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VSAT technology and installation >> HughesNet and Hughes HX VSATs >> Help with HX50
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Message started by dean.wagner on Sep 1st, 2010 at 4:22pm

Title: Help with HX50
Post by dean.wagner on Sep 1st, 2010 at 4:22pm
Hello, my name is Dean Wagner. I have a similar story to most who post here - I'm a US Soldier in Iraq desperately trying to get some satellite service up and running for myself and 17 other joes. We've been struggling with our system for well over two months now, and we're all at our wits' end. We are obtaining service through Bentley Walker, and support has been slow and vague; to put it mildly. We're often waiting days on end for email responses, and when they finally do arrive they tend to bring more problems than solutions.

We started out with a Patriot dish and a LinkStar box which we were told to use with W6. We tried and tried, seeking help from anyone and everyone who knew the slightest bit about satellites here on base, but all the king's horses and all the king's men could not get that equipment connected to W6. We could connect to W3 with phenomenal signal, but BW said our equipment would not work with that satellite, and that we must connect to W6. Finally, we gave up and purchased an entire new system. This time we got a white plastic dish that I frequently see similar versions of posted on here and a Hughes HX50. We were able to hit W6 with this dish, but were then informed by BW that this setup must go through W3. Not a problem, we thought, since we were by this time weathered veterans in dish-pointing (thanks mostly to all the information we found within this website). We found W3 with little issue. We peaked-up our dish with our Horizon meter into the high nineties. We thought we were good to go.

That brings us to where we are now: Trying to get this Hx50 connected to the satellite. At first we got nothing from the box whatsoever. After a long era of emailings we learned that we must commission the box. After another exhausting exchange of emails we got the info we needed from BW to get this box going... Or so we thought. Since receiving our data, I have tried several means of inputting it. Some have seemed to work temporarily, some not at all. In the end, however, nothing we try will get us a green dot for our system status.

Before I get into what I've done, first I'll supply some background info. Click the images for larger versions.

The dish and such:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/DishFront-thumb.jpg https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/DishSide-thumb.jpg https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Head-thumb.jpg https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/LNBTag-thumb.jpg https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/TransTag-thumb.jpg

Our location and pointing data:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Point-thumb.png

The info provided by BW:

BW Site ID ********
Serial Number ********
Please enter the following information into your HX50 using the following modem URL:
https://192.168.0.1/fs/registration/setup.html
Satellite Parameters
Satellite Longitude 7 Degrees East
Satellite Frequency 9985
Symbol Rate 6000000
LNB 22KHz Switch Off
DVB Mode DVB S2 ACM
Frequency Band KU/QPSK
Receive Pol Horizontal
Transmit Pol Vertical
OTA freq 0
VSAT Parameters
VSAT Long Degrees Site Specific
VSAT Longitude Minutes Site Specific
VSAT Long Hemisphere Site Specific
VSAT Lat Degrees Site Specific
VSAT Lat Minutes Site Specific
VSAT Lat Hemisphere Site Specific
LAN Parameters
LAN 1 IP address 10.136.40.241
LAN 1 Subnet 255.255.255.240
LAN 2 IP address 0.0.0.0
LAN 2 Subnet 0.0.0.0
Management Parameters
IP Gateway Address 192.168.12.100
SDL Control Channel 224.0.1.6
DVB Program Number 20500
DVB program Number DNCC 40000
VSAT Management Address 13.1.3.149
Default Gateway Address 0.0.0.0
VSAT Return Path Inroute
radio parameter Pure
Transmit Radio 2 Watt


Ok, with all that known, here's what I've done: Obviously I've hooked up a computer and all that, DHCP is working, so I use the provided link above to view the "BentleyWalkerHX50 Setup" page.

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Setup-thumb.png

From here I tried going to the "VSAT Manual Commissioning" link and filling out all the required data.

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/ManualCommission-thumb.png

Here is where I first had a problem. Under the "Receive Radio Parameters" section near the bottom there is a dropdown menu  for "Receive LNB Type". In the data sent by BW there is a "Radio Parameter" and it says "Pure", but on the LNB sticker (shown above in the dish pictures) it explicitly says "Invacom". Both of these are options within the "Receive LNB Type" dropdown, so which do I select? I went with BW's recommendation and selected "Pure", despite my intuition to select "Invacom". Doing so puts a default value of "10750" in the "LO Freq (MHz)" textbox. There are two more textboxes, "Band Lower Edge (MHz)" and "Band Upper Edge (MHz)". What do I put into these? I went with the freqs listed on the LNB sticker and entered "97500" and "10600" respectively. Now on the sticker they are written in GHz, so I had to change them over to MHz. I don't even know if I did that correctly.

The next problem was under the last section, "Transmit Radio Parameters". The sticker under the transmitter (pictured above in dish pictures) has even less information than the sticker on the LNB, and yet this section requires even more. I had no idea what to put here, so I simply selected the "2 watt" option and left everything else at their default values. One point of note is that the P/N does not appear within the "More Options" dropdown list. the P/N is 1500192-0123, and the closest values in the dropdown list are 1500192-111 and 1500192-222. So, in this section, what data should I enter, if any, and where do I find it?

Those two problems aside, I went ahead and submitted the form anyway. That brought me to the following page:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/ManualCommissionSubmit-thumb.png

Where I click "close". Once the system has rebooted, I connect once again, and see the following results:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/SystemStatus-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/SystemInfo-thumb.png

Here you will notice that on the "System Status" page there is no signal (13) and nothing is working. On the "System Info" page none of my settings were saved and everything is still set to the default values the box has had since day one. Why aren't my settings being saved? Not the IP address, the freqs, nothing. Also, something else noteworthy is that the "Site ID" displayed on this page does not match the one sent by BW along with the data listed above, and I have seen no way to change it.

(continued below due to post-size constraints)

Title: Re: Help with HX50
Post by dean.wagner on Sep 1st, 2010 at 4:29pm
(continued from original post)

******* HOWEVER *********

If I go through the "Registration - Installer" link on the "BentleyWalkerHX50 Setup" page (instead of "VSAT Manual Commissioning") and go through the step-by-step input of data, you will notice quite a difference in results:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-1-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-2-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-3-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-4-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-5-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-6-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-7-thumb.png

Now here we have something promising. I get an indication that the satellite is locked in with a signal that ranges from 87-89. Problem solved, I thought... But not so fast. Upon clicking "Next" I get to the following page:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-8-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-9-thumb.png

There are two options in the dropdown menu, "SAN_and_PIN_Registration" and "SiteID_Registration". I've tried both, but I get no farther than the following page:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/Installer-10-thumb.png

At the time of preparing this post, it just gets stuck in what seems to be an infinite loop. It constantly refreshes but nothing changes. In the past I have gotten either one of two messages after a few refreshes. One was something like "Connection failed due to a transmission error" and mostly I have gotten something like "A timeout has occurred". So, still no service. I do get somewhat more positive displays from the various pages, though:

https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/SystemStatus2-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/ReceptionInfo-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/TransmissionInfo-thumb.png https://lib.deanwagner.net/sat/SystemInfo2-thumb.png

Notice in the last page, "System Info", the settings are still at their default values, not what I had entered. I don't know where to go from here. Any help will be much appreciated, not just by myself, but by 17 other soldiers who have in total a couple grand invested into this project and are growing extremely frustrated. Thanks in advance.

Title: Re: Help with HX50
Post by James-BW on Sep 2nd, 2010 at 11:05am
Dean,

This is James from Bentley Walker.

It looks like you are almost good to go, although I need to look at the configuration in detail to ensure that your parameters are correct. The fact that you have recieve and transmit lock means we can perform some degree of remote diagnosis from here. Waiting on first heartbeat message normally indicates a configuration error on the remote or the noc level.

Please could you kindly confirm via email your serial number (ESN) and site ID so that I can verify your configuration as your IP details and name were not listed in our database.

The registration is required for terminals operating inside the US market only so there is no need to register.

My email is james@bentleywalker.com, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,

James - Bentley Walker.

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