Control Box for Roof Mounted Dish .....

[2ndhom]

The roof mounted dish sometimes has a problem zeroing in on a sat. I've heard there's a way of punching some of the buttons on the box to re-boot the software. Sometimes it will take 20 minutes to zero in ...... sometimes just 4 minutes. Never any trees obstructing the scan. Anyone know??? :h

[mtrumpet]

I don't know if this will help or not, but check this site out. It's a great resource for all things related to Satellite, Cable, AV etc.

solidsignal.com

[Bill_Satellite]

2ndhom wrote:
Been doing some homework and thought I'd contact MotoSat to find out they are now out of business. A company NiaSat have bought them. Googleing my area (Eugene, Oregon) came across a Sat Dish dealer www.oregonrv.net carries lots of replacement parts and does diagnosis. The guys name is Don Marr. I'll give him a call on Monday. Thanks all for the input.

MotoSAT is gone forever. No other company owns them or the rights to their products. Some of the former owners of MotoSAT have a new company called RF Mogul and they are supporting "some" of the old MotoSAT controllers. Don Marr is an excellent guy and should be able to offer good paid tech support should you need it. You can Google RF Mogul if you want to contact them. Don is also active on the Datastormusers forum and you can find software for you controller there as well. It's having the right hardware to install that software that can be an issue.

[2ndhom]

Bikeboy57 wrote:
How long has the dish been behaving this way? The reason I ask is that about five or so years ago Direct moved some of their programming to a different bird, and the motosat software had to be upgraded to find the new bird. My motosat behaved exactly like you describe until I upgraded the software. That's hard to do today since motosat is defunct in this business. You might google for the motosat forum and get some help there. The forum has a section just for tv satellite.

Good luck.

I replaced mine with a winegard traveler and couldn't be happier.

When I call Don Marr from OregonRV. net I'll ask him to verify, if he can, to check my software and if it needs an update. Thanks much .... hadn't given any thought to a software fix.

[Bikeboy57]

How long has the dish been behaving this way? The reason I ask is that about five or so years ago Direct moved some of their programming to a different bird, and the motosat software had to be upgraded to find the new bird. My motosat behaved exactly like you describe until I upgraded the software. That's hard to do today since motosat is defunct in this business. You might google for the motosat forum and get some help there. The forum has a section just for tv satellite.

Good luck.

I replaced mine with a winegard traveler and couldn't be happier.

[2ndhom]

Been doing some homework and thought I'd contact MotoSat to find out they are now out of business. A company NiaSat have bought them. Googleing my area (Eugene, Oregon) came across a Sat Dish dealer www.oregonrv.net carries lots of replacement parts and does diagnosis. The guys name is Don Marr. I'll give him a call on Monday. Thanks all for the input.

[Dutchstar02]

Motosat has lots of issues locking onto satellites and since they have gone out of business for small dishes they can't offer any help. There are some distributors that will attempt to upgrade the software but it's a hit or miss as to whether it will work. There is a company (RF Mogul) that has a box that is backwards compatible with the Nomad box but they want $600. In my case because I use Shaw even the upgrade won't work because of the interference from the third satellite that can't be programmed into the software. What I have to do is set my TV to the signal strength and hit the power button off when the signal is a strong as I think it'll get - somewhere between 75 and 90%. This will pull in some of the HD channels but not all. There are still the non HD channels so I'm not missing anything. I figure for $600 I can put up with a lot of button pushing:S

[2ndhom]

moisheh wrote:
Sounds like a Moto Sat. There is away to do what you described. I think you hit stow and find at the same time. Someone will chime in and correct me! Moisheh

Yes, I neglected to mention the roof dish is a Moto Sat with 3 LNB's. Thanks.
I'll try the combination hold down.

[moisheh]

Sounds like a Moto Sat. There is away to do what you described. I think you hit stow and find at the same time. Someone will chime in and correct me! Moisheh

[dougrainer]

2ndhom wrote:

2ndhom wrote:
The roof mounted dish sometimes has a problem zeroing in on a sat. I've heard there's a way of punching some of the buttons on the box to re-boot the software. Sometimes it will take 20 minutes to zero in ...... sometimes just 4 minutes. Never any trees obstructing the scan. Anyone know??? :h

Funny how when a person writes down a subject and it sound clear to them ..... but someone else reading ... it makes NO sense. Appreciate the input. The roof mounted dish is a Direct as well as the control box and TV channel box. The control box has 3 buttons ... the ON/OFF, FIND and STOW.
I have the same routine .... turn on the TV channel box (one button), push the ON/OFF dish control box, wait 30 seconds and push the FIND button. The roof dish begins it's search mode. There's no clouds in the sky and no obstructions. Thee face of the dish is debris free as well as the LNB's. The dish can o thru a 360 degree circle sometimes 4 times and do a verticle motion of up to 5 - 6 inches or just 1 to 2. My most repeated scenerio when after 20 minutes is to push the ON/OFF button, the dish stows itself and start over. Hope this clarifies the proceedure.

Sorry, but Direct and Dish offer NO RV mobile Sat antenna systems. The Dish may say Direct, but that is just the dish. From your description, you have either a OLD Winegard or a Motosat system. Research your system more and find the manufacturer of your system. Doug

[NorCal_Dan]

My antenna takes a long time to find the signals after driving the coach all day to a new location. I tested my system yesterday and last time I used it we were in Kansas. We are now in California and I didn't time the search but I would guess it took close to 10 minutes to lock on to the satellites. I was on the roof while it searched and it did 4 complete 360 degree searches with the dish at different elevations. I believe it found the first sat but it was the wrong one so it started doing another scan only with shorter side-to-side motion. When it finally found the correct sat it then started fine tuning up-down-left-right until it locked on. And lastly it started rotating the dish for skew and took 3 different attempts until it finally was satisfied. Like I say, took a good 10 minutes. If I were to try raising it again today, since we haven't moved, it would instantly try the same settings as yesterday and would lock on almost immediately. I'm using the Winegard Trav'ler for DirecTV.

[BobandShaz]

Dirty dish cable connections not tight or corroded

[2ndhom]

2ndhom wrote:
The roof mounted dish sometimes has a problem zeroing in on a sat. I've heard there's a way of punching some of the buttons on the box to re-boot the software. Sometimes it will take 20 minutes to zero in ...... sometimes just 4 minutes. Never any trees obstructing the scan. Anyone know??? :h

Funny how when a person writes down a subject and it sound clear to them ..... but someone else reading ... it makes NO sense. Appreciate the input. The roof mounted dish is a Direct as well as the control box and TV channel box. The control box has 3 buttons ... the ON/OFF, FIND and STOW.
I have the same routine .... turn on the TV channel box (one button), push the ON/OFF dish control box, wait 30 seconds and push the FIND button. The roof dish begins it's search mode. There's no clouds in the sky and no obstructions. Thee face of the dish is debris free as well as the LNB's. The dish can o thru a 360 degree circle sometimes 4 times and do a verticle motion of up to 5 - 6 inches or just 1 to 2. My most repeated scenerio when after 20 minutes is to push the ON/OFF button, the dish stows itself and start over. Hope this clarifies the proceedure.

[rgatijnet1]

Are you sure that your satellite box is up and running when your antenna tries to lock on?

[Teacher_s_Pet]

Probably would help a great deal if the manufacturer and model of satellite antenna was known, to get really pertinent responses for the topic starter.