Aligning 1.1m Dish to 28E in S. France

[Ray Barrington]

Hello,
This is my first message on the forum, so here`s hoping for a result!
Can anyone confirm the correct direction for the Astra satellite at 28.2deg. We are situated in the southwest of France between Bordeaux and Perigueux.
After spending all day scanning the sky at SSE ( 135 to 145 deg from North ) as recommended, I have managed to find nothing.
I am using 110cm Triax dish with an Inverto Quad LNB. and a signal meter.
( The existing 60cm is working but with very limited reception, hence the change for a larger dish )

Any advice would be welcomed.

 

[Analoguesat]

Hi Ray, welcome to the forum!

Have a look at dishpointer.com, it will give you all the angles, lnb skew etc for your exact location - just drag the pointer onto your place on the map.

When searching make sure you are looking for one of the strong frequencies - say one of the 2F European beam frequencies - the 2E & 2F UK beam channels may be weak for you

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

 

[Lazarus]

Best to use the Dishpointer App. to get the details for your location.

We often find that the Azimuth is not the root cause, but confusion about Elevation for offset dishes.

 

[TheProfRobin]

Hello,
This is my first message on the forum, so here`s hoping for a result!
Can anyone confirm the correct direction for the Astra satellite at 28.2deg. We are situated in the southwest of France between Bordeaux and Perigueux.
After spending all day scanning the sky at SSE ( 135 to 145 deg from North ) as recommended, I have managed to find nothing.
I am using 110cm Triax dish with an Inverto Quad LNB. and a signal meter.
( The existing 600cm is working but with very limited reception, hence the change for a larger dish )

Any advice would be welcomed.

Hiya Ray. And welcome. I live just to the north of Nimes & Avignon and my best info for you, good news, based on curves I got by running software on a very reliable site is that a 95cm dish should do for you, so first of all, your 110cm should be hunky dory. You WILL be in business.

Take it in (slow) steps!

The fact that your 60cm dish has limited reception confirms what a friend in Carcassonne told me. If you have a generic (e.g Humax) receiver, rather than a Sky box, then you can let it loose on all transponders and then when you go through all the BBC1s, you will find one that works (maybe SW). Do the same eventually for ITV. It might be different region.

But back to your problem - you are seeing nothing. Forget detailed compass points, you might not know if you need the magnetic correction or not. Check where the sun is at about 11 am and that is a good starting point to swing your dish. The thing is, with a 110cm jobbie, it has a narrow line of sight so you need to inch it carefully side to side and up or down till you get a signal. Be patient. Check all your cable connections. Make sure the ones into the meter are tightened up.

Keep your eye on the meter, with the dish roughly vertical and pointing at where the sun was at 11 am, crank it up very slowly, looking higher and pause between each little movement to give the receiver time to lock. If you swing it like hosepipe, you will never see anything. If you want to check out the LNB cabling, meter and receiver, then actually try to find the sun. It should show up as a strong signal and you won't burn anything out because you are only looking at the reflection off a darkish dish. If you lock on the sun, then Astra 28.2 will be a few notches lower in the sky.

Here is my map for SW France and you can check, you should be OK with 110cm.

Just make sure that the new location for yr 110 antenna, if different from 60, isn't obscured by a tree you overlooked. At 11 am now, there should be no shadows from trees or buildings anywhere near your dish, especially below it.

Stick at it, you will win.

 

[Ray Barrington]

Hiya Ray. And welcome. I live just to the north of Nimes & Avignon and my best info for you, good news, based on curves I got by running software on a very reliable site is that a 95cm dish should do for you, so first of all, your 110cm should be hunky dory. You WILL be in business.

Take it in (slow) steps!

The fact that your 60cm dish has limited reception confirms what a friend in Carcassonne told me. If you have a generic (e.g Humax) receiver, rather than a Sky box, then you can let it loose on all transponders and then when you go through all the BBC1s, you will find one that works (maybe SW). Do the same eventually for ITV. It might be different region.

But back to your problem - you are seeing nothing. Forget detailed compass points, you might not know if you need the magnetic correction or not. Check where the sun is at about 11 am and that is a good starting point to swing your dish. The thing is, with a 110cm jobbie, it has a narrow line of sight so you need to inch it carefully side to side and up or down till you get a signal. Be patient. Check all your cable connections. Make sure the ones into the meter are tightened up.

Keep your eye on the meter, with the dish roughly vertical and pointing at where the sun was at 11 am, crank it up very slowly, looking higher and pause between each little movement to give the receiver time to lock. If you swing it like hosepipe, you will never see anything. If you want to check out the LNB cabling, meter and receiver, then actually try to find the sun. It should show up as a strong signal and you won't burn anything out because you are only looking at the reflection off a darkish dish. If you lock on the sun, then Astra 28.2 will be a few notches lower in the sky.

Here is my map for SW France and you can check, you should be OK with 110cm.

Just make sure that the new location for yr 110 antenna, if different from 60, isn't obscured by a tree you overlooked. At 11 am now, there should be no shadows from trees or buildings anywhere near your dish, especially below it.

Stick at it, you will win.

Hi ProfRobin,

Thanks for your response to my satellite dish problem in France.

I may be a bit thick, but is that 11am GMT or BST or French time ?

Ray

 

[archive10]

When on hols in mid- to south of france, i tend to use dishpointer.com for the general direction, then get the elevation more or less right using the indicator on the dish bracket.

As tivu says, elevation is often the thing that is easy to mess up. If you get the elvation more or less right, it is easy to scan the sky left to right in minute increments using the dishpointer indications. (I have however found dishpointer to be several degrees out in haute provence...)

To illustrate the point, last year in a holiday home in Seguret near Orange, i manged to put the triax td64 up with clamps onn iron pole according to general elevation and direction of dishpointer, and hooked up the foxsat and was utterly amazed to find bbc1 on the screen, without any adjustment, never mind scanning the sky... It can be that easy, if you're lucky...

So, get the elevation right, then scan slowly around what dish-pointer tells you.

 

[Ray Barrington]

Hi St1,
Thanks for the info, I run the dishpointer and located my house, noted the co-ordinates. So armed with all the help from the forum I will be having another try soon.

Thanks to you all Ray.