Equipment questions - ABA DSS

Jasmine56 · July 1st, 2009

I am very new to this. I have a 10' mesh dish, Motorola 922, Pansat 4500. I put it all together from what I have read. I have several questions in regards to the receivers. I was told that the 922 is the 'master' and the 4500 is the 'slave'. I hooked it up from the diagram. I did a blind scan on the 4500 and it got in over 2500 channels.

1. When I get a picture on c band, what is the easiest way to find out what satellite I have the dish pointed to?
2. On the 4500 when I look at the info. what are the v/h numbers used for? (i.e. 11870 v 30000)
3. Some of the chennels I get in on the 4500 have a great pic, but no sound. Is this because I didn't set something right on the installation screen?

Newbie needs help....

**bill of oz** · July 2nd, 2009

1 - go into your antenna setup screen, your receiver should tell you what satellite you are "locked on" (aimed at).....i find it very hard to believe you are getting 2500 channels from one single satellite

2 - V and H refers to the band you are receiving that TP on, this is not really too important to you, think of two people holding a skipping rope between them, if you both sway the rope side to side, this would simulate a H (horizontal) beam (TP), now if you sway the rope up and down this would simulate a V (vertical) beam (TP)

3 - these channels are most likely broadcast in AC3 digital sound, you will need a receiver with a fibre optic output to hear the sound....if your TV does not have a fibre optic input then you would need to use an external sound system

**marty napier** · July 2nd, 2009

congrats on your first post jasmine and welcome to abadss and hello

**Victor Hugo** · July 2nd, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jasmine56

I am very new to this. I have a 10' mesh dish, Motorola 922, Pansat 4500. I put it all together from what I have read. I have several questions in regards to the receivers. I was told that the 922 is the 'master' and the 4500 is the 'slave'. I hooked it up from the diagram. I did a blind scan on the 4500 and it got in over 2500 channels.

1. When I get a picture on c band, what is the easiest way to find out what satellite I have the dish pointed to?
2. On the 4500 when I look at the info. what are the v/h numbers used for? (i.e. 11870 v 30000)
3. Some of the chennels I get in on the 4500 have a great pic, but no sound. Is this because I didn't set something right on the installation screen?

Newbie needs help....

To ABA family, enjoy your stay.

**deanluna** · July 2nd, 2009

welcome to aba.,.,have a look in the true fta section.,.,you'll find alot of answers to your questions there.,.,.,good luck

http://www.abadss.com/forum/56-true-...ev-discussion/

Triac-1 · July 2nd, 2009

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Jasmine56 · July 2nd, 2009

Thank you everyone. The information and welcome is greatly appreciated.

I bought the system used and it had been running up until May 09. The feedhorn, lnb's and actuator were purchased new last summer. The recievers purchased within the last 6 mo. It was only $200 and I though it was a pretty good price.

Bill, thank you for the info it helped me understand more. And this is where I got confused. On the Motorola, while searching to see if the dish was aligned to the arc or not... I could only get in 2 'stations' in 2 separate directions. I tried to find out if I was even on a satellite. My dc light on the receiver never came on, which according to the manual meant I was not locked into a satellite.

The Pansat when I did a blind search came up with all these channels. And after reading your post I found the drop down menu, G19 was not the only one on the list. There are 22 others. EchoStar, AMC, etc. And I did not understand how I was receiving all these channels if the Motorola was only receiving two.

When the dish was finally up on the roof of the garage (about 35' up), I tried to 'tune' in the dish to the arc the best I could--which apparently was not good enough. (I have called every satellite company between here and Portland and can not find anyone that 'tunes' these dishes in.) So, I am on my own with this. When I got the dish, I did not change anything.

I am more of an engineering type person, not technology savvy. With some help from some friends I welded a stand on and through the garage roof that you could launch a rocket from. But, I am having difficulty understanding the technical part of the receivers....

Again, thank you for the help and the information on the forums....

**jamal59** · July 17th, 2009

Saw this when I was looking for information on motorola 922. Plan on upgrading my c-band system since the future of FTA is a little unsure. I have had a big dish for about 15 years now. Bought it used and set it up myself. There are two adjustments to the dish. one is the polar angle and the other is for declination. There should be two bolts that you can adjust the angle of the dish with. (you probably know this already) Once you get close to a satellite than you can fine tune it by making slight adjustments to the angle. A turn of a bolt can make a big difference on the quality of signal.
What I did was to make very small adjustments until The signal came in best. I used a satellite at the top of the arc and two at each end. I did this without meters just by signal quality on TV. Best if you have help. I talked with some one on a cell phone. But my dish was not 35' off the ground either.
The problem that i found with c-band and Ku-band is that, since you do not need a large dish to get ku-band the dish can be off some and will still pick up the signals. but in c-band if you are off a bit you can miss the satellite. C-band is also dependent on skew (angle of the signal) so you can miss it if it is off.
took me a while to get it right. saw it more of an adventure. The best part is that with your set up you will have alot more options than people that have a just a fixed dish.
Hang in there, Good luck

Jasmine56 · July 22nd, 2009

Hi, Jamal, Sorry it took so long to write back. I bought the Motorola 922 used when I bought the entire system. I have not had any problems with it at all, however I don't have the satellite tuned in yet... I'm so grateful for KU Band-- A few days after my last post a friend of mine was over. He was watching the tv, while I was trying to readjust the satellite. To make a long story short, a shingle tore off the roof and I plummeted to the ground--and not gracefully either. I broke my leg and fractured my knee cap, and feel like a mack truck ran over me, so I won't be going up on the roof for atleast another 5 weeks. Since I am temporarily out of order, I am reading as much as I can on FTA. The good news is atleast my dish moves in the right directions, it hasn't fallen off the roof, I have set the perimeters so it doesn't fall down--all in all I am having fun finding new stations and am learning a host of different languages.

basscat02 · July 22nd, 2009

Are you using a videocipher or a programmable board. The boards we used on our BUDs were great, caught 4000 channels but we had a lot of sound problems. I was installing C-Band(legal) in those days but the slide in boards were easy to decipher and we had a ball with them. They gradually all lost sound. I still have a 10' dish up with an old videocipher in a then top of the line Drake receiver and it still catches everything you can imagine. Just no sound. Ask about it at C-band dealers and they look at you like you are crazy. And of course I am crazy. You just hit a note in my brain and the BUD came to mind