LIDL Dish Setup .

B3vcard

Hello,

First time on this forum, Yay

Okay, Heres my story; My dad bought this Lidl sat ensamble about 1.5 yrs ago if im right. Its an 80cm dish and a Comeg Sl55 box. We set it up firstly by plugging in the box and then precariously balancing the dish on an old basket ball pole (OK we were desperate to see what we could get on this thiing ) After about 2 hrs of tinkering and trying to get the sat in a right position (We were using one of those small black satellite finder boxes that have a small LED light strip and a beebing sound for finding a satellite). We received a ton of foreign channels and the BBC lot, ITV, Disco channel and a few other goodies.. We kept it that way for a while but we couldn't leave our dish just lying on a pole in the back garden, so then it went into storage as we were too lazy to bolt it up on the house . Then after about a 1/2 a year later we finally bolted it up to the side of our house (About 12 ft up ) . Then we tinkered with it and received a signal but no ''good'' channels any more :O , Then we got fed up and left it there until now (That was about 3/4 of a yr ago). Maybe those channels at that time were not available anymore (We had our dish in storage for half a year so anything could of happened I suppose),Im fairly sure we picked them up on one of the Astras. Now we cannot get a signal at all from the box, But I know that's because it has moved because of the wind etc.

Now we want to move it into the right position, and get some good channels Could you help me ? There is alot of satellites we can pick up according to the box .. but I think the main ones are (Astra 1, 2, Hotbird). Of course we cannot receive all because of the position of our house . When we had our sat in the back garden it was facing SE roughly. Now I think it is roughly facing East ..

After all that, Could you please inform me the best position to place my dish (In degrees I think) and I was also wondering if the angle of the dish matters, because I saw some satellite positions on the net (EG AStra 1 East19.2 degrees) but nothing about the vertical angle of your dish .

If you could kindly inform me of where exactly to point my dish and IF i can get good channels, That would be great

Barry.

PSS : Happy Christmas to you all !

rolfw

Welcome to the forum Barry.

The dish needs to be within a degree of alignment for each individual satellite, both horizontally and vertically, if your dish is actually facing East, then that is too far, the satellites you will be able to see are 45 degrees either side of Due South..

If you download the Swedish Microwave Calculator and tell it your location, (you can find your location coordinates here) it will give you the elevation and azimuth for each satellite position. You can find the satellite positions and their channel lists at Lyngsat

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Robbo

Hi Barry,

Welcome to the forum,

A south facing wall is the easiest place to mount a dish, as then you woud have a greater choice of satellites to point your dish at.

As the satellites are located 22000 miles above the equator at various orbital locations relative to 0 degrees longitude, it is necessary to get both the azimuth and elevation of the dish correct. All the satellites that we can see with our dishes appear as an arc in the sky, with the satellite closest to your longitude at the top of it, with the extreme east and west offsets from this, just about to disappear below the horizon.

I find this dish pointer quite easy to use as well.

_http://www.satlex.de/en/azel_calc.html

To get the best choice of channels available, you may want to consider motorising your dish, which can be done for as little as £40, plus a liitle for a pole and some bracketry.

Robbo

B3vcard

Thanks for both your comments. Rolfw, your's were very detailed but very confusing software etc Im sure I could figure it out eventually. I found the SatLex _http://www.satlex.de/en/azel_calc.html site very good .. Was very simple to understand, and I could use the Lyngsat (http://www.lyngsat.com/) site to see what channels were on what sat's.

So , Could I just use the SatLex site + the Lyngsat site for doing all my calculations ? Or am I cutting corners somehow :P

Barry.

andysly

just a side note .. i think there is new patches for that box aswell that will clear a few good channels

so if you install your dish to 19.2 or 13 maybe 1w you may be able to get the best out of your box

B3vcard

I assume you are talking about the ''unofficial'' firmwares out for the box. Could someone actually tell me what extra features those firmware/s give me ? Couldn't really understand it.

Barry.

PS: What ''good'' channels ?

Robbo

Yes, you can get away with just using the satlex calculator if you find it easy to use. For the channels listings though, it is best to have a selection of sites to get info from, there is also _www.flysat.com, kingofsat, and satcodx.com.

Robbo

B3vcard

So Guys,

Explain to me about these ''Unofficial Firmwares '' ?? What do they give me extra ?

Barry.

Robbo

It means you can decode some of the foreign packages like Premiere(19E), Polsat(13E), TPS(13E),DigiTV(1W) for example. I have not a clue what you use or how to do it with the Comags, but I have a sneaking suspicion that andysly has. It might not even be possible with your rec.