Well I’ve had a rough time trying to get the new attenna pointed at ses-2 it’s one of the avenger lnb I’ve gathered so far it’s a dual lnb correct me if I’m wrong and I’m trying to find the satlight even with a small cone I’m having a hard time finding the satlight and I’m in upstate NY
Hi Tyler, I looked up Upstate NY, and the wiki I read showed most of NY as being “upstate NY”, including NY City, so I am only taking a guess here as to your location. I picked Buffalo, as it is in the northern part (up). The satellite should be 39.8° above the horizon, and at an azimuth of 191.8° true, or 202.4° magnetic. I don’t know which model avenger you are using, the original was a PLL321S2 and it should work very well. It is a dual polarity unit that switches 11.5-14v and 16-19v, similar to the Maverick I that is issued with the older Dreamcatchers. In your diagnostics screen on the Dreamcatcher, near the bottom of the screen are the measurements for the lnb, should look like this if the unit is working properly:
Check it out and let us know how it looks.
This website (lyngsat) will grab rough location based on your local ISP and will compute the elevation and heading of SES-2 for you.
https://www.lyngsat.com/SES-2.html
Now get a cheap compass with degrees as well as a protractor with a weighted string through the little hole. These will help you find a rough compass bearing and elevation above the horizon to aim the LNB.
If you want to cheat a bit get a cheap TV satellite finder, this is mostly to help fine aim which you DO NOT NEED, you still need to be shooting the correct satellite as a sat-finder will tone on all TV satellites, though when combined with watching the data packet count begin to rise makes finding SES-2(or Astra 3B) pretty easy.
There are also apps like satfinderandroid which you can use to augmented reality the location in the sky with an android phone or tablet.
Hello…it may be because broadcasters usually abandon that frequency band as they only can use it for 2-3 channels, a waste of valuable space in the tower with the needed huge elements. It’s much easier to use UHF or at least high-VHF to use the same antenna system with many more channels in the same combiner.
@AntonyMarsh welcome!
I am not sure what you are referring to. Othernet is a very narrow satellite based Ku band service which many users can can receive with a special receiver and a bare LNB. Othernet does not have a terrestrial low VHF or perhaps even HF mode of any kind, it is difficult to respond though as I do not know what you are referring to or who you are answering.
thanks that sorta worked i think i narrowed the issue down now… i think i got a bad cable or some nasty interferance to deal with now…
@Syed what kind of coax cable does the othernet want between the LNB and the board in oms because I am trying to root out issues if its a interference and I am going to replace the coax cable but i want to get the correct kind that would work the best for the setup. (edit Sorry for the double post).
I have successfully used the avenger lnbf. To help in troubleshooting… in your tuner status screen do you see any “Packets recieved” ?
I usually have to adjust the custom frequency when I setup different lnbf’s.
I use coax 75 ohm RG-6 quad shield and try and keep it to under 30 feet .
What @ac8dg said is correct: RG-6 at less than 30 feet of it.
@ac8dg i was getting packets just fine with the avenger don’t know what got changed but i have new cables ordered ill have them on Sunday…(edit 8/1/20) Ok thanks Amazon got the cable a day early
i feed stupid and its a repeat issue of what another user had happen the short cable that changes the connector type was cause of my issues…
A late reply, Tyler, but I did ask the engineers about a year ago what was the impedence at the board circuitry, and they answered 50 ohms. However, once they go from the SMA connector to the F connector, they are using 72 ohms, and apparently not concerned over the mismatch. It apparently does not affect reception a lot. The 72 ohm mini-cable is horribly expensive compared to the same size (0.127 inch diameter) in 50 ohm, I know from purchasing cables to connect in my own experimentation. I hope this helps with your answer. I see where you solved the problem. Don’t feel stupid, all experimenters and inventers have the same kind of troubles you are experiencing.
Don’t feel bad Like @maxboysdad said it is all part of the process when using a cool bit of experimental gear like the dreamcatcher.
When diagnosing a bit of radio gear this is my checklist.
rx gear
1-check power supply, most likely failure in any electronic device, the radio or your dreamcatcher may not power up or might look powered but be in a transient(under high amp loads) or always in under-volt situation, check that you have 5v(own a good multimeter) when running all processes, remember cheap phone charger power supplies often lie about available amps/watts
2-inspect transmission lines ie your connectors, pins, pigtail, or RG-6; your multimeter’s ohm and/or continuity setting will tell you if you have any dead shorts or broken connections most of the time(there could be a break which is sometimes pressed together like when your headphones are going out), for receive smashed line might prevent good reception but wont damage your radio(remember a transmitter might burn out it’s finals though if the cable is bad or there is another major mismatch 50ohm to 75ohm is a tiny mismatch not worth worrying about even in transmit) you might call your local ham club if you want to have them do an antenna/cable analyser on your cable if you suspect the fault there, one of them probably has a $10,000 aerospace grade crimper too if you want to make the perfect cable, I also bet they would like to see your dreamcatcher setup
3- make sure your dreamcatcher is receiving power and transmitting down the coax cable from the LNB and your dreamcatcher is receiving a signal and sensing the LNB’s power draw in the logging app, you can get a cheap inline satellite finder and be sure you are aimed and that there is a power bias on the line to power the LNB by the tone and by the ‘finder’ lighting/powering up at and receiving a transverted from Ku to S band satellite signal at least as far down the cable as the ‘finder’
4-inspect your receiver for broken solder joints at the antenna connector, this is where I have broken and repaired so many radios over the years from rough handling and use.
I love using an audio tone(& analog needle) and sensitivity knob sat finder if @Syed is ever considering another board hardware rev please ask the hardware dev about a circuit tapping the RF line and a little finder tone speaker or add it to the 3.5mm jack.
well yes I either had a wire issue OR i still have a flaky board issue where it doesn’t like to reboot… i have to let it sit off for a little while before rebooting it just something is weird but its stable now and its safely on a old router UPS that i repurposed so its safe from power outages that last a few hours.
the longer the coax run between the dreamcatcher and the LNB, the more milliamp power supply is needed. Even then it may still be flaky and lose lock. When I used 1.2ma it would not power the LNB with the full run, using 2.5ma works fine but kinda flakes out at night (but my LNB is old and weatherbeaten, plus I am using a dish and having issues with another satellite crosstalk).
Speaking of which @Syed why the frequency change? This frequency is shared by a nearby powerful satellite, the old one wasn’t.
The frequency is what SES had available. Adjacent interferers are always a possibility, since a new channel from other satellites can start up at any time. That’s the downside to having a low gain antenna that is small and easy to point–it sees lots of other transmitters.