Anybody using TooWAY in UK?

Well, I am disappointed by the silence, perhaps  I am being impatient?

Is there anybody in northern Europe that is willing to pass on their experiences - good or bad?

Thanks hopefully,

T.

Thanks for your comment RS100, yes I had noted that BentlyWalker are agents for the hardware and service although they do not carry out installation apparently.

I would like to hear from users about how well the relatively new service works and in particular how the "sliding time window" usage policy works out in practice. Is it satisfactory from the user's point of view I wonder or too restrictive?

Thanks,

T

There is more information here:
https://www.satsig.net/tooway/tooway-satellite.htm

and some useful pictures of the dish etc here in Spain by El Molino:
https://www.satsig.net/tooway/tooway-satellite-from-el-molino.htm

You will be amongst the first ever Ka band customers in the UK.  Please tell us about it and send images etc.  We want you to succeed.

For UK dish pointing go here
https://www.satsig.net/maps/satellite-tv-dish-pointing-uk-ireland.htm
I am particularly interested in the polarisation scale behind the dish and how the figures match up with the calculated angle.  My convention is zero angle initially followed by the adjustment.  A clockwise adjustment, as viewed from behind the dish and looking towards the satellite is a positive adjustment angle.  I want to know if the scale is like that.  Some manufacturers reverse the signs on the scale, or start at 90 deg.
wxw
Best regards, Eric.

Looking at the size of the polarisation scale on the large circular boss behind the Tooway dish I would expect that 1 deg accuracy can be obtained by setting the scale and reference mark.

Note that the entire dish and subreflector and TRIA is all rotated as one complete item to set the polarisation angle.

Don't worry about doing it yourself.  Have confidence; we can help you here if necessary.  Compared with satellite TV, the main difference is that far more attention must be given to the pointing accuracy (as well as setting the polrisation to +/- 1 deg).  The receive beam, where you make adjustments, is narrower than the transmit beam so it is very important to get to the exact centre of the receive beam, even if this makes no detectable difference to the receive quality.  Off pointing slightly each way to get exactly equal degraded signals and then halving the distance works well. Be careful not to stress the dish shape.  At 29.6 GHz the wavelength is about 1 cm and the dish surface shape must be accurate to 1mm, preferaby 0.6mm, so be careful tightening up the screws that attach the dish to the mounded boss. Don't force anything.

Regarding test equipment, the receive cable is L band but the problem will be the lack of lots of big signals, so a spectrum analyser would be ideal or some specific installer measuring device with filters, as used in Wildblue.  There are only 2 transponders on a polarisation, see below:


In the absence of a spectrum analyser, my inclination would be to use the Tooway modem and a PC and use whatever signal quality readout is available on the screen, but you must obviously have the PC screen at the antenna to do this.   I would set the polarisation and elevation angle accurately, then swing the dish boldly and find the satellite on the first swing.  If there is no PC quality readout, adjust very carefully till it just fails each way, mark and then halve the distances.

Best regards, Eric.

It doesn't seem that I'me going to receive any feedback on TooWay performance, perhaps there are too few users at present.

It also seems that if I am going to "go for it" I will need to install my own dish as I can't find anybody able to even give me a quote at my very rural location in west Wales (near Lampeter). It's a bit scary - if I can't set up a working system there is no "installer of last resort" to help - except of course hopefully this forum!

Using the Satsig calculator I have established elevation, azimuth and polarisation angles this last being -12.77deg. Further down the page I see a note that Hotbirds are subject to a +3.5deg clockwise tilt. I assume this means that I would need to set the scale to -12.77+3.5 = -9.27deg. is it as simple as that?

I believe that if the polarization is not set to the +or- 1 deg precision, the system may still work but The Hub will not be amused because of cross-polarisation interference to other users. It may seem a silly question but how does The Hub inform you and by what means do you remedy the situation when the Hub is in Turin, Italy. It would be nice to know in advance.

Thanks for your patience.

Kind regards,

Tony

Thank you Eric for your helpful reply and the offer of assistance if problems arise.

I was told by Bently Walker that they had customers who had gone live with TooWay, they did not say where however.

I asked them a few days ago whether they could confirm that the +3.5 deg.  tilt on the horizontal polarisation axis did apply. The person who answered the email said he did not know and would copy my question to the technical dept. I have heard nothing since so presumably there is some doubt about the situation.

I am now very tempted to give it a go subject to a look at the terms and conditions which I have not seen yet.

Thanks for your enthusiastic support so far.

Best wishes,

Tony

The RX LED has the following meanings:

1 flash   acquiring
2 flash   ranging
3 flash   registering
4 flash   software download
ON         completed

or
slow blink   acquiring
fast blink     ranging / registration
ON         completed

very fast blink   modem fault

Either way, when the dish gets near the satellite the display should go quickly to double flashing mode.  Moving the dish equally either side away from the satellite should cause it to drop back.  Set in the middle.

Other info..

If you had a power meter in the RX cable then you could peak up on the scale. 

These Tooway modems seem to come pre-programmed to the relevent downstream frequency and require no customer configuration at all.

Best regards, Eric.

I wonder if the receive side is connected.

Check the cables are not crossed over.

Check the F connectors.  The centre pin should stick out 2mm above the surrounding rim.  The braid must make good contact inside the outer metal sleeve.  When screwed in the centre pin must actually go in properly and not push back the cable.

If you point the antenna at the ground or put your hand over the feed (with the transmitter off !) the noise power coming from the LNB should increase slightly.  Does the Horizon show this effect ?

Regarding finding the satellite, try a much wider azimuth sweep, from east to south.  The beamwidth is at least 3 deg wide for finding the satellite, although you should peak up to an accuracy of 0.5 deg. (-3 dB beamwidth = 3 deg for 35cm dia and 19.7 GHz, see beamwidth calculator).

Regarding polarisation.  A few deg either way will make no problem finding the satellite.  If there is some misunderstanding then there may be a much larger error.

A - 12.7 deg polarisation adjustment should involve either starting with the feed arm at the bottom and then turning the dish 13 deg anticlockwise while facing towards the satellite or starting with the feed arm at one side and then turning the dish 13 deg anticlockwise while facing towards the satellite.  I can't see how your scale is marked.  Concern yourself with the amount of adjustment movement needed and the direction, rather than what any scale numbers may say.

Polarisation setting is a two step process, first set to a nominal start position, exactly horizontal or vertical, then apply an adjustment angle, as calculated, while facing towards the satellite.

Best regards, Eric.

If the Horizon meter reading stays stuck as zero, so as to suggest that the LNB is dead, I would check its cable again.  

With the mains power off, it will be safe to disconnect the transmit cable at both ends and the receive cable at the LNB/TRIA end.  Then, taking great care to avoid shorting the outdoor end of the receive cable, check for  30 volts at the outdoor end.  This will verify that the colour coding is correct.  If the coax is a twin-shot cable where the two are joined side by side there may be an additional coding - some regular printed or molded  marking that only appears on one cable.  This will alternatively verify that you don't have a cross over ?

What do the markings say on the two TRIA and the two modem coax sockets ?

I don't know how the Horizon meter works.  It may be that you need to pre-charge its battery and have it powered on using its internal battery to make the display work, even if you are powering the LNB using 30v from the indoor modem.  I wonder too if +30 volts isn't rather high for a Horizon meter.  I don't know.


In these situations I often use a 2 or 4 way L band splitter and feed the LNB DC power via the DC pass path and put a DC blocked path to the meter device.

The polarisation makes some sort of sense.  I think the back end of the feed support arm is now a little to the right of the bottom, as seen from the rear, while facing the satellite.  Is this the case ?

You are welcome to send images to eric@satsig.net and I can incorporate them here.  

Was the feed horn and the TRIA electronic box pre-assembled?   If not, was there any alternative way the feed might have been fitted to the electronics ?


It should look like this above.

Best regards, Eric.

Quote "Horizon confirm that the MiniSat can't drive the LNB as 30v is needed, they suggested powering it via the TX side which I do."

That does not sound right to me.   The TX side of the modem should NOT be connected to the Horizon Minisat.  The TX side of the modem should be connected to the TX side of the TRIA (the outdoor transmit-receive-integrated-assembly).

The RX side of the modem, which also has a similar +30 volts on it, should go to the RX side of the TRIA.  If Horizon are happy with their device being connected in a 30 volts circuit then their device should be connected into the receive cable, NOT the TX cable.

The Horizon device is like a crystal set with a wide band noise measuring capability and noise level display.  It measures noise from the LNB, from the ground, from your hand, from satellites, from the sun.

The small peak you see on the meter is encouraging.  If this peak appears and disappears as you pass the satellite then peak up on it using azimuth and elevation adjustments.   There is only one Ka band carrier from W3A  satellite so it is not like looking for Astra or Hotbird in Ku band, which have multiple carriers and a thus a high composite power level. Having peaked up, power off and remove the Horizon meter, reconnect the receive cable and power on again.

I have phoned BW in case they can help you.

Best regards, Eric.

Using the 19 volts DC power from the Horizon meter might be sufficient to get the receive side working to some extent.  The receive gain may be low and the frequency uncertain.  Having the Horizon meter fully charged will help.  If you can detect even a small increase in level associated with passing over the satellite, that will be fine for peaking up on it.  

Then disconnect the Horizon, and with the power off connect up the RX cable between the modem and the TRIA.

The small increase may be due to noise being received via an obstruction.   You should see increase in the noise level if you point the dish at the ground or put your hand over the feed.

In your picture I can see a nearby drainpipe. That is not the problem.  There may however be a phone or power line cable or similar. I can see a sun shadow.  That could have an effect but not enough to stop reception altogether, but enough to give a small noise indication on its own as it will reflect noise from the ground.

Best regards, Eric.

Well, working on a rig on a ground cradle is a doddle compared with ladders and platforms.

Having positioned the dish away from potential interference sources and been given the skew and elevation settings in use by the Bentley Walker set up, I corrected them for my more westerly location, connected up the little Horizon MiniSat and found to my surprise that the signal indicated was much larger than expected. Noise floor was about 2.5 RF.units and I was able to peak up at 3.1 or so. Having locked the bolts and disconnected the meter, I re-connected the LNB co-ax, switched on the modem and waited. Initially nothing ,then a 1 Hz. searching LED. and suddenly the software updating phase was under way. This complete and the RX. lock light lit and was steady! Satellite found and ready for the next stage of setting up.

One recomendation I would make is a meter is really important. The ViaSat modem is a bit like me, thinks very slowly and any change you make does not have any visible affect for quite some time so the correct setting could easily be missed.

The next stage is to refit the dish to the house wall and peak it up finally.

With VERY grateful thanks to Eric for endless advice and to James of BW. for supplying their settings that proved that for the Ka Hotbird 6, the extra +3.5 degs. polarization correction is required. Phew!

Best wishes,

Tony

If you do not mind me asking how much did you pay for your system and how mcuh is your subscripion

Quote:

Tony - how do you rate the browsing? Have you tried any special applications such as VoIP?

Quote:

I have'nt tried VOIP as I assumed satellite latency would not allow good results. I see from some of the WildBlue postings that many VOIP systems don't seem to work.

Browsing is excellent, a real pleasure after dial-up. I have posted a speed test result below:-
Speed Test Results
Date      10/06/08 22:15:54
Speed Down      1604.82 Kbps ( 1.6 Mbps )
Speed Up      195.17 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )
Port      8095
Server      speedtest2.adslguide.org.uk

Link: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/121313250083163025490.html
You can give out this URL to other people to show them this speedtest result.

Only problem so far is an occassional drop-out which does not seem weather related but nothing to get too concerned about yet. We have not had much really heavy rain here unlike SE. England but there have been no problems in moderate rainfall (11mm. in 8 hours).

Very good results so far!

Tony