Motorized Austar Dish

[Crabman]

i want to point my dish at other satellites, whats the process of making my dish movable from inside the house? its a standard austar dish. i know you can get motors, is it possible to buy one and set it up myself or do i need specialist equipment? this is my first time diy sat tv.

[viewer]

Find any satellite store, and look for term MOTEK
sciteq, joysat,

They work well, but a little difficult to set up for a novice.
I also recommend if you have a sub to Austar, don't do it with their dish, as it is not allowed. You'd need to put your own one up.

[Crabman]

if you have a sub to Austar, don't do it with their dish, as it is not allowed. You'd need to put your own one up.

can u suggest a good dish for a beginner?

[gordon_s1942]

While viewer quite rightly warns against fiddling with an Austar dish, there is another good reason not to and that is the Austar/Foxtell STB needs to have regular updates and if you had the dish 'off satelitte' it could miss those and if its off over a few days, you most likely would have to ring Austar/Fox to get the STB rebooted.
Also the last thing you need connected to the cable is their STB as you cant use it for anything else.
So have a good look at the mount you now have, an LNB, a dish up to 90cm or so and a Rotator and cable, at least 6 Type 'F' connectors and lastly a STB suitable for what you want.
I could be wrong but all up your looking at an expenditure of over $500 depending on the STB you buy.

[Kevaclone]

.

[mtv]

can u suggest a good dish for a beginner?

If you are only looking for Ku Band (eg: small dish Austar/Foxtel use) then depending where you are, I'd recommend a 70-90cm dish.

Motorising these dishes is different from the large C-Band dishes, the latter requiring a positioner and actuator, whilst the Ku dish uses an Horizon - Horizon motor, which is powered and controlled directly from most FTA satellite receivers. Note... you cannot use an Austar/Foxtel/VAST decoder to receive anything other that their own channels, so you will need a separate decoder to view FTA signals and to control the motor.

H-H motors are available from different manufacturers, Motek is one brand.

They are controlled via the signal coax, so no additional control cabling is required.

Before attempting to install a motor, I would strongly recommend you learn how to point the dish at varioius satellites, manually.

This will give you a better understanding of how it all works.

There are excellent tutorials in the Newbie Satellite section, for both fixed and motorised setups.

You will also need some kind of method to view the sat signals when pointing the dish.

Many use a cheap 'satfinder' type meter, in conjunction with their decoder and screen, but if you can view the screen whilst making adjustments to the dish and LNB alignment, it it more accurate.

There's always help available from members here, but probably best asked in the newbie satellite section.

Good luck with your project.. and welcome to the hobby of satellite.