One Oval, Four Satellites, the EASY WAY! by fifties

One Oval, Four Satellites, the EASY WAY! - 06-08-2005



I don't LIKE climbing up and down extension ladders, or trying to stand on a Tile roof while aligning a dish, so I made a simple test jig out of two pieces of scrap lumber, two metal right angle brackets, some lag bolts, and an extra dish mount. The important thing is to USE A LEVEL before placing your dish on it, to make sure it's level, side to side and front to back. The Bricks keep the wind from knocking it over, until I'm ready to put it on the side of the roof.
Regarding the LNB's; The original factory setup used Direct Tv's single polarization center LNB and two single output LNB's. They were discarded in favor of 4 dual output LNB's (bought on eBay for about 14 bucks each including shipping). As you can see in the pictures, the leftmost LNB, looking at it from the front, is simply held on by two cable-ties. All 8 Coax cables are routed through the feedhorn arm, those from the left most LNB feeding into the gap between the two center LNB's. All Coax leads are tagged at their tail end coming out of the feedhorn, so two will have a "91" sticker, two will have a "101" sticker, and so on. Looking at it from the front again, the leftmost LNB is for BellExpressView on Nimiq 1 at 91 degrees west, 2nd from left is for Direct-Tv at 101 degrees west, 3rd from left is for Echo Star 6 and 8, at 110 degrees west, and last, or far right, is for Echo Star 7 at 119 degrees west.
Please notice the signal meter on the chair, next to the front Brick; this is INVALUABLE! It cost me all of 11 bucks on eBay, and BELIEVE ME, the frustration of NOT having this during alignment FAR EXCEEDS it's cost.
OK, let's align the dish. In my case I had Direct Tv before, so I already had the Elevation pretty well set, as well as the Azimuth, when it was mounted at the roof. Using this as a beginning point, (there are Internet sites that will give you the Az and El for your specific location), we connect the LEFT side of the signal meter to the coax labeled "110", and the RIGHT side of the meter to the Satellite Input of the Receiver. Incidentally, ALL Coax needs to be RG-6 (Radio Shack has lots of it). The Skew on the dish is level, the Elevation is approximately set for Direct Tv at 101, and the Azimuth is approximately also at 101 degrees. The Signal Meter is turned up a good 3/4 of the way, just below where it starts giving off a faint tone. We now simply move the rig slowly from side to side, and perhaps play with the Elvevation just a bit, and we should get a tone from the meter. Once you have the tone, back the meter down so it's just barely audible, and continue "tweaking" the Az and El-do this until you can't get any improvement. This is important, because the better you get this "center" LNB aligned, the better all the rest will fall into place. Notice also how enjoyable it is to do this with your feet on the ground!
Now that 110 is located, we need to adjust Elevation, and maybe Azimuth JUST SLIGHTLY to receive 119. Connect your meter to one of the marked "119" coax leads, get a grease pencil and mark on the surface of where your rig is sitting, along side the bottom wood, and on your Elevation run a line between the stationary and moving parts, so that you can line up these two Elevation marks. In this way, when you move the rig side to side or up and down, you will always be able to get back to the hot spot for the 110 Satellite. In my case, Azimuth was just slightly tweaked, and Elevation was lowered about a half a screw turn. If you can't find 119, no sweat, get it back on 110 and keep reading.
OK, now the fun begins, as we are going to adjust the "Skew" or Tilt angle of the dish. Remember that the satellites are in an ARC; Now that you have signal on one, you need to adjust the skew to align the other LNB's to the arc. Here on the west coast, my eliptical dish is angeled so the 119 LNB is slightly lower, and the 91, on the opposite end of the arm, slightly higher. Looking at the second picture, the far right LNB for 119 is Easternmost and lower, the far left LNB for 91 is Westernmost, and higher. Since you already have 110, attach the "91" marked coax to the meter, turn up it's sensitivity, be careful that you don't move the rig, and slowly rotate the dish-if you are on the East Coast, I imagine it will appear opposite of my angle, but at about the same angle. Once you DO get 91, check 101, then 110, and lastly 119. I can't tell you the satisfaction of getting loud tones from the meter on all four satellite positions!
Now lets make sure we are on the right satellites! I have a Pansat 2300A, so I will be referring to the screens it uses-I imagine other FTA receivers are similiar. The ONLY good way to determine which satellite you're on, short of an expensive signal meter, is to go by the TRANSPONDER NUMBER unique (active) to the particular satellite in the set-up screen. Connect the "91" Coax to the one going to the receiver, click the left set-up screen to Nimiq 1, then go to the right screen, click on transponder, use left or right arrow on remote to adjust it to Transponder 5. If you are getting decent quality strength, that is the satellite that you are picking up and NO other. Now connect the "110" Coax to the receiver, go back to the left screen and go to "Echo 6,8", then back to the right screen and find Transponder 1. If the dish position is the same as when you got good quality on Nimiq, the signal quality should be good here as well. The "Level" indicator doesn't really help-I've had a dish inside the house, aimed at a blank wall, and gotten 35% "Level"-just go by the "Quality" indicator. Connect the Coax labelled "119", now back to left set-up screen, "Echo 7", right set-up screen, Transponders 6 or 13. Fine adjust Az and El to eliminate Pixellation or "Scrambled or Bad channel" nag, if they should occur on any of the satellite positions.
OK, we're almost done. I used a TokyoSat DisecQ (or however it's spelled) Switch right at the dish. In my setup, 119 goes to "port" 1, 110 to "2", and 91 to "3" (I use the 101 on a separate coax to go directly to my Dave box, since I'll use his programming guide when I use my tv in "split screen" mode). The Tokyosat switch works very well considering it's a good 50 foot run to the receiver. In the "Installation" menu, label your satellites' DisecQ switch numbers according to how you connected them at the switch.
Now kick back and watch tv-you've done enough today-you can mount it up on the roof another day