Newbie - freesat setup with sky dish

priorysw

Hi folks,

An excellent forum, as a satellite newbie I'm learning loads. I've recently bought the cheapest satellite receiver I could find - Nikkai A51JA - to see if a sky dish on my house is working or not. Plugged it in and ...it seems to be working fine. The receiver setup shows that I am picking up the following satellites: Astra 1f, 1g, 1h, 1kr / Astra 1e, Optus D1 / Hotbird 6, 7, 8 / Eurobird 9 / Astra 2a - b - c - d.

Hopefully you can help me with the following:

In my system setup on the receiver, when I check strength and quality for "Astra 1f, 1g, 1h, 1kr" both return 0. But I can view channels 4685 - 4399 (the usual UK fare) on this satellite. Why is this?

It seems I am also picking up FTA channels 0001 - 0988 on this satellite but I can't see them. Why?

When I list the FTA channels across all of the satellites I cannot view most of the programs on them. For example, Hotbird gives me a list of channels and programs but I can't view them, I get "no signal" or "no audio/video". Why is this?

Finally, is the EPG different depending on your satellite receiver? The EPG I'm getting is woeful. At best it shows what's currently on, at worst it shows no program info at all. Is this usual?

I did warn you I was a newbie!! Apologies if the questions should be split across topics but I thought there might be one thing I'm doing wrong that would solve all problems

Many thanks. Tommy.

pgh13

You are only picking up the satellites positioned in the sky at 28.2 East. Astra 1 and Hotbird are in different positions in the sky.

The fact is that your box is telling you that you have a signal, but is not differentiating where it is coming from

EPG is dependent on the receiver...S_y boxes and Freesat receivers have more detailed Program info

satelliteman

Common frequencies are used, therefore the receiver will show a signal on transponders/freqs that are on different satellites listed. It's what you can view that will tell you what satellite your on.

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Tivù

Alignment to even one Satellite position requires great precision.

No chance at all of receiving more than one position with a single Dish/LNB (normally ..........)

The Birds are 24,000 miles above the equator and even a couple of degrees difference in Azimuth means a heck of a distance between their geostationary orbits.

It's because of this that frequencies can be re-used across the arc, giving optimum use of the available bandwidth.

Your receiver has no idea where your dish is pointed and all that is stored under the various "Satellites" are simple data tables, with much in common

totoxj

I thought I was getting all those sats as well when I got my FS2400 lately,but now I remove one and reinstall it to find any new channels as there is no other way of doing this.The EPG also is crap,there's no interactive,but I can get teletext on some scrambled stations by using my TV R/C.BTW aren't SKY clever for capturing the market for teletext since BBC and ITV are abandoning it.

priorysw

I like the idea of having access to all FTA channels outside freesat but understand that freesat essentially compiles its own detailed EPG. Begs the question: which receiver provides the best EPG - freesat and/or fta?

Tivù

Depends upon your needs: Freesat (and BSkyB) EPG contains 7 days programme information and can be utilised for associated HDRs to render recording simple along with such features as Series Linking. The EPG Data is sent from a dedicated stream on the relevant Default Transponder.

Generic Boxes only display the Data provided by each Channel (or group of Channels) so does not populate until a Channel (or a member of its group) is selected. For UK Channels, the maximum amount of Programme Info is "Now and Next". Some Channels, particularly German ones, do transmit rather more, but some don't send any at all.

As I don't have an HDR/PVR, and I do take a Daily Newspaper, I'm happy with either type of EPG. Personal preference.

priorysw

Fair comment. Likewise I don't have a HDR or PVR. I find the daily's don't cover enough of the channels for my liking - but as you rightly point out, it's all down to personal preference. Maybe I'm just buying the wrong daily!

Cheers for the pointers. Tommy.