Sat meter

[Shinko]

When i bought my motorised setup I was also lucky enough to get a sat meter which personally to me looks like it is a pile of rubbish. So is it worthwhile purchasing a decent meter and if so what are the options ?

i dont really want to shell out much but would rather know what the options are before I buy something that is just as crap as the one I have

Any pointers would be useful. In case it helps I use a DM800 with a 1m dish and dark motor using usals.

I have suddenly lost certain sats (mostly west) but 13e and 28e have both dropped to 50ish % so I'm positive its related to the current weather

 

[jim345]

With a USALS set-up, you don't need a meter that will identify what satellite you're pointing at as you should only need to do it once. I'm assuming this is a simple analogue device, maybe with an audio beeper, that connects in line with LNB and receiver?

The western satellites (Hispasat excepted) are mostly fringe for the UK. If my dish isn't quite in alignment, these are the ones I lose, while 13, 28E are just a bit down. It's likely you just need to swing it around slightly to get it back. A cheap meter is good enough for that.

 

[Rick1]

Far better to use the recievers quality bar and a portable TV. Those sat finders are terrible for picking up RF interferance and showing a signal, and they won't tell you what satellite your on either. Meters don't really get any better than that until you hit the £250+ mark.

 

[Ghostleader]

Far better to use the recievers quality bar and a portable TV. Those sat finders are terrible for picking up RF interferance and showing a signal, and they won't tell you what satellite your on either. Meters don't really get any better than that until you hit the £250+ mark.

Couldnt agree more, with my old $ky dish connected to a daft sat finder I could point the dish at the ground & the buzzer would "wine" all the more with the signal needle would peak off until I turned the attenuation knob up, but for a fiver for one of these things I dont think you can expect the earth really.

 

[pedro2000uk]

Any pointers would be useful. ...

Draw a semi circle on a peice of paper and mark the degrees off 45e .28e... 16e.. 13e.. 0 .5w ..12.5w....... 45w.. Go round the arc with your meter and at about 10 or 20 degree spacing .. carefully push the dish (by the AZ/EL at the back- not the dish rim!!) up/ down / east -west and mark which way it increases in red ink... join the dots & use arrows to indicate if it needed to move east or west and upload the pic

(that's the old way we used to do it)

 

[Shinko]

Thanks for the input chaps. I think I'll give the guy who I got to install it. He did a sound job, I was just hoping to maybe do this myself but looking at it, I think I'll get someone who knows what they are doing

 

[Paul D]

I don't know why people are so negative about these cheap sat finders.
I've used one for years with my caravans dish. (and when installing a motor dish)

I also used it again recently whilst awaiting my motor dish install.
First i found 28e by using the meter and my sky box.
Then i twisted the dish around counting off the next sats in the arc.
Found 13e and then dialled in into the strongest signal by nudging the dish up/down/left/right etc.
Each time the signal went up. i dialled back the gain on the meter.

While i agree they are not the best, they are better than nothing.
I guess it is a matter of knowing how to set the gain correctly.