In article <550lvqF1rqjkuU1@mid.individual.net>,
Pat <psweeney@riversway.ac.uk> wrote:

Hi Pat.. )

Just got back.. will attempt to answer this first
- anything later might just be my nose bouncing off
the keyboard in time to the snores! )

> My coordinates are

> Lat:
> 53:52:13N (53.8703)
> Lon:
> 3:02:22W (-3.0393)
> Which bits do I enter in when using USALS. The fists number or the ones in
> brackets. It only alows me to enter a few digits


I think, not knowing which box you now have, that
the digits you will need to enter will be the ones
in your brackets..

So that will be 53.87N (or 53.8N or 53.9N if you
can only enter to one decimal place.

The westerly one is similarly entered as either
3.04W or perhaps -3.0....

The minus is important as that denotes a westerly
direction of longitude. East is positive (+) and
west is negative (-)...

I'm at a +0.9 longitude - or at least the outside
of the kitchen wall, where the dish is mounted,
happens to be.. )


I might be answering your immediately prior article
here, but there is another thing that you can check...


Make sure that your box is not switched into
DiSEqC 1.2 as it's main positioner.

This means you are attempting to use the onboard
D-igital S-atellite E-quipment C-ontroller to move
your dish - and this can only be done after a lot
of work with calculators, declination and inclination
angles, testing the wind and a few magical words, for
each and every satellite you might wish to receive.

DiSEqC is a viable if now somewhat old-fashioned
method of doing it in these enlightened days. I'm
not sure I would even know how - although I'm told
that a large wad of chewing-gum (or blu-tack) and
a long length of string is an advantage -as is a
rich 'French' vocabulary ..oh.. and a degree in
mathematics... ;'))

So, make sure that your box is actually switched into
it's USALS menu ..ie that any 'positioner messages'
will come up as "USALS" or somesuch, /not/ as "1.2"

This tells your box that it is now in control of the
dish - not the motor! It will tell the motor where
to go ..usually to within 1/10th of a degree if it's
the Metronics dish wobbler..

I don't know which box you have ..but the menus
should make this USALS section fairly clear. You
may need to both select USALS - and to confirm that
selection before the box sets itself into the USALS
mode. Once in USALS it shouldn't ever drop out
again, even when switched off totally and restarted
from a 'boot' - unless you wish it to...

It might be that ensuring that you are in USALS is
all you need to do - apart from finding which satellite
is placed where in the heavens above you.. )

You will have to program each satellite into the box
by putting in and storing it's position - although
you may find that your own reference latitude and
longitude, having been put in once, will not need
to be entered again. These may appear automatically,
each time you start up and enter a 'new' satellite..

Anyway, once you have stored that satellite position,
then try asking the box to find the 'new' satellite
and to load up the channels - just as you have done
for both the Hotbirds and Astras...

Now ..if this makes sense ..let's see what happens!

Hopefully you'll find yourself making plenty of coffee
and munching lots of biccies whilst all the channels
are pouring in )

hh... )

Bill ZFC...

--
Adoption InterLink UK with -=- http://www.billsimpson.com/
Domain Host Orpheus Internet -=- http://www.orpheusinternet.co.uk/