a tree issue with that satellite in the summer. But I really don't think there are any other satellites that far east that even provide coverage to Pennsylvania, other than 15W. But if you were way down on 15W, you'd be getting other channels.

 

[SatelliteAV]

Set the LNBF skew BEFORE aiming a fixed dish.

With a 40° skew, it would be almost impossible to get a signal lock with a 0° setting.

 

[Cham]

Peak your CNN signal (especially skew) and then move the dish a touch lower and 30w should show up. U r almost there!
That's a nice little dish looks like brand new!