Help requested for setting up positioner

Hi All,

I have a VU+ Ultimo receiver running BlackHole 1.7.4

I also have an Alsat GBox 500 positioner.

The room I currently have the Ultimo in only has a single satellite connection, so I have a slightly complex setup from my various dishes, not that I believe this is causing any of my current issues.

I have a 4 way diseqc switch connected to various feeds as follows:

AA - Astra 2 28.2 - output from a multiswitch fed by a quatro LNB on 60cm dish
AB - Hotbird 13 - output from dual LNB primary focus on 60cm dish
BA - Astra 1 19.2 - output from dual LNB secondary focus on 60cm disk
BB - positioner - output from dual LNB on 90cm Motorised dish

Now I have the feeds from all of the diseqc ports working just fine, my issue is with the positioner.

All of the examples I can find on setting up a positioner assume you are moving from a previous box where the positioner is already set up.

My previous setup was an Echostar d2mac based system that used a built in positioner (read old :o)

I have my positioner wired up to the actuator and it moves just fine, either by sending commands from the positioner remote, or from the Ultimo using diseqc 1.2 commands.

I am however struggling to find satellites - if I search east or west, I can only find 2 birds, one of which I am pretty sure is Astra 2, dish looks to be in a similar position to my Astra 2 dish, not entirely sure what the other one is.

I used to be able to see about 7 or 8 birds including Thor at 0.8W, and checking the footprints, this should still be the case, however even stepping through the arc with the positioner using a channel that should be active on Thor, shows absolutely no signal.

Anyone know of a better way of setting up a positioner from scratch and knowing what satellite you have located when you do eventually find a signal?

Before anyone says anything about the dish, it was tracking the Clarke belt just fine with the previous receiver, and as already mentioned can still pick up at least 2 birds now, so I don't believe the dish has moved.

I coud try taking the diseqc switch out of the equation and connect the input directly to the motorised dish, but as already stated, I don't believe that this is causing an issue with my lack of ability to locate satellites.

Any suggestions?

Zebethyal

Hi There,

I am not really using a channel list, other than attempting to use either the pre-programmed channel for a given satellite, or some random channel that looks like it might be free to air on that satellite from the details at LyngSat.

The collection of dishes, etc has slowly grown over the years, only recently started to get back into Satellite. I also have a couple of SatBox S12 units in my kids bedrooms, and a VU+ Uno on it's way that will ultimately stay in the bedroom - Ultimo will relocate to the cinema room once I have converted the garage and have 3 feeds, the motorised one will probably be dedicated to an input.