Getting 0 reading on Box Signal Meeter

[banen]

Im trying to hook up to a new dish (in a barn away from the house hence I got a hold of a separate dish for the barn). I have it pointed and used a meter (purchased on line) and am getting a pretty good signal according to the meter at the dish. When I go in the house it comes up as across the board 0's on all Sat's and all transponders. While it seems possible that I may not have a strong enough signal to get a picture i think i am at least close enough to not have complete 0's. I'm thinking's I may have something more basic wrong. Perhaps i have the setting on the box for dish type wrong?? Any other suggestions?? How do I know which Dish type and switch type I have? The LNB is a single "eyeball" that has 3 bumps on it. The dish is oval shapped and says slimline on it. I assume Slimline 3 of some kind? Any suggestions?

 

[raoul5788]

to Satelliteguys banen!

You have a Slimline dish with an sl3 lnb. If there is one output on the lnb, then it's a swm type and you need to use a power inserter with it. Don't try to use it without the power inserter! If there are four outputs on the lnb, then it's a regular type and you don't need the power inserter. Now to the signal strength numbers. You may be pointing at a satellite that isn't a Directv one. The meter will tell you it's there, but not which one. If it isn't a Directv satellite, it won't register on the signal strength screen. That's what I suspect is going on. How did you go about setting the elevation, skew, and azimuth? Did you use the numbers from the receiver?

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

to Satelliteguys banen!

You have a Slimline dish with an sl3 lnb. If there is one output on the lnb, then it's a swm type and you need to use a power inserter with it. Don't try to use it without the power inserter! If there are four outputs on the lnb, then it's a regular type and you don't need the power inserter. Now to the signal strength numbers. You may be pointing at a satellite that isn't a Directv one. The meter will tell you it's there, but not which one. If it isn't a Directv satellite, it won't register on the signal strength screen. That's what I suspect is going on. How did you go about setting the elevation, skew, and azimuth? Did you use the numbers from the receiver?

I concur with everything raoul has said, and would also like to add that if you do NOT have a swm setup (more than one coax off the lnb) then you will also need a bbc (b band converter) as well.

To further assist you we need more information, which meter you purchased, what steps you followed to align and peak the dish (note: that this dish is not as simple as just moving from left to right until you have a high number, try searching for some threads on peaking the ka/ku or hd slimline dish) the switch is either swm or multiswitch, you can determine that based on whether there is one output on the lnb or 4, and again if there is only one, you need a 21v power inserter placed behind the receiver to send power up to the dish.

 

[raoul5788]

Oops! I forgot about the bbc, AGAIN! Thanks for the reminder kitty!

 

[twizt3dsist3r]

^..^ Meow

 

[banen]

Fantastic thanks to both of you! In answer to your questions
A.) i did point at the azth. and Elev. and tilt suggested in the box menu and on the DTV website
B.) My dish on the house has 1 cable coming out, the one on the barn has 4 so I assume "regular type" for the barn?
C.) My meter is just a cheapy (bought for this one time, do it myself, tinkering, experiment) called a SF-95DR
D.) For alignment i started with the course coordinates and tweaked until i got a peak, then dial the fine adjuster 2 turns off peak then back to the same reading and split the difference. There was a name for this process but it escapes me now "dither"?.


I have a couple other questions / confirmations
1.) I don't need the power inserter? I was using one, to power the meter if nothing else.
2.) I sould select a dish type "03 Slimline-3" with out any additional modifiers such as "&72.5"
3.) Switch type should be multi? the menu doesn't seem to be letting me select that, it seems to be defaulted to SWM
4.)I didn't have a BBC, my house sat didn't need one, I assume I just install this as the last component into the box?
5.) My box is saying "do not install B converter" ??? The box is an "H-25" if that helps?
6.) Even with out the BBC wouldn't i at least register something on one of the ku satellites?

Thanks again for the help!!

 

[Hutch1814]

Fantastic thanks to both of you! In answer to your questions
A.) i did point at the azth. and Elev. and tilt suggested in the box menu and on the DTV website
B.) My dish on the house has 1 cable coming out, the one on the barn has 4 so I assume "regular type" for the barn?
C.) My meter is just a cheapy (bought for this one time, do it myself, tinkering, experiment) called a SF-95DR
D.) For alignment i started with the course coordinates and tweaked until i got a peak, then dial the fine adjuster 2 turns off peak then back to the same reading and split the difference. There was a name for this process but it escapes me now "dither"?.

I have a couple other questions / confirmations
1.) I don't need the power inserter? I was using one, to power the meter if nothing else.
2.) I sould select a dish type "03 Slimline-3" with out any additional modifiers such as "&72.5"
3.) Switch type should be multi? the menu doesn't seem to be letting me select that, it seems to be defaulted to SWM
4.)I didn’t have a BBC, my house sat didn’t need one, I assume I just install this as the last component into the box?
5.) My box is saying "do not install B converter" ??? The box is an “H-25” if that helps?
6.) Even with out the BBC wouldn't i at least register something on one of the ku satellites?

Thanks again for the help!!

The H25 is SWM only. The dish on the house is SWM. You'll need a SWM LNB and power inserter if you plan on using the H25. I didn't read the entire post, looked like the people helping you are on track if I read it correctly.

 

[Jimbo]

Fantastic thanks to both of you! In answer to your questions
A.) i did point at the azth. and Elev. and tilt suggested in the box menu and on the DTV website
B.) My dish on the house has 1 cable coming out, the one on the barn has 4 so I assume "regular type" for the barn?
C.) My meter is just a cheapy (bought for this one time, do it myself, tinkering, experiment) called a SF-95DR
D.) For alignment i started with the course coordinates and tweaked until i got a peak, then dial the fine adjuster 2 turns off peak then back to the same reading and split the difference. There was a name for this process but it escapes me now "dither"?.


I have a couple other questions / confirmations
1.) I don't need the power inserter? I was using one, to power the meter if nothing else.
2.) I sould select a dish type "03 Slimline-3" with out any additional modifiers such as "&72.5"
3.) Switch type should be multi? the menu doesn't seem to be letting me select that, it seems to be defaulted to SWM
4.)I didn't have a BBC, my house sat didn't need one, I assume I just install this as the last component into the box?
5.) My box is saying "do not install B converter" ??? The box is an "H-25" if that helps?
6.) Even with out the BBC wouldn't i at least register something on one of the ku satellites?

Thanks again for the help!!

Yup, as Hutch mentioned, the H25 is SWM only, the LNB you have at the barn is Non SWM.
With the LNB you currently have at the barn, you would not need a BBC or a Power Inserter.

What other recvrs do you have ?
Maybe you can use a different recvr in the barn that you already have.

IF you end up using the H25 out there you will need a Power Inserter (21 volt)

 

[banen]

I have an HR24 as well, but thats the main DVR in the house, i would be reluctant to do that. But if i did would it work? If not, what if i just bought aSWM 3 LNB, could i just put that at the end of the mast instead and keep the actual dish hardware I have set up? Does this H2[FONT=Trebuchet, Trebuchet MS]5 non SWM LNB thing explain why i'm getting all 0's at the tv box? [/FONT]

 

[Jimbo]

I have an HR24 as well, but thats the main DVR in the house, i would be reluctant to do that. But if i did would it work? If not, what if i just bought aSWM 3 LNB, could i just put that at the end of the mast instead and keep the actual dish hardware I have set up? Does this H2[FONT=Trebuchet, Trebuchet MS]5 non SWM LNB thing explain why i'm getting all 0's at the tv box? [/FONT]

If your set up at the barn with out the Power Inserter and using the H25, YES it will show zero on the screen because the SWM technology needs the addl. power to run it.

IF you were to take the HR24 out to the barn and hook it up to the Non SWM set up and Re ran the Sat Set Up, it would work.
However, seeing thats your main recvr, if you wanted to use it to make sure your pointed at the right spot, you could do that.

Also, if you rplcd the LNB at the barn with a SWM set up and added a PI it too would work with the H25.

 

[BobStokesbary]

You are probably closer than you think. It appears that you have been able to do a reasonable job of setting up the dish with the conventional LNB. (It would be nice to confirm that with another receiver from the house, but a number of them don't like changing from SWM to non-SWM, so that option would probably be more trouble than it is worth.)

Now, you can get a SWM LNB (including power inserter and splitter) for around $30 on ebay. Simply swap out the LNB head with the new SWM LNB head and be good to go. You cannot use that cheap meter you bought to do any alignment or "tweaking" of the SWM signal. But, you should be fairly good with your current settings.

You may have to readjust things a bit on the tilt, but you can use the meter in the receiver for that.