Astra 1 & Astra 2 on single dish

Floh

Hi Guys

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I have got a simple satellite setup to receive channels on Astra @ 19.2 East - Humax CI-5100 Receiver, 60cm Black Mesh Dish (originally supplied by Sky for an analouge set-up in the early 90's), Universal LNB (don't know make) and an Irdeto FreeCam. I have been happy with this set-up, although I have recently experienced problems with the Teletext, especially on ORF (Austrian channel).

Now, the receipton on the terrestrial channels has been poor for a long time, and is getting worst by the minute. I want to overcome this by using an old Sky digibox and mounting a second LNB on the 60cm dish, to receive the usual BBC and ITV channels by satellite.

I don't want to go motorised, as I want to be able to keep the two seperate, so could someone please suggest the best equipment to do this?

I was thinking that I may need to buy a new dish (the current one is not that easy to set up - ie. has no angle settings etc), a multi-feed bracket and a second LNB for receiving sky. Could you recommend suitable equipment please?

Also, which sky box would you recommend (considering I'm going for a second hand one)?

Any suggestion would be most welcome.

Many thanks.

Parabolus

A 80cm dish would be better. But it should also work with yours. You need a second LNB, a multifeed bracket and a diseqc switch. Your LNB for 19,2 should be in the middle of the dish and the other one on the left side about 8 cm from the other lnb (when you stand in front of your dish). It is important to connect your new lnb to input no.1 with the diseqc switch ('cause Sky boxes don't support diseqc)

No idea which Sky Box is the best. I,ve got a Pace ds430n. Works well in west Germany.

rolfw

I would go with what Parabolus says above, but not use a DiseqC switch, just a second LNB on an offset bracket, with a cable run direct to the digibox.

It is now possible to read a Sky free to view card in a Dragon CAM, but you would of course have to get it (the card) activated in a digibox first and it wouldn't have the excellent EPG which the digibox offers.

PS. Can you take a picture of the LNB holder on your dish so that we can see if it'll take an offset bracket?

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Floh

Thank you guys for your feedback.

I shall take a photo and post as soon as I can.

Any ideas on which digibox to go for? Amstrad, Pace etc?

Thanks.

rolfw

Pace, Panasonic, Thompson should do, avoid Amstrad, Grundig and any old models.

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Floh

Rolfw

Finally managed to take some pictures of the dish. Sorry they're not very good, took them with a digital video camera and the dish is quite high up. Hope they are of some use however.

(There are 4 pictures attached to this message - I've never done this before, so don't know if/how it works).

Thanks.

Attached Thumbnails

       

rolfw

Use a bracket like this http://www.acornelectronics.co.uk/pr...d=prodcode0182 http://www.acornelectronics.co.uk/pr...lnbbracket.jpg
or this http://www.acornelectronics.co.uk/pr...bracketsml.jpg

should work fine.

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Floh

Rolfw

Thank you very much for the info. I shall get the things together and once everything is up, I'll let you know how I got on.

Thanks again.

Floh

Analoguesat

If you go for the offset LNB & separate cable for the Sky box, Id be inclined the put the prime focus on 19E as the 28E signals are stronger than the 19E ones.