Newbie help please

[keith300]

Hi Guys

Well i am new to the Satellite side of the site, I had a dream box for a while on cable so i am hoping that everyone can be as helpful with this as they are with the dreambox.


My old man has brought a labgear kit from screwfix a while ago (model is 28213r)

He has mounted it to the house and ran the cable.

The box appears to be getting a signal (it reads between 65 and 75% signal)

I have worked my way through the menu and manual to be able to do a scan after selecting transponders from the boxes menu but no channels are ever found.

I am wondering why we are not getting any channels.

Is the transpoder list out of date so is scanning the wrong things?

Is the dish in the wrong place? (why would we get a seemingly good signal)

Like i said completly new to this satellite thing but would be good to get it going.

shame i can not reprogram the software on the box like my old dream box

thanks in advance guys

[notluckyuk]

daft question, What sat did he tune it into. Maplins do the cheap beeper sat finder metre for ?6, some STB's show 70% even when no sat is locked on. just checked its an FTA stb so 28.2 it should be on..

[dick b]

if the signal you are refering to is SNR(signal strength) forget it and watch the quality bar (AGC) which should be in the 70/80s for 28.2/5 the astra 2s and eurobird,I"m assuming these are the sats your after.
If this is so and you seem to know what your doing set the box to the 28.2E sat and 10.773H 22000 BBC 1 london.then you will have to move the dish L/R and up/down til you tune it in.I dont know these outfits but once tuned in you may have to fine tune the lnb by twisting it anticlockwise when looking from behind the dish.if you start off by pointing the dish in the same direction as the local Sky dishes it will give a starting point.

[Manic01]

Use dishpointer.com for alignment help.

[keith300]

thanks guys i will take a look at all of this over the next few days and post back

[alec]

The easiest way if possible,take the receiver and a tv outside. Look at what most fixed dishes are pointing at. In the UK this will be 28.2. Moved your dish around this area, until you receive the strongest signal. Tune receiver on this satellite. After you have tuned a program, fine tune it. with the dish.

[keith300]

well an uproductive weekend. I had a look on dishpointer with bedwell cresent and got 145.5 as the location for the dish and have pointed all around this area and not able to get a lock on to any decent signal.

I am thinking the dish may not be high enough up the side of my dads house.

am a bit losted as it seems to be as high as the sky dishes may be not as high.. I will try and put a picture up.

when we talk about the angle of the dish what do we use as zero to adjust from is flat on the bracket regarding as Zero Degrees and we adjust from that point?

[dick b]

the height of the dish is unimportant providing it has no obstructions in front of it,the general rule is that the base of the dish is twice the distance from the height of the obstacle EG;building/tree etc 20ft high the base of the dish must be 40ft away at ground level.the further south you are the closer you may get and the opposite the further north.
with a fixed dish at my latitude of 54N dish angle setting for the astra2s at 28.2E is 22 degrees.but these scales on most dishes are not that accurate so you have to hunt for a signal.

you need sight of the TV while you move the dish about,moving it a bit then checking is not really satisfactory,as some one else has said the easiest way is with a portable tv outside near the dish you can also turn the volume right up so you can hear when you have something.

[keith300]

well finaly getting somewhere


I have managed to get channel 4 tuned in and a few other stations to come up. but am unable to get on bbc1 and the itv channels to come up but have all off channel 4 and its sister channels including film 4.

I am doing another scan now and will post back

any pointers for bringing in the other channels?

i have scanned the astra 2 channels and just added in the other astra option to see if that helps.

in regards to the eurobird channels the quality was not registering for these channels might be a tweak with the dish?

thanks again for all your help with this

[bosvelt]

goto lyngsat.com or kingofsat.net and you'll get the channels and the transponders they broadcast on for astra 28.2e

[rayfenwick]

Hi all.

A newbie to this group and relatively new to satellite (well, dreamboxes etc) , but just wanted to reinforce what has been said about looking where other dishes are pointing.

The other thing to remember is that it's not like waving an analogue TV aerial about - digital is all or nothing by its nature.

Once you're pointing in the right direction by comparing to other dishes by eye, the secret is small movement, wait a little for the box to lock on and begin converting the stream, move again, and gradually you'll centre on something.

Remember that up and down is just as important as left and right, and also that what seems like a little movement here makes a HUGE difference by the time you're at satellite distances (think that a rocket half a degree off target would miss the moon by a long, long way...)

Other than that.. good luck.

[Manic01]

Use dishpointer.com!

[Curious123]

I would advise loading preconfigured channel list such as SGTFlip or something similar to help you tune your channels.