BATC Forum

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OK, after spending far too long working on my LNB which is now a tad over 1dB noise figure and 60+ dB gain and 0.1ppm all measured on 10.50Ghz I can't find the satellite !

Using a Triax TD110 (1.1M) with its truly awful pole fixing and for completeness an out of the box Triax LNB. Astra is unbelievably strong here in South Devon. So on the grounstand I moved the dish clockwise towards due south and using the cheap meter/beeper the next satellite is quite strong. But it has Polish, Czechoslovakian and a few German channels, it's not BADAR4 I think ? I have tried now for over a day. The receiver is a Labgear VisableWave.

So I tried setting it to BBC Arabic 11.996, SR 27,500 and horizontal and looked at the receiver signal/quality on screen, still nothing at all sweeping the dish.

I once (20 years ago) sold shed loads of Eumetcast systems with the same type of 88cm dish, so I ought to know what I'm doing, but clearly I don't ?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Dave G4IUg Ex G8EAO, G6ANG/T

Hi Dave,

I'm in Paignton and I've spent about 3 days trying so I feel your pain...hi.

Yesterday I managed to find BADR and now have the beacon etc working on Minitiouner. I decided to methodically work through every part so I changed the coax and connectors and tightened every bolt and connector. What seemed to work for me was increasing the elevation of the dish and also slowly moving the LNB position and skew. I used a SatFinder V8 box and added a new satelite with just one channel stored in the transponder ( BBC Arabic ). After a couple of slow sweeps South BADR appeared with sig strength of 40% and quality 40%. The beacon on Es hailsat was quite easy to find on the Minitiouner and I've also copied some simplex stations too.

It can be done, don't give up.

73

Malcolm G0UHY

Align to Astra 28.2E to get a starting point. Then tune an SDR to the 10.489 GHz narrow band transponder as its not go so much adjacent to it. You should just have to move the dish just a little to the south - feed might move 5cm or so to the right - and a little bit up. Hopefully you will see signals.

Mike

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Hi Malcolm and Mike

3 days, I don't feel so bad now !

This was/is a temporary system on a ground stand prior to fitting a pole on the house. To see what to expect. However I'm getting ready to exhibit at the Bristol Hi Fi Show so time is very limited.

Ironically I bought a V8, tried it on Astra and sent it back as being way too slow to use...................

I'll dump this truly awful Triax (anyone want a couple?) and get a couple of 1M Gibertini SE dishes unless anyone has a better solution ?

I'll get a SDR too.

So my burning question is, if you use an ordinary Satellite TV receiver and you do a blind satellite scan, what do you get ?

And finally Malcolm you are only 6.9 miles away from me here in Dartmouth !

Many thanks

Dave

Hi Dave

Take a look on the wiki where we are trying to capture all our experiences:

https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Es%27hail-2_Basic_Information

https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Receiving_Osca ... TV_signals

73
Noel - G8GTZ

G4IUG wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 17, 2019 4:42 pm

So my burning question is[/b], if you use an ordinary Satellite TV receiver and you do a blind satellite scan, what do you get ?

Nothing until properly aligned. That's far too difficult - assumed you had the proper kit!

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Well, yes and no. In the old days what I have, would have been more than sufficient and both the HP8568B and HP8566B are just too heavy to move around.

What I meant was, when the dish is set up, like yours is, do you get all the BADR4 TV signals ? And BTW what dish size do you have ?

Thanks

Dave

My practical expierience to setup Dish to Es'Hail-2:
Yesterday I set up quite easily. Most important is to know for 100% that LNB will work with 740 MHz.
Mine worked.
1) Use dishpointer.com to observe local direction.
2) Put LNB in dish. It is good to use old dish with correct LNB mount (nothing broken an you know +/- focus point).
3) Supply 12V DC to LNB with bias tee.
4) Tune SDR receiver (RTL-SDR, HackRF, LimeSDR etc) to 739.5 MHz
5) Slowly move dish until observe NB signal. Be ready that amplitude looks different than on BATC NB.
6) Congratulations! You found NB!
7) Fine tune, azimuth, elevation, polarisation (skew) and focus to maximum amplitude.
7.1) Tune to 741 MHz and adjust skew to observe minimum signal from WB transponder beacon.

For me and other friends it was really fun and too much easy. We excepted more hard work with pointing.

Have fun!

Dave,
BBC Arabic is there, I tuned a friends Satfinder into it this morning. It is about 50% signal quality on my 1m dish. I think you need to get a receiver that is known to be receiving Badr4 because this eliminates many of the variables and it is then just a matter of pointing it in the right direction. It took me about 15 minutes to get a first sniff, mainly due to the crudity and uneven movement of the dish clamps. If you are coming to Bristol and have the time, you are welcome to call in and I will tune your receiver for you. PM me if this is of interest. Hope to be at the hifi show on Sunday, so might see you then.
73 Shaun.

Dave,

I did a blind scan on the spare LNB port. Got 75 channels sig strength 93% but Quality only 38%. Looks like there's still a minor tweek to do...hi. You're welcome to borrow the V8 if you think it will help? It's a lot easier when you have a receiver already tuned to the satellite.

Fine on Dartmouth. If all else fails we'll work simplex...hi.

73

Malcolm G0UHY