[Aeroboy]

Thanks for your help! I won’t be able to get up to my cottage til May to play around with it again....I think I have the direct cable from my receiver to the 82 LNB and I am receiving the 91 signal only. When I put my hand over the 91 LNB (which is not connected) I lose my 91 signal......
can you picture this?

 

[Aeroboy]

I was trying to find online a recent elevation and skew settings for areas of Canada and Ontario.
Could only find an old one at Satellite Internet and information about how it works. Is there a more current or better one for Bell?

My cottage is up near the French River north of Parry Sound.

 

[jdevlin]

I use this one for satellite angles.

Satellite Look-Angle Calculator

The difference between 91 and 82 is about 7 degrees east and 1 degree up.

 

[BEVinBOS]

Hoping to get some advice from some experienced installers/dish-pointers out there.

20 years ago, I started pointing my own dishes. Being in a "southern province", I had a Directv and a Bell dish. Moved thru a variety of rental properties, and installed/pointed both of them myself each time. Bought a house 14 years and had a pro install but still had to point the Bell dish myself. Never much difficulty. Probably the last change was ~ 12 years ago converting the Bell dish to 91/82, and then replacing the LNB's and switch with a DPP Twin maybe 10 years ago. I was still using that setup earlier this year - single line from the DPP Twin to my 9241 with a DPP separator right at the back of the receiver.

Fast forward to two months ago, and we moved to a new location in a fairly strict HOA environment. I was relieved to find out dishes weren't totally prohibited, but there's lots of restrictions on where they can be. Fortunately, we have a south-facing porch, and a moderately clear view of the southern sky. As 10-12 years have gone by since I last did this, I'm new to using a compass on the phone, having a dish-pointer app on the phone, or websites that show where to point on a satellite photo of your house. I thought I had clear line of site over an adjacent building with some (but not much) room to spare, and a wispy tree a little closer than I'd like. So I got approval to have the Bell dish on a 3-foot mast and a NPRM on the porch, and planned to point the thing today. When I removed the dish from the old house, I didn't touch the skew, but the elevation was loosened, so I had to re-establish that. Same DPP Twin LNB and single line going to my 9241 (ok - different coax...). I should add, we only moved about 3-4 miles due south as the crow flies - I was assuming the Nimiq footprints don't drop off from usable to nothing that quickly!

I see there's now an option for adding attachments, so hopefully figures are OK....

The Satellite-Pointer app indicated I should point almost directly at the adjacent building (tho the app would sometimes radically change the satellite positions while I was holding the phone still - so maybe that should have been a warning sign?)



So I pointed the dish in that direction, and before long got a signal. Then the receiver said "downloading satellite info" which I had not seen before. The it said locked to Echostar 61.5W. I recalled in the long-ago past that pointing a Bell dish/receiver (eg 2700) at a Dish Network satellite would result in a Dish Network firmware (or similar) download which would essentially brick the Bell receiver, but also thought that was not a problem with "newer" model receivers. Nonetheless, I pushed the dish around as soon as I saw this, but it hit that sat again once more during my efforts to adjust the elevation.

While struggling with this, I found a dish-pointer website I hadn't seen before - groundcontrol.com. I got these screenshots from there, showing Echostar 61.5W was indeed where I had first pointed the dish (we are at the southern end of the longer building, looking over the shorter building, as the green line shows:

For 91/82, I needed to point more towards the corner of the shorter building:


I arced back and forth over a 20-deg range in that area, with a dozen or so minute adjustments to elevation, holding 4-5 seconds in each position before moving on, sometimes checking 82 in addition to 91 at each location. (TP 14 for both sats - as it was one of the strongest at the old house.) I never got anything other than zero - which I had never experienced before. I wasn't expecting stellar signal strength to begin with, but was expecting more than zero.

Here's a pic of the corner of that shorter building - and the wispy tree in the way.

Its a two story building, so not that high, and as I picked up 61.5 over the highest part of the building with ~ the same elevation on the dish, I was assuming the height of the building is not an issue. If the tree is in the line of the sight, is such a wispy tree going to block all my signal? Its lost a few leaves already for fall, but hasn't changed a whole lot in the two months we've been here.

So, is the tree the issue, or did I fry the receiver? Should have I done a check switch (it didn't occur to me as nothing had changed in the hardware set-up, but reading here I see its often a first step.) Anything else to suspect about the receiver having had no signal for 2+ months? (The blue "screensaver" display when the receiver is "off" has gone and been replaced by the old black screen with white text that moves around, as it used to display before a software update ~ 4-5 years ago)

Thanks!

 

[jdevlin]

Bell changed the footprint of the satellites years back. You may not receive them anymore. How far south of border are you? If you are not in a state that border Canada you probably won't get anything.

 

[BEVinBOS]

Bell changed the footprint of the satellites years back. You may not receive them anymore. How far south of border are you? If you are not in a state that border Canada you probably won't get anything.

I'm in Boston, MA. I had signal strengths of 60-70 at the previous house, and only moved about 3 miles south.

 

[jdevlin]

I misread your post. I thought you last used them 10 years ago, not 2 weeks ago. Something is blocking you or your alignment is off.

 

[BEVinBOS]

I misread your post. I thought you last used them 10 years ago, not 2 weeks ago. Something is blocking you or your alignment is off.

Yes - it seems that is the case. I guess that was the crux of my long, rambling post above.... if this is the situation and the angle for the combined 91/82 dual-LNB system is somewhere in the red box (rather than further to the left, as the satellite pointer app had led me to believe)

Is that enough tree to block the signal from both 91 and 82 completely down to zero? I know it wont be optimal, but I'll take what I can get in this location and can try to work to improve it, but if I'm destined to get zeroes, then I may as well give up.

Other ideas:

• I have a spare receiver (9242) that is not active for service, but presumably could find satellites. If I wiped the firmware of the 9241 when it hit the Echostar satellite so now it wont "see" any Bell satellite even with decent line of sight, is it worth trying with the 9242 to see if I get anything?
• I have an 18" dish for single LNB. Should I try that and aim just for 82, which will be slightly to the left of the red box in the figure?
• Can I remove the Y-adaptor on the LNB arm of the 20" dish and use a single LNB, and aim that at 82 (given I'm already on the shoulder of the Nimiq4 and 6 footprints)?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[jdevlin]

You should be able to tell if the 9241 got 'dished'. When you fire it up and hit 'menu' It will not show BELL.

 

[BEVinBOS]

Menu, PVR recording list screens and screensaver all still say BELL, so I guess the receiver didn't get "Dished". Thanks

 

[Sask3m]

Odd transponder signals on sat 82 come and go, will be fine then just drop to zero. Evens are fine, would this be a lnb issue or cable? Sat 91 is fine. Thanks.

 

[jdevlin]

I would start with the cable connections.

 

[Sask3m]

I would start with the cable connections.

I was coming on to say that it was a cable connection causing the issue, fixed. Thanks