In pursuit of COZI TV

[jorgek]

Yesterday was lets snag AMC-1 and watch COZI TV.
The S9 was mated to an IBM pc with a screen capture device. The 33 inch Fortec dish secured to a Workmate bench. This combo works well and also allows access to the internet via wifi. Took a while to find the right spot due to the trees. The LNB, PLL321S-2, skew is touchy but manageable. The DVB-S2 channels need a strong and solid Q to lock. Anything below Q 50 would not lock.

I used TP 11943 to find the sat since it is DVB-S, strong and locked easily. Tweaked the dish and got Q75. TP 12146 also Q75. Q on 11840 was 70.
Skew on LNB is about -10. The elevation markings on the Fortec dish were spot on. Dishpointer specified 34.5º elevation which is what I set the dish to.

All in all a very successful half day. Pics attached.

 

[turbosat]

I thought I was going to have to beat some trees back to get that one, but once I tweaked the skew on 103, it works fine. A 1m channel master fixed on 103 is worth the effort.

 

[Larry1]

I was surprised that you could receive COZI with a 33" dish. You must have it peaked just right. I'm east of you with a 90cm dish and any weather usually causes a breakup in the signal for COZI. I really need to replace my LNBF with the PLL one I have for it.
Mondays COZI airs three of my favourites.... McCloud, Banacek, and McMillan and Wife.

 

[pro96]

Nice test props :

Posted Using The New SatelliteGuys Reader App!

 

[Kraven]

39" DISH here... tried many times. gave up.

 

[madmadworld]

have a fixed 90 on it for wild weak feeds. but my motor dishes will get these most of the time..location location location

 

[jorgek]

I was surprised that you could receive COZI with a 33" dish. You must have it peaked just right. I'm east of you with a 90cm dish and any weather usually causes a breakup in the signal for COZI. I really need to replace my LNBF with the PLL one I have for it.
Mondays COZI airs three of my favourites.... McCloud, Banacek, and McMillan and Wife.

Larry1
I often manage to do what others tell me can't be done. Dishpointer.com and a lot of patience works everytime. I used to watch Galaxy 10R with a 24" offset dish, I was told it was impossible. Currently the same 24" is parked on 97W and doing quite well except for a couple of TPs and rain is not welcome. I love a challenge. My next goal is 125W. Using Dishpointer I will find a spot in my back yard that will position me through the trees and it will work! I do have a Stab 90 motor but it works okay only if up on the roof. This presents a problem since I like to tweak and tinker and the roof is not an ideal place, I'm getting too old as well. Over the years the surrounding trees have grown to the extent that working at ground level is a very real challenge. To me acquiring a sat is more fun then actually watching it. I have a 33" dish pointed at Hispasat 30w and the 24" looking at 97W. The 33" Fortec is for experimenting. C band is out of the question because of all the trees.

 

[highskies]

I was surprised that you could receive COZI with a 33" dish. You must have it peaked just right. I'm east of you with a 90cm dish and any weather usually causes a breakup in the signal for COZI. I really need to replace my LNBF with the PLL one I have for it.
.

I currently have a 31" dish. Just last week I replaced my older lnbf with a pll lnbf. The difference is night and day. But I haven't tried to see whether I can tune Cozi in or not, since that would require readjusting the skew. So what I'm wondering then, those with a pll lnbf, can you get COZI with it while still maintaining all your other signals on other birds as well?

 

[Larry1]

I currently have a 31" dish. Just last week I replaced my older lnbf with a pll lnbf. The difference is night and day. But I haven't tried to see whether I can tune Cozi in or not, since that would require readjusting the skew. So what I'm wondering then, those with a pll lnbf, can you get COZI with it while still maintaining all your other signals on other birds as well?

I will have to get that PLL LNBF on that dish. For COZI I have a fixed dish due to the skew. Some add a second LNBF for COZI, but require a larger dish due to it not being in the boresight. Keeps the other sats tweeked.

 

[highskies]

I will have to get that PLL LNBF on that dish. For COZI I have a fixed dish due to the skew. Some add a second LNBF for COZI, but require a larger dish due to it not being in the boresight. Keeps the other sats tweeked.

Later tonight I'm just going to have to find out I guess, by trying it to see. To give you an idea of how much difference this pll has made thusfar, on 87W with my prev lnbf, I was able to lock the Florida Ch, but never really got a pic, plus sometimes it wouldn't even lock at all. Now it zooms right in, pic and all, with no issues whatsoever. On the other end of the arc, 125W, a lot of those PBS chs were problematic for me. Some signals I could lock and get a watchable pic, some I could lock but would encounter a lot of tiling, and some I couldn't lock at all. Now no issues at all with any of them, they all play just fine.

 

[jorgek]

Highskies,
How old was your old LNBF. They do age and develop drift with weathering. I found that the Avenger PLL-321 made quite an improvement with the 24" dish but not as much with the 33" dish.

 

[highskies]

Highskies,
How old was your old LNBF. They do age and develop drift with weathering. I found that the Avenger PLL-321 made quite an improvement with the 24" dish but not as much with the 33" dish.

I'm guessing it was probably 2 or 3 years old. Since I do now have this PLL lnbf, I did try to see if I could get COZI last night. No sign of it whatsoever. But I could lock and tune several NBC feeds that had a watchable pic. But I could already do that with my prev lnbf anyway. So while this PLL lnbf helped immensely on other signals on other birds, it didn't do a thing to lock onto COZI for me. Forget to mention, but yes, yes I readjusted the skew when I tried this.

 

[jorgek]

Highskies,
Apparently the LNBF skew is critical. -20 is recomended. My skew here in the province of Ontario is approximately -10. I guess I must be lucky because it all came together rather easily. Again I must stress PATIENCE is a must. Also the bigger the dish the more critical is the alignment because the beam width becomes more narrow as the dish size increases.
Good luck.....

 

[highskies]

Highskies,
Apparently the LNBF skew is critical. -20 is recomended. My skew here in the province of Ontario is approximately -10. I guess I must be lucky because it all came together rather easily. Again I must stress PATIENCE is a must. Also the bigger the dish the more critical is the alignment because the beam width becomes more narrow as the dish size increases.
Good luck.....

Jorgek, I just got done trying this again after changing the skew a hair more, this time I got a lock on a signal at 11840 H 3000, and it scanned in a ch called ch 7 on the S9, so I'm assuming that must be COZI then. So I guess it means I have some physical dish tweaking to do, so that I can increase the signal level to where this will be a watchable pic. Right now the Q is jumping from 38 to about 55, then back down to 38, then back to 55, in a rapid loop. It's too hot outside to do that now, so will probably wait until later this evening.

 

[jorgek]

The fact that the Q is jumping means more very lite touch tweaking required. Also make sure you have clear line of sight to the sat. With the S9 here, it would not lock on an S2 TP with a Q less than 50. Look at my first post, I have a pic of what my S9 scanned in. Also you may get different channels on different days depending on the feed that day.

I always do my tweaking on a DVB-S transponder until I'm sure that the Q is at max. Then I will manually do a scan on all the DVB-S2 TPs. It is much easier this way.

 

[highskies]

The fact that the Q is jumping means more very lite touch tweaking required. Also make sure you have clear line of sight to the sat. With the S9 here, it would not lock on an S2 TP with a Q less than 50. Look at my first post, I have a pic of what my S9 scanned in. Also you may get different channels on different days depending on the feed that day.

I always do my tweaking on a DVB-S transponder until I'm sure that the Q is at max. Then I will manually do a scan on all the DVB-S2 TPs. It is much easier this way.

You were right, it only took a very light touch to tweak this. Now I'm getting a steady 75 or so for the Quality. Checked other sats, didn't seem to affect any signals on any of them, the channels already scanned in still play just like before. Even the Florida Ch @ 87w is still popping on in, not that I watch that ch, but that it's always been a problematic ch on my 31" dish until I upgraded to one of these cheap pll lnbfs which I got for about 10 bucks shipped.
The best 10 bucks I spent in a long time IMO.