Satellite alignment has ‘peaked’ my interest

(and to you Mensa members who have commented about my wording, I did indeed mean ‘peaked’ and not ‘piqued’…… its a pun about satellite signal strength levels, hence the quotes)

I’ve got DirecTV and I use one of those AU-9 satellite dishes that drives my HR20 DVR player. This brings the beauty of Dallas Maverick’s basketball and Dallas Cowboy’s football right into my home. Except when all I see is ‘searching for signal’, which is what I found off and on during the last week.

I decided to manually fix this issue rather than waiting for a repair guy to come over and fix it. With winds and weather, I figured that this would not be the last time I would have an issue with what I suspected was a simple dish alignment. So I purchased an AcuTrac III meter to make the job easier. At over $200, the meter is not cheap. However, I figured it would be a worthwhile investment to learn to do all of this myself.

My meter arrived and so I began to learn as much as I could about how all of this “satellite stuff” works. It turns out that there is much more to it than I thought. I’m by no means an expert and I still do not have all the right answers but I figured I’d blog about it for future reference.

First off, since DirecTV started adding new HD channels to their lineup, they had to launch several new satellites to accommodate the bandwidth. Apparently they are also using some of this capacity for internet access but I’m not certain about that.

There are about 5 different satellites….well sort of. Before HD became popular, DirecTV got by with 3 main satellites. But with HD, they had to add two more, one of which (103) appears to have 2 ‘parts’ (a and b). DirecTV also appears to have used Ku on the first 3 satellites

• 101 – One of the original 3 satellites. This one appears to carry lots of stuff because it shows 32 transponders when I check it out on the HR20’s signal meters. (actually, I have no idea if the number of transponders is a true measure of this or not)
• 110 – Another one of the original 3 satellites.
• 119 – The third of the original 3 satellites.
• 99(b) – One of the new ones.
• 103(a) – Another new one. This is the 1st part of the ‘103’ satellite.
• 103(b) – The 2nd part of the ‘103’ satellite.

The AcuTrac III is apparently better than the previous model (the AcuTrac 22) because its meters can read the Ka signals. However it cannot tell which satellite it is looking at. This was my first misconception. I just assumed that if you plugged a meter up to a dish and pointed it around, it would eventually find the satellite and show the meter’s reading for that satellite. Wrong! You can actually get a meter reading from the wrong satellites. In fact, it appears that you can move the dish around and get readings from all kinds of different satellites. The trick is to find the correct 5 satellites all at once. So you have to get the meter to show readings for all of the satellites at once.

Now, to make things more confusing, you have to realize that if you look at the readings on the meter, you will get the signal strength, but if you look at the readings on the HR20, you will see the signal strength for a particular transponder. And each satellite has a different number of transponders, each carrying signals. Important note: You do not need, nor will you get, good signals on all of the transponders for all of the satellites. Some will be strong, some will be weak, and some will not come in at all.

For instance, on the 101 sat, I get 32 transponders, most of which have a strength reading in the 90’s. I got this information by looking at the signal strength readings from the HR20. Important Note: The readings from the AcuTrac will not match those on the HR20 is strength. The AcuTrac is used to peak signals, but just because you see a strength of 92 on the HR20 that does not mean you will see 92 on the AcuTrac. You might only see a level of 40 or so. The important part is that 40 should be near the highest peak you can get on the meter while moving the dish around.

Now, the AcuTrac has Ka meters as well as Ku meters. If you search around on the internet, you might come across the installation videos that the DirecTV installers use. In the videos, they refer to the instructions that come with the AU9 dish that talk about aligning the dish to the 101 and 119 dishes and then moving it all around, dividing by 2, blah blah blah. It turns out you have to do this if you have an AcuTrac 22 which cannot read the Ka signals. You are basically getting the dish aligned on the older satellites first and then moving them around to find the newer ones. With the AcuTrac III, you can just use the Ka meters to locate those newer satellites.

Now, when my signal died, it only died on the newer channels. Particularly my local HD channels. I figured I was aligned enough to get good enough signals for most of the channels but I didn’t have a good enough alignment to get the Ka signals needed for the HD locals. It turned out I was right. I hooked up my meter to the dish and loosened the alignment nuts for the azimuth (left-to-right), the elevation and the tilt. Then I put the meter into DirecTV mode, and turn attenuation off. (not sure what that is). I then began moving the dish and watching the meters. If the strength improved, I would keep going until it started declining. Moving it back (aka ‘peaking’ it) would find the sweet spot and then switch the meter over to the other satellites and check them too. Once you get peaks on the satellites, you can check out the values on the HR20 and see how you did. If all is well you can tighten up the bolts and you’re done.

Here are some notes to myself and some quotes I found online to help me along the way :

Terms:

Transponder = Transmitter and responder. A satellite transponder receives signals from the Earth and transmits signals back to earth. Ususally they receive on one frequency and transmit on another.

LNB = Low Noise Block Converter. A device on the front of the dish that amplifies the incoming signal and converts the frequences.

B-Band converter = This is used with the (5LNB dish) to pass the Ka-LO band (250-750MHz) signals

Satellite Notes:

101 – 32 transponders

110 – 3 transponders

119 – 11 transponders

99(b) – 6 transponders (All SpotBeams)

103(a) – 16 transponders (1-6 are SpotBeams)

103(b) – 16 transponders (>17 = SpotBeams) (Where all the new MPEG4 HD national channels are coming from)

Things to check when trying to fix a dish alignment:

1. If you have a SlingBox and a laptop, you can be a nerd and bring the laptop outside with you to watch the meters from the HR20 without having to come down off the roof and run inside to see how you did with the Acutrac meter.
2. Check the level bubble in the dish mast to make sure the mount is still good and level

Quotes I read that were notable during my research on alignments:

“Unless I am mistaken, DirecTV has started to move some of the HD locals from the Spaceway satellite at 103(a) to one of the DirecTV10 spotbeams at 103(a). As far as I can tell, my DFW HD locals are now coming from DirecTV10.”

“I do like the meter but I do wish it confirmed the sat I am looking at – when in doubt turn on the receiver and make sure it sees 101 on its meter .”

“On 99/103, your HD locals come from only one satellite (and only one or two transponders) so it’s not unusual to see no signals at all from either 99 or 103, whichever is not “your” satellite.”

“The transponders above 17 are spot beams on 103(b) as is everything on 99 so don’t sweat the zeros there. If 1 through 6 are from 103(a), again those are all spot beams. If they are from 103(b), transponder 4 should have a signal.”