[beager]

Hi all,
I have a perplexing problem.
My original setup was a Phoenix Apollo , with a technomate dish and quad lnb, with a Moteck motor.
All worked fine for a couple of years, and then one day I switched on, and the motor promptly drove the dish as far west as it would go, straight into the wall, ignoring preset limits.
I had to turn the power off to stop it.
It worked intermittently after that, and then starting going East when West satellites were selected, used goto function, that worked for a while, and then would go to zero, and then move 10 degrees one way or the other.
Tried manual operation through remote, and dish would only twitch by about 2 mm every press of the button, then suddenly activate on full drive the other way.
As well as this, Hotbird decided to receive no signal,
tried manual operation outside, and would only twitch by 2mm in either direction, eventually halting completely.
I thought this had to be the box, so replaced it through some friendly advice found here.
Humax Foxsat PVR duly arrived, and set up through an amazing menu, then found the same problem still existed.
Well then, It had to be the motor, new one sourced and replaced, technomate 2300, all set up, and worked fine, 6 usual satellites found. Overnight, I went downstairs, and the clock was on on the front instead of the usual red light, thought nothing of it, and found in the morning everything deleted.
Started again from scratch with limited time, and set up 5 satellites, all worked ok.
Returned home later, and tried to add another satellite I had before, and the dish would not move, tried manually, and was working the same as before, tiny little steps, with occasional normal movement, then would suddenly drive west until I managed to stop it.
After this I had to keep 'stepping back, took ages including a couple of wild drives west, and got a signal back on freesat, then found all channels had completely gone.
Motor drive is on continuous,BTW, but when I first installed with all the new bits, the motor limit function did not work, neither did a remote E/W drive work.
The satellites came up through Diseqc, and were stored that way.
All controlled by single cable, sky plus through dual cable from 2 ports, and the other attached with one of the free ports. I've reattached all the connectors, in and out, and swopped one port to another.
All thats left is the cable and the quad LNB, surely they could not cause this?
HELP PLEASE
Many thanks

[Member 354643]

The motor is knackered mate you will need a new motor to be installed, Thats quite a common problem.

[dovercat]

If you have easy access to the dish and motor I would try reseting the motors reference 0.
You can download the manual online.

Turn the receiver on, go to the dish, by pressing the buttons on the motor get it to go to 0 the center - highest point of its arc, then use a pin to reset the motors reference 0. At the highest point in its arc, motor position 0, the dish, motor, pole, etc.. should all line, if they do not something has rotated on its pole when you drove it into the wall.

I would also redo the cable ends at the lnb, motor and receiver, cut off a few inches or more then put the f-connectors back on and reconnect, the diseqc sends instructions by putting small gaps in a 22khz tone signal, if the cable is damaged or connection or poor or water has got in it it maybe effecting it.

Also when moving the dish by pressing the buttons check it is moving easy the motor does not sound like it is straining or causing the dish to reverberate loudly by grinding the rotating pole-bar on the motor housing, if it is a bit of bicycle oil between the moving pole-bar and the motor helps, just squirt some oil at it, and move the dish so the oil works into the gap, no need to dismantle anything.

Diseqc works by the receiver telling the motor to go to a position so many clicks east or west of 0. The motor only has one hall sensor in it so over time it may wander off reference 0. Also if run into a wall or in strong winds the motor may have managed to jump groves or cogs, so reference 0 is nolonger correct and it may nolonger have its full 75E-75W range and stop moving before it gets to the extremes of the arc. USALS rellys on reference 0 being correct or all its positions will be wrong.

Diseqc is most commonly a one way communication, the receiver tells the dish to move, but does not know when the dish has stopped moving, if you get inpatient and click multiple times or hold down nudge or move on the receivers remote they can stack up causing the dish to move in erract bursts. If the dish is moving or the receiver is sending the dish instructs via 22Khz tone (which is used by the LNB to switch between high and low local oscillators - frequency bands) then the receiver may not be able to lock on to and display a signal so you could wander past the desired satellite.
When moving the motor by pressing move or nudge on the receivers remote control, I usually click the button once then count to four, three times, to give the motor time to move and the receiver time to lock on to and display the signal if present. If the satellite reference position is out by more than a few clicks east or west, then I find it easier to go to a sattellite I know is further east or west then walk the dish in the right direction, as at least you then know you are going in the right direction towards the desired satellite. The motor speed will be different for H and V polarized signals as the LNB switch polarization by using different voltages, and the motor is using the voltage to move the dish, if told by the reciever to rotate the dish a long way, I think it is normal for the motor to be moving in bouts of fast-slow-fast-slow.


I have a moteck sg2100a and after about 3 years of use with a Televes dish it nolonger tracked past 42E, and started making a racket, having put some oil on it and reset 0 it now works better, but still does not track past 42E I think in high winds the dish has managed to skip groves-cogs on the motor. Dismantling the motor should enable 0 to be put back where it should be on the motor instead of off to one side.

[beager]

I have it fixed at last. !!
Thanks for the advice, I've put a brand new motor in, and re-cut the ends of the co-ax, and it all works ok.
One difference now is that one satellite is missing.
There are no obstructions, and the motor is aligned exactly as the old one, due to ref. marks i made, and compass.
I get 28.2, 19.2, 13.0 And Eutelsat on 16.0 although the last is not a very strong signal.
I used to be able to get Atlantic Bird on 5.0W, with a 70% signal, but now there is nothing at all even with very fine tuning and tiny steps.
The only thing I can think of is the declination of the dish, so I'll try that.
Elevation is set correctly, according to latitude.
I'll just start with moving it bit by bit, and see what happens.
Any other ideas would be welcome.
Thanks.

[wod]

make sure the dish is centered on the motor and the motor elevation is set correctly to your latitude e.g 53 etc on the scale at the side.

then once its all bolted up send the dish to hotbird via the receiver, move the whole dish motor around the pole to find best signal/adjust dish elevation.

once got best signal tighten up and move to other satellites to check alignment.