Freesat using existing Sky dish and Echostar digital sat receiver

[ludfic]

Hi all. I guess my question is in the title of this message. I just moved to a new house where there is an existing Sky satellite dish. From my old house I have brought with me an old Echostar DSB-2200 2Ci digital satellite receiver. I stuck one of the cables at the back of this receiver and ran the setup again, selecting Astra2 28.2 and standard LNB during the setup. It is picking up about 207 channels, out of which 115 are free to air. But the standard free to air channels such as BBC 1, 2, 3, 4 or Channel 4 etc. aren't there!

I wonder if it is at all possible to get freesat with my existing equipment. Or do I have to buy a new freesat receiver which I am trying avoid. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[satelliteman]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

You can use a standard satellite receiver for freesat reception. The only thing you'll gain with a dedicated freesat receiver is a freesat EPG.

Change LNb configuration from 'standard' to 'universal' on the receiver.

Also assume it's a mindish dish and aligned to Astra2. If using an older style dish with a 10Ghz LNb, that would explain why the lower band is out of the receivers tuning range.

[ludfic]

Hi
Thanks for replying. See attached the picture of my satellite dish and LNB. On LNB, it says QUAD LNBF. I don't have the option in the receiver for QUAD LNBF. However, there is Universal LNBF and Quatro LNBF.

I just changed the LNB settings on the receiver from standard to universal and did another channel search. It only managed to find three or four channels.

The previous owner has confirmed that she had Sky subscription.

I was wondering if it has anything to do with the TP settings. My current settings are:

SAT: ASTRA2
Longitude: 28.2E
User LNB: 1
TP: 11662/H/27500
Skew: --
Position: Set
Fine Tune: Set


Let me know if you have spotted something which might fix this?

Thanks.

[Topper]

The quad refers to the lnb having 4 outputs so you can run either 4 separate receivers or two twin tuner PVRs.

I suspect as you have not found the freesat channels your stb uses incremental scanning and the fact that you are starting at 11662/H/27500 means that you are missing out the freesat channel when scanning which run from 10714 H to 10906 V
as per
-http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

[ludfic]

Hi. The TP list that I can select starts from 10744/H/22000. It doesn't seem to have the range that you mentioned. Also, my LNB settings are:

User LNB: 1
LO Low: 9750
LO high: 10600
DiSEqC: None
Port: 1
Polarity control: 13/18V
Band Control: 0/22kHz
C/Ku Control: Disable
0/22Khz control: Off

Do you think making any changes to LNB settings might make any difference? Also, I am trying to go through all entries in the TP list but so far without any success.

Thanks for replying.

[satelliteman]

You can manually add 10714.

22Khz tone should be ON, but that would only switch the LNb to the higher LO.

It's possible the dish could be mis-aligned or a failing LNb.

[ludfic]

It's funny I just discovered it myself. But when I go to the adding page, I get the following fields to input:
SAT: ASTRA2 - 028.2 - East (these values are selected)
Frequency: ---- MHz (I am inputting 10714 here)
Polarity: V/H (I selected H here)
Skew: -- (greyed out)
Symbol rate: (don't know what to input here)
Video PID: Auto
Audio PID: Auto
PCR PID: Auto

If you could tell me what to put for the symbol rate, that would be great!

If there is a problem with the LNB or the dish is misaligned then I'll have to ask someone to come and install it with a new box. I was desperately trying to avoid that.

[Analoguesat]

SR for 10714H is 22000

You should get several C4 channels.

[ludfic]

Great! Just googled and found this link:

-http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/info/sat_frequencies.shtml

I got the BBC channels!! Wow! I'll add the others now.

Thanks so much for helping me guys. You have saved me at least £150.

[Analoguesat]

Result!

You may find other frequencies are missing as well so have a look at this list:

-http://www.flysat.com/28east.php

When Ive set up similar receivers in the past Ive found the frequency lists are hopelessly out of date.