Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Discussions about the Ryde "Set-top Box" Style Digital ATV Receiver. See https://wiki.batc.org.uk/Ryde_Receiver
EA7KIR
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:38 pm

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by EA7KIR » Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:40 pm

Thank you to all who have responded.

I now feel more confident that I'll get it working - eventually. An offset spacer is a great suggestion and I'll change the SMA patch cable to RG142 before attempting any transmission.

In answer to "who aligned the dish": I found a man who had installed 1000's of large dishes before Sky made reception impossible. He brought along this used Gibertina and aligned it with a very expensive piece of kit. We both saw some Arabian TV. However, the kit wouldn't decode what could have been the Beacon, because his firmware hadn't been updated for years. For all I know it could be pointing towards the wrong satellite!

Yesterday I thought I saw a populated $13 and $14 pass by from fake_read. Too fast to read, but definitely 4 or 5 ASCII characters.

Anymore suggestions will be most welcome.
Michael EA7KIR

g8vpg
Posts: 381
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2013 9:35 am

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by g8vpg » Fri Apr 15, 2022 4:07 pm

Yes, I am sure that you will get it working. Several things with your feed could be enough to stop reception, wrong lens, poor alignment through that water pipe fitting. The trick with setting up a satellite dish is to only have one variable or unknown to adjust at one time.Hence my suggestion to replace it with a standard, unmodified LNB. If you tune a receiver to the correct IF output, you can be fairly confident that you are tuned to right frequency and you only have the dish position to tweak. As previously suggested, using an SDR with a spectrum display is a great idea, because you don't need to be spot on with frequency and the satellite spectrum output is quite distinctive and easy to spot. An inexpensive RTL dongle will do the job just fine.
73 Shaun.

EA7KIR
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:38 pm

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by EA7KIR » Fri Apr 15, 2022 4:23 pm

g8vpg wrote:
Fri Apr 15, 2022 4:07 pm
An inexpensive RTL dongle will do the job just fine.
Thanks Shaun. I'll definitely try this first. Sorry I forgot to mention this in my previous post.
Michael EA7KIR

EA7KIR
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:38 pm

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by EA7KIR » Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:31 am

Well, "Hello World!".... Its working!.... And all I did was move the feed as far back as possible - less than 1 cm. I'm now receiving the Beacon and watching on an old Sony 20" TV via HDMI from a old Apple TV running the free VLC App. It drops a few frames now and then, but I couldn't care less for the moment. I'm very happy - for now.

As some may remember, I'll writing all my own software (apart from Longmynd and the Pluto firmware), and I'm probably the only radio amateur on the planet daft enough to choose the brand new language called Swift. The next task will be to verify my Longmynd Status Decoder is producing similar data to that normally seen on a Ryde Receiver, so for now I won't quote any MER, D, Power figures, etc.. But I can verify the service data to be A71A and QARS.

I'll probably be back here asking more questions sooner or later, because the Beacon video becomes very boring after a while.
Michael EA7KIR

g4eml
Posts: 674
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2018 9:36 am

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by g4eml » Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:38 am

Don't be too surprised if the beacon video stops working correctly and just continues with sound. The beacon uplink has a recurring problem that causes this to happen regularly.

g0mjw
Posts: 2330
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:15 am

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by g0mjw » Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:55 am

EA7KIR wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:31 am
Well, "Hello World!".... Its working!.... And all I did was move the feed as far back as possible - less than 1 cm. I'm now receiving the Beacon and watching on an old Sony 20" TV via HDMI from a old Apple TV running the free VLC App. It drops a few frames now and then, but I couldn't care less for the moment. I'm very happy - for now.

As some may remember, I'll writing all my own software (apart from Longmynd and the Pluto firmware), and I'm probably the only radio amateur on the planet daft enough to choose the brand new language called Swift. The next task will be to verify my Longmynd Status Decoder is producing similar data to that normally seen on a Ryde Receiver, so for now I won't quote any MER, D, Power figures, etc.. But I can verify the service data to be A71A and QARS.

I'll probably be back here asking more questions sooner or later, because the Beacon video becomes very boring after a while.
Glad it is working. What MER are you getting? This will tell us if it is optimum or not.

EA7KIR
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:38 pm

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by EA7KIR » Sat Apr 16, 2022 5:52 pm

g0mjw wrote:
Sat Apr 16, 2022 11:55 am
Glad it is working. What MER are you getting? This will tell us if it is optimum or not.
Varying between 5.8 and 6.0 if I'm calculating this correctly.
Michael EA7KIR

g0mjw
Posts: 2330
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:15 am

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by g0mjw » Sat Apr 16, 2022 8:00 pm

It should be over 10 with that dish so there is some tweaking still to be done, but a lot better. Is it as far back as it can go? You will probably need to tweak the elevation a little.

Mike

G0LJF
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Dec 25, 2019 5:28 pm

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by G0LJF » Thu Apr 28, 2022 3:56 pm

Bullseye LNB mounting in the POTY - is this the right subject for this?

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Photo0098.jpg
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If this helps, I used an upturned belt sander [held on a workbench at a nice height for my chair] with coarse grit to quickly and easily slim down the Bullseye LNB so that it can fit into the 22 mm POTY tubing.

I had done this trick with my Black Buster Red Rocket LNB too, but I filed it manually and that took two days I recall. I don't want to do that again.

The trick is so make sure you measure any LNB outer diameter FIRST to make sure it can sit into a 20.5 mm ID pipe when slimmed down. Mine was 23 mm OD.

The other advice I can offer is to readily and frequently check the fit as you go, by sliding on a piece of 22 mm pipe, wiggling it firmly, and note the scratch marks - these are located on the higher parts and so may be selectively sanded or filed off next.

Keep on repeating the above process, and take it steady. You can get a inference fit.

Lastly, if you don't cut off the LNB's horn first, you can maybe use that in a chuck on a lathe? For turning the LNB OD down to fit. I wish I had realised that first, but I needed to measure the Bullseye's metal thickness.

Final result. Just tried it and its at least as "good" as my GPSDO locked Black Buster Red Rocket on the beacon and maybe <0.5 dB better MER. Initial findings only, but its not worse. No 25 MHz reference required, so hopefully less Phase Noise.

Don't forget you will need a lens for your POTY, and to mount the POTY in an offset plastic disc to enable proper dish focus (see G0MJW Mike's advice, Fri Apr 15, 2022 2:17 pm).

73 Mike
Last edited by G0LJF on Fri Apr 29, 2022 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

g0mjw
Posts: 2330
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2014 9:15 am

Re: Chicken & Egg on New Installation

Post by g0mjw » Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:25 pm

It isn't necessary to cut up the LNB any more, though you can for a compact solution. The simplest thing to do is cut a 22mm hole in the plastic front on the LNB and shove the 22mm pipe in until it meets the horn. A more sophisticated approach is to replace the plastic cap with a 3d printed adapter - Colin, G4EML posted a design in another thread. They work well.
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I took a few to CAT (No, I don't have any to send). A 3D printer is becoming a must-have accessory.

Mike

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