BATC Forum

I have stopped receiving the Qo100 main transponder with my Portsdown 4 on my main dish. I wasted all afternoon moving the dish plus tried with a portable dish. Is it down or do I need to do more equipment testing?

Thanks

Nigel M0NDE

Hi Nigel

QO-100 is working fine. You can always check here: https://eshail.batc.org.uk/wb/

The easiet way to find the transponder is to use BandViewer on the Tuner IF at 740 ish MHz and look for the narrow band beacon on vertical polarisation (13v). Once you have peaked on that, switch to horizontal polarisation (18v) and a Tuner and receiver.

Dave, G8GKQ

Confirm it is fine here. The fault must be in your receiver. If it is a locked LNB I have had them fail, also it could be the bias RFC in the tuner has failed.

Mike

Dave G8GKQ wrote

The easiet way to find the transponder is to use BandViewer on the Tuner IF at 740 ish MHz and look for the narrow band beacon on vertical polarisation (13v). Once you have peaked on that, switch to horizontal polarisation (18v) and a Tuner and receiver.

So Dave is this done without changing any of the connections LNB to Minitiouner, only the voltage level?

Thanks

Nigel M0NDE

Hi Nigel

You'll need an SDR to use BandViewer. An RTL-SDR will do, although Lime, Pluto, Airspy and SDRplay are also supported.

You'll need to get RF from the LNB to the SDR whilst still powering the LNB. Don't forget a DC block in front of the SDR.

Dave

After some frustrating hours...

I verified my Portsdown receiver was working properly by using a portable dish and tripod. I returned to the 1m dish, realigned it however my MER will not go above 5.6. What has changed? Well it seeems the installation of a new roof must the cause. My old pottery type tiles have been replaced with more modern roof tiles and the ridge height must have been increased by just a few inches. I have a very small back garden and the satellite is towards the front of my bungalow. It seems this has to be the explanation for the signal loss.
I will verify this by moving dish temporarily to the front garden for a further test when time permits. I guess I will have to experiment further with the dish location. There is another possible location in the back garden where the dish will see past the roof to the satellite I think.

Thanks for the replies

Nigel M0NDE

If it has only risen a few inches, can't you raise the dish by a few inches to compensate?

Yes by using longer pole which I do have to hand. Nigel M0NDE