advise welcomed on my 1.2m channel master

jenseneverest

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Just picked up a channel master 1.2m for 20 quid and i am chuffed to bits with it. it makes my 80cm motorised dish look like a toy.

It has an actuator fitted but no idea if it works or not, i dont have a vbox to test it or any experience using one.... it also came complete with wall mount.

Because of where i will have to mount it i will not be able to get any sats past 5w or anything past 23 east. With that in mind i plan to make it a fixed dish mostly for feeds on 10 and 7 east.

Which sat would be best to centre the dish on ??
I have also thought about a 3 degree monoblock for both 7 and 10 east
Would else could i hope to pick up with the dish centered at those sats, if i were to add more lnb's and switch ???
Im in sunny london UK.

Any advise or thoughts welcomed.

TIA
 

jenseneverest

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im going to go motorised with it, i know i will regret not doing that later on. will test the actuator with a 24v power supply tomorrow
on the hunt for a v-box then....
 

barney115

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V-boxes are cheap i have two of them one for my 1.2 channel master dish and other for my 2 meter prime focus dish ,
check your actuator is working its best all round idea , and buy Multi-core 4 core color cable however much you need from V-box to Actuator Arm .

inside the actuator there is Reed and Motor this is then wired to your V-box accordingly ,
say for example... red,green,blue,black is the 4 core electric cable
red,green wired to Actuator Sensor and other end red,green to Sensor in V-box .
That leaves Blue/Black wired to Motor in actuator and other end Blue/Black wired to Motor in V-box this part must be correct if you got it wrong dish will turn wrong way when moving V-box its then a case of switching around Black/Blue i always make that simple mistake when fitting a new Actuator even tho' after many,many years i really should know better ,lol's
 

barney115

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5w or anything past 23 east
This still Leaves you able to get
23.5E , 21.6E , 19.2E , 16E , 13E , 10E , 9E , 7E ,4.8E , 3E
AND 1.6E [ Lots of old Tandberg Encrypted Channels Here all open ]
3 West And 5 West also have few feeds

There is plenty to be obtained with main feed Sats 23.5E,16E,10E,7E,3E and 1W , 3 West , 5 West

You'd be mad not to use your Actuator infact .
or at the very worst have to buy an Actuator Arm and a bit of 4 core electric cable and a V-box still does not amount to very much money at all for what you will get in return .

Best V-Box is Motek/Technomate they last forever and a day
but in reality anything under £50 will still do the job

you have certainly come to the right place for advise and help i have been exactly in your position when i started seriously into satellite TV as a hobby maybe 20 years ago
now [ been far longer than that in reality ,lol ]
i have 5 motorized dishes and i am totally an addict and never looked back ,
Thanks to this forum and its members i have never missed any pay per view events or any important feeds yes things change but we adapt to those changes and move onward and upward as always : )
always good to see fellow members take a keen interest in our hobby !
Good luck m8 post back any questions we are here to help : ))
 

RimaNTSS

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CM is nice dish (one of my favorite brands). The dish is not very "friendly" to multifeeds, however it is possible. I think if dish came with polar-mount it is vice idea to make it motorized. Before you install it, change all nuts&bolts to INOX ones, other-way you will get rusty marks on the "face" of the dish from "sunny" London weather.
 

jenseneverest

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Thanks for the reply guys, have spend a few days rebuilding the dish mount replacing / painting whatever rusty bits i could.The bushes themselves had very little if any wear in them, that shows just how much of a quality dish it is.

The actuator however was stuffed so have ordered new vbox, superjack and cabling. Weather permitting would like to lightly sand and paint the dish next week..... im sure i will be back with more questions regarding setup....

HKquyrA.jpg
 

RimaNTSS

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Mount looks nice. It is up to you, but I think that any CM dish can be washed with kitchen sponge, so, usually no painting is necessary.
 

barney115

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100% Agree my CM 1.2 dish has been up more than 8 Years
A bit of elbow grease and a sponge should be all that is required .
That polar mount looks brand new now i know for a fact its really hard to find polar mounts for a CM dish i think they stopped production many years ago and Raven dishes and mounts are all that is around these days AFAIK .

A New vbox, superjack 24" heavy and cabling is a good idea
and for LNB the best i have tested was the Golden Media High Gain Universal Quad LNB with Gold-Plated Contacts (0.1 dB)

close 2nd was Inverto Black Ultra LNB which most peeps use these days ,
The Technomate LNB i found was rubbish enuff , the darkgold LNB was a good honest 3rd in my testings ,
i have tried maybe a dozen or so LNB brands and those were my results of course everyone will have a different opinion
hope to hear back more on this very interesting topic and thanks for the updates @ jenseneverest and thnx @ RimaNTSS for solid advice as always :thum: :cool:
 

jovie

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your very luckey to get the dish ive had one for over 15 years
best one i ever bought best of luck jovie
 

jenseneverest

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well i cant believe it has been 6 months since this started, weather and health are finally on my side and now finally have the dish up.


upload



upload


Now come all the setup questions:confused:


firstly the declination angle....
Dish pointer has mine as 7.4°

The scale on the dish is a bit confusing....after a lot of googling i have found out the dish has an offset of 22.6 degrees
Am i correct in adding that offset to my declination angle to give me 30 degrees ??



upload


The latitude scale on my adjuster bolt has long rusted away, but i am hoping to use an angle finder and a straight edge on the dish face....
Is this the right way to find that angle ??

elevation - dish offset + declination angle= dish angle



upload


TIA
 

barney115

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I WOULD Not have put the dish so close to that fence
and the wall behind is going to really restrict dish movement but may be your pictures is a little deceptive ?

Actuator arm looks brand new , and i can see the "super jack" sticker thats a great sign...:thum: dish looks brand new also and offset dish no wonder you are thrilled with it for £20 & SuperJack ARM you literally stole it ,lol's :D

HOW I Made my 1.2 channel master track all satellites was doing it the lazy way , i stuck on my Sat meter to LNB with Beeper started at 42E and used V-box to drive dish around the ARC getting highest signals i could until i reached 30°W
taking note of every sat making slight adjustments on the fly as Actuator and dish moved around , not really rocket science i know but it got the job done after tracking every sat i found LNB needed minor adjusting to be skewed just a little bit .
Weather is Awesome right now 18°C - 20°C Here in Sunny Eire
At long,long Last :D

Good luck and good health to you and your new adventures with this awesome dish and Actuator arm !!
 

jenseneverest

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yeah things are tight..the fence is a downer, but in order to remain married it had to go there.....:)

Its current position is as far west as it will go due to the fence, the ram is in full extended position in the picture... i am hoping for 7w as the limit on the west side. The east side i should get the full arc up to at least 42e. After 42 east there is line of sight obstacles in the form of a house lol... but maybe i will be lucky with a few more east sats.

already had a blazing row with next door....im having to extend the fence to keep the peace...
 

barney115

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do i see a flat roof ?
are you talking about the shadow on the dish ? :confused:
if so i see what you mean but it might not be a major factor from 1W or 5E when it moves to east sats i'm thinking ?
Well spotted regardless i missed that until i looked again :eek:
 
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