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A.There are several actions you can take to extend the life of your dish. Here are some of them:

Have a qualified TV technician perform a dish tune-up yearly. In harsher climates, consider doing this bi-annually, once before winter and once after. The technician should make sure of the following things: a) all moving parts are operating properly; b) all nuts and bolts are firmly fastened; c) all cables and connections work; d) the dish tracks all receivable satellites. By the way, this is also a great time for the technician to reprogram your receiver to pick up satellites such as GE-2.

Always have your satellite receiver plugged into a quality electrical surge protector. In fact, surge protectors are made specifically for satellite systems, so the chance of damage caused by fluctuations in electricity will be minimized. Your outside dish should be grounded, too.

If you live in an area where it snows, always be sure to remove the snow from the inside of your dish, or accumulation will interfere with signal reception. Another good reason to keep snow off your dish is that heavy accumulation will weigh the dish down, damaging its parabolic curve and knocking it out of alignment. To remove the snow, very carefully and gently sweep it out with a broom on a regular basis. You may have better luck reaching your dish when it's aimed at the far west or east.

I am looking for an owners manual for my HTS Tracker Premier System 50. We have lost our programming on the location of all our satellites and we cannot program them back without the book. If you don't have a spare manual could you give me so info on how to re-program my satellite,
Thanks,
Tonya Farler From Kentucky

Tonya, Since you didn't tell me how you lost your satellite programming, the easiest way is to erase all the memory in the HTS 50 and reprogram it from scratch. Go to the extra functions menu (Menu-6-3)and go into the installation menu and select erase memory. After selecting erase ALL memory, you will be prompted to set the east limit. Change the satellite channel to channel six and then press the left arrow key until you get to Galaxy 6, then press store. At this time you will prompted to set the west limit, press the right arrow key and go west until you find Satcom 1, then press store and then your limits are set and now you can program the satellites. Press SAT F1 and then press store and the HTS will auto tune itself and store F1 into its memory. Next press SAT F4 and your picture should go away (indicating the polarity change) press the left arrow key {a bump at a time} until you get to the preview guide on ch 8. This is F4, now press store again and the HTS will auto tune itself and store the satellite into its memory. Now press SAT G1 and and the picture should go away again, change to ch 11, then press the left arrow key ( a bump at a time) until you find G1, now press store and the HTS will auto tune itself and store the satellite into its memory. Repeat these steps for all the satellites you going to program.
The satellite order from west to east is
F1, F4, G1, F3, G5, G9, M2, M1, E1, E2, GE-1, S4, G4, T5, G3, G7, T4, S3, X2, W3, G6

If for any reason you can't program the receiver, feel free to contact us again.
Good Luck,

JD Webster

HTS TRACKER PREMIER SYSTEM 20. NO SIGNAL FROM SAT. JUST RED LED POWER LIGHT . I JUST TURNED IT ON AND NOTHING. 1 DAY A FEW WEEKS BACK IT WENT OFF WHILE I WAS WATCHING, BUT CAME BACK ON IN ABOUT A MINUTE. CHANGED LNB ....NOTHING AND POLAR ROTOR IS BUZZING PROPERLY WHEN A CHANNEL IS CHANGED. TELL WHAT TO CHECK NEXT NOTHING IN THE USERS MANUAL I CAN WORK A VOLTMETER . SO TELL ME WHERE TO LOOK FOR VOLTAGE IF U THINK THAT IS WHAT IT IS. WAS WORKING FINE WHEN I TURNED IT OFF LASTNIGHT.....THANKS
BRENT LEMONS

Brent,
It sounds like your Tracker 20 power supply might have went out. (Trackers do that often)That is not a field repairable part so it must be sent in for repair. Did you check your LNB voltage 18-24 volts DC Is there a reset button or fuse that you can take out to break the ground fault that may built up it (caused by static in the air) You can also try unplugging for about 30 seconds with the VCII module out of it.If none of these suggestions work, then your back to square one

Let me know.

hi jd
it is brent with the system 20. i have 17.85 volts at the back of the unit and 5 at the lnb. i unplugged the unit and pulled the cipher module for a while with no better results. ??? tell me what to check next i know the voltage will drop but i dont know what voltage the lnb needs to operate right thanks for your help i sure do appreciate it.......
brent

Brent, Sounds like you have a bad LNB wire going to the dish. The voltage should be the same at the receiver and at the LNB. A twelve volt drop indicates either a bad (corroded) splice in the wire or the wire has been crimped or just plain gone bad. I suspect there is an outside splice and it has corroded causing the voltage drop. I had one like that last week. If the wire is bad then you should have a spare coax wire bundled in the satellite wire, use that.

ok i will check the voltage on lunch break tomm and then try if no voltage i will try the others. i will let u know ....thanks i knew there should be voltage but i didnt know how much ... so if there was say 9 volts i wouldnt have known if that was right or not but i bet there is no voltage at all thats what it acks like thanks again let you know

YES YOU WERE RIGHT , I WENT OUT AND SURE ENOUGH THERE WAS A SLICE IN THE LINE. THIS SYSTEM WAS HERE WHEN WE MOVED IN BUT NO INSIDE EQUIPMENT. WELL IT WAS BAD BUT EVEN WORSE THERE WAS ALUMINUM AND COPPER SLICED TOGETHER AND IT WAS BLACKEN BEYOND RECOGNITION!! SO THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP I BOOKMARKED YOU SO IF I NEED ANY REPAIRS I WILL SHIP IT ON OVER THANKS AGAIN.....
BRENT

My name is Craig, and I had a question concerning the wiring up of the receiver to the satellite. I just bought a house and the people who owned it left the sat system there. I had primestar installed at the house, but wanted to keep the big dish also. The installer took it upon himself to disconnect the UST4400, and now I am trying to hook it back up. I was able to use the dish the night before, so I know it works. When I hooked it back up last night, the way I thought it was wired, I got a message on the screen that said Warning, actuator error or problem, something like that. Looking at the back of the UST4400 Super unit, there is a connect block on the upper left corner with screw down connectors. There are seven terminals. Starting from the left, I will call it number one, there is no identification under it, #2 and #3 have &A, DC 24V, 2 A Max, Motor" wrote under them, #4 has "B, 12V, 0.1A" under it, #5 has "SEN" under it, #6 has "GRND& under it, and #7 has nothing under it. The wire coming in from the sat has six wires in it. White, Red, Green, Brown, Orange, and a bare silver wire. The people left no manuals on how to operate or connect the sat. I have no experience with the c-band deals, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Craig
P.S. How often should I check back to the website to see if you posted a reply, or do you reply by e-mail?

Craig,

Your only concern should be with (4) four of the wires. Both larger wires and two of the smaller wires. The larger [motor white-red] wires goes to the #2 and #3 DC 24V, 2 A Max, Motor and two of the smaller [reed switch / green-orange] wires go to the #5 has "SEN" under it, #6 has "GRND" Look for the two wires that have their ends stripped, smashed etc. as clues to which wires were used to hook up the reed switch. If the dish moves backwards (it's a dc motor) then reverse positions on the larger motor wires, then the dish will go the right way. If the dish doesn't move at all, then you will have to remove the cover of the actuator arm and see which two wires were used to hook up the reed switch.

Hi, I recently bought a HTS system 50 set up and my problem is that i cant get the azymuth aligned to where it was with the previous owner. when i align it to say g7 and the screen says g7 and also the transmission, then i can only receive a few other sat's. and when i align the screen saying g7 to a transmission saying...say..g3, then i get an array of totally diffrent sattelites. i only moved the dish one town away. any ideas ? do you think i have to adjust the declination ? also like the lady from kentucky.....do you sell any manuals for the hts system 50 ? thanks chris, nashville

Chris,
The biggest problem I've seen when moving a dish and making it realign on another pole is generally in the collar. When I set up a dish I make sure the mounting collar on the dish is set square to the pole. Then I set my inclination and declination and align up the north south with a compass. I bet that's on observation you didn't notice when you removed the dish from the old pole. At this point do not adjust the declination. Go ahead and square off the collar on the pole making the air space even all the way around the pole. You can see this by looking at the bottom of the collar. Now setup your inclination (your declination should already be set). Move the dish to F-1 or F-4 and then turn the dish until you have the satellite clearly. Now move the dish to T-2 (W-2) and see if it comes in clearly. If it don't then you have to adjust the inclination and turn it on the pole (a little) until it clears up. Now Check the west side again to see if they are still clear. This method is all trial and error and you need patience because it can get frustrating if you make too big of adjustments. Remember that you wasn't that far off to begin with. All adjustments should be minor and movements should be nudged and not shoved. With a HTS receiver it's a lot easier to just go ahead and erase all the memory and start over. This way you can manually move the dish without the HTS 's annoying channel and polarity movement as you manually move the dish from point to point. Once you have all the satellites coming in clearly then you can reprogram the satellite receiver. I hope this helps you.

JKenn,

JKenn
Press PRG and then 1 to enter the setup mode. Password is (or should be 0000) It is easier to erase all the memory and start from scratch. Move the dish East to set the east limit just past the last eastward satellite. Once you press enter then the "setup" should flash indicating the limit has been stored. Now go west and go a little past F-1 and press enter again. This stores the west limit. Now the Panasonic 4500 has a mind of its own and it doesn't like any of the new satellite names, so bear with me. Press [sat] and [f then 4] using channel 8 move the dish east until you get the satellite TV guide. Now press [enter] and the setup should start flashing indicating the satellite has been stored. Now press [g and 1] and your channel 8 picture should disappear. Turn to Channel 11 and move the dish east until you get the inspirational channel (Catholic). Press enter and the setup should start flashing indicating the satellite has been stored. Press [f and 3] and the picture should disappear. Now go to channel 7 and move the dish east until you get to C-Span. Press Enter and the setup light should flash indicating the satellite has been stored. Basically repeat these steps to finish programming the satellites into the memory.
Now for the fun stuff. The are the exceptions
The Panasonic 4500 will not store G-5 G-9 M-2 GE-1 S-4 G-4 T-5 G-7 T-4 GE-2 X-1 G-6. into its memory so here is where we have to be creative.
Rename G-5 to C-5 use channel 3 10 21 G-9 to C-9 use channel 14 1 3 M-2 to M-1 use channel 10 GE-1 to W-1 use channel 6 S-4 to S-1 (you have to press the H/V button to get the right format) use channel 6 G-4 to C-4 use channel 6 T-5 to T-1 use channel 8 G-7 to C-7 use channel 4 T-4 to T-3 use channel 8 GE-2 to T-2 use channel 9 X-1 to F-5 (you have to press the H/V button to get the right format) use channel 13 or 23 G-6 to C-6 (when it's replaced) use channel 6 If you get an error-2 just repeat pressing [enter] until the setup flashes If you get an error-8 then move the dish a tiny bit and repeat pressing [enter] until the setup flashes. If you get an error-6 then the motor or reed switch is hooked up wrong. This indicates that the actuator arm is not moving.
NO there is no fix for using the real satellite names. Panasonic offers no upgrades because they soldered in the non re writable EPROM into the circuit board making this an impossibility I know this is a pain in the butt, but this is how it is.
If you get tired of this receiver then we have several low cost receivers that will store in the correct names to all the satellites.

Thanks so much for responding so soon! We "rushed" to the remote control and attempted to program but unfortunately got stuck right at the beginning. It's embarassing to say, but . . . when you say to set the east limit and then the west limit, we (just like most teenagers!) don't know what the limits are. I know we're so ignorant, we do great on computers, but satellite programming has convinced us we're reeeeeallllly stupid. There now that we got that off our chest, what do we do? We appreciate any and all help! Much thanks in advance.
Jim " Mary Kennedy

Jim & Mary
The [limits] are the assigned dish position you select that prohibits the dish from going past that point. All of the satellites are located within these limits. Once you set the "East Limit" the dish will not go any further east past that point and the same with the [west limit]. These limits keeps the dish from going too far when extending the arm. If the arm over extends then gravity will take over and the the dish will fall to that side. That often causes the actuator arm to the break. [don't want that].

Check the Voltage at the receiver and at the dish.The voltage should be the same 18 volts -/+ at the receiver and at the LNB. A voltage drop indicates either a bad (corroded) splice in the wire or the wire has been crimped or just plain gone bad. I suspect there is an outside splice and it has corroded causing a voltage drop. I had one like that last week. If the wire is bad then you should have a spare coax wire bundled in the satellite wire, use that.

Jim,
Try adjusting the ANT input to the siginal combinor and see if that helps. There will be a small black rubber plug covering the hole to the tuning pot next to the ANT IN markings on the combinor. A small flat head screwdriver is required to adjust this pot. If your satellite is a DSS then you may not have much luck compared to the C-Band satellite receiver. Only amplifiy your system one time and that's after it comes out of the signal combinor. If you still can't get an acceptable picture then I strongly suggest that you get an audio video modulator and convert your satellite channel to a UHF channel. You will be greatly pleased to see the improvement it will make to your satellite picture compared to the channel 3.

Peter,I can't locate a manual for your Tracker IX and to program the receiver, follow these easy steps:
The easiest way is to erase all the memory in the HTS 50 and reprogram it from scratch. Go to the extra functions menu (Menu-6-3)and go into the installation menu and select erase memory. After selecting erase ALL memory, you will be prompted to set the east limit. Change the satellite channel to channel six and then press the left arrow key until you get to Galaxy 6, then press store. At this time you will prompted to set the west limit, press the right arrow key and go west until you find Satcom 1, then press store and then your limits are set and now you can program the satellites. Press SAT F1 and then press store and the HTS will auto tune itself and store F1 into its memory. Next press SAT F4 and your picture should go away (indicating the polarity change) press the left arrow key {a bump at a time} until you get to the preview guide on ch 8. This is F4, now press store again and the HTS will auto tune itself and store the satellite into its memory. Now press SAT G1 and and the picture should go away again, change to ch 11, then press the left arrow key ( a bump at a time) until you find G1, now press store and the HTS will auto tune itself and store the satellite into its memory. Repeat these steps for all the satellites you going to program.
The satellite order from west to east is
F1, F4, G1, F3, G5, G9, M2, M1, E1, E2, GE-1, S4, G4, T5, G3, G7, T4, S3, X2, W3, G6
If for any reason you can't program the receiver, feel free to contact us again.

GI 2400, 2410, 2500 and 2600 - With the memory lock light off, simultaneously press the alpha, num, and store keys for 5 seconds. The front panel satellite display will show a "star" and a "dash" after the sequence is complete. GI 2650, all 2700 series, and Innovation receivers - When prompted for a password enter: 92121. The on screen display will prompt you for more than five digits, all you must enter is these five.

The master password for General Instrument Receivers 2650 and later is 92121 - enter
The display will prompt you for more than five digits, all you must enter is these five

If the wind twisted your dish on the pole then move the dish to an extreme satellite position that hasn't been quick tuned. Loosen the dish collar that secures the dish to the pole. Be sure that you observe how the collar has been set ie. look closely at the bottom of the collar and notice how it was originally tightened up on the pole. Loosen it a little going from one bolt to the opposite sided bolt and so on until it is loose enough to twist on on the pole using a little effort. Now twist the dish on the pole until you get that satellite in clearly. Now move the dish a middle satellite to see if it's clear and finally to the other end to see if they are also clear. Once having all the satellites back to normal now tighten the dish mount collar bolts the same way you lossened them. One bolt at a time and one side to the other. Start with the bottom bolts and tighened them until they are fairly snug and then the top. This will keep the collar from tilting and throwing your alignment off. NOTE! When moving the dish, remember that it doesn't take much to throw it off. Only move the dish a degree at a time.

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