Aiming a SWM3 with Genie.

If the greatest minds in RV satellites cant pin point this then its time to get a service call and a lesson. Trouble shooting from a zillion miles away with no test equipment isn't easy.

I'll report back on the findings for future use. Thanks to all of you. Steve

I just figured out my slimline had been damaged. I could never get the HDs as high as the one on my house. When I switched to SWM3 a few weeks ago I decided to re-zero out the level, set the skew and tilt the same as the DTV guy did and I still could not get 90s on 99 & 103. I got to looking at my dish and the bracket that the dish bolts on to had been bent at some point in time. One of the tabs was deflected up a skosh.
I took it apart and restraightened it and it helped. I think it is still not right so I am going to watch for a new dish.

The SWM "satellite" is not a satellite as others have mentioned. It indicates the status of the SWM setup. If you are using a SWM lnb, you can connect a maximum of 8 tuners. If you had that many connected, you would have a reading on all eight. If you only had 2 tuners connected, I'm pretty sure that you will only see 2 transponders on the SWM screen. I have a SWM 16 multiswitch at home with 9 tuners connected. Therefore, I see 9 transponders on the SWM sat screen.

You really should be using a meter to aim your SWM dish at the 101 sat. Just about any meter (even the cheapies) will work, but you have to have the LNB powered by the PI. I use a device called an ASL 1 to make the connection, but they are getting harder to find. A "Green" splitter should work also, but not with the $15 meters.

As mentioned, even a slight dent on the dish periphery will cause problems. My dishes always seem to land on the lnb arm, which can be a problem too.

No, I am using an SK-SWM3 so I would have the exact same LNB as his ground mounted SWM3 antenna just in an auto pointing version.

Bill are you using an SK-3005 with SWM8 and OP using a ground mount SL3s? Might be apples and oranges.

OP's SWM signals are low. I don't know the relationship between the SWM readings and bird readings. I'm sticking with bent, not aligned, bad LNB or bad cabling. Without knowing it is aligned and getting a meter in the mix, really can't help much.

For a quick test, I bagged my LNB. Zippo on ALL readings. So, taking into account Bill's findings and mine, good dishes and LNB's w/o signal gives all zeros. I'm thinking a bent or misaligned dish would then do the same. OP has SWM readings. Bad LNB?

Edit: Or bad cabling. Connected but not good enough to get 21v to the dish or signal back down?

Bill: any idea as to what the "SWM" selection is for the satellite selections? As I've mentioned several times, it fluctuates as I move the dish so it must be seeing a bird somewhere.

Maybe I'll just pay for a service call and maybe get a dish and a Genie aiming lesson from the chap that comes.

My Genie shows 0's for the SWM reading when my Trav'ler is stowed so I don't think you should be seeing any reading there if the antenna is not pointed correctly. If it is pointed correctly allowing the SWM to show some reading I would guess you have damaged the LNB but quite possibly the dish or both. I deployed the Trav'ler and watched the SWM #'s appear as it came on satellite. I have all 6-100's, 2-97's, a blank and a 0.
I have the same readings for Elevation and Tilt since I have never entered a zip code in the receiver setup to allow the receiver to calculate the correct numbers.

Yep. No 101. You can use height=300 to resize the pic to something more pleasing.

I just noticed there's no Azimuth shown, and an elevation of -19d? I'm not at all familiar with that! What location do you have in there? The north pole?

Lets see if a picture helps:

The first is of the SWM setting option. Note...those bars move up and down when I move the dish thus I do NOT think it is just the health of the SWM.



This one shows what I get when I change from the SWM selection to the 101.