It took professional help. I was trying to realign a satellite dish -- a big one, 6.1 meters in diameter -- on a satellite it should have still been pointing at. The signal was there, but it wouldn't quite lock.
These days, there's an outfit we hire when this kind of thing gets weird. The best gadgets for the job have gotten smaller -- but way more expensive. When we used uplinks all the time, and had guys on the staff who ran 'em often, it made sense to keep the latest, best stuff. Now we might need that gear once every year or two.
So I called in the experts, and they showed up, got it a little better and got stuck until another team member showed up to help. The receiver kept trying to lock on the signal, but it wouldn't stay
A really big satellite dish has "sidelobes," kind of extra focus points, where the signal strength peaks -- but not by much. And it's small compared to the main lobe. But with a good receiver on a big dish? It'll work, or almost. We were on a nice fat sidelobe, diagonally off, and it was tricky fumbling back to the main lobe. But we -- which is to say the guys who do that kind of thing all day every day -- got it.
The receiver still wouldn't lock.
This dish is a legacy. It shows up on the software that runs all of my employer's dishes, but nobody's supposed to use it. Someone, probably quite some time back, had been looking to aim one of the general-purpose dishes at the main campus, got on this one by mistake, realized it too late and tried to set it back. It almost got pointed in the right place, so that's one thing.
But it appears the receiver got a command, too (oops!), and ended up with a very wrong configuration. Untangling that had us deep in menus I'd never seen before, but a mere fifteen minutes later, it locked -- and held.
I kinda somehow left power to the dish motors turned off. It's supposed to be left looking at one specific satellite. Maybe this time it will stay.
Update
8 months ago
1 comment:
Better a sidelobe than wasps. I have a hilarious pic of a shop vac used in a wasp removal. The wasps were sprayed, and all hopefully dead, but I couldn't get the nest out using the long pole and loop of wire I've used before. Our big shop vac had a reducing nozzle which would fit the feedhorn opening nicely. I taped it to the long pole, added all the hose I had, turned on the vac, and hoisted it in place. The nozzle sucked into the feedhorn, and within 2 seconds I heard the nest thump into the shop vac. I let it run a few more seconds, then unplugged the vac and walked away. The nozzle fell out, the receiver locked on, and we were happy. After a small waiting period, I taped a Scotch 33 container over the feedhorn, which held until I could get a proper feedhorn cover.
Our big NBC dish (just turned 40!) has the motor power disconnected, and I think the contractor also hits the e-stop, so it ain't goin' nowhere without a lot of deliberate steps.
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