3 month old digital Sky gear, French tv, AB3, is it possible?

PopDorset

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Hi, I have FreeSat from Sky. Bought Nov 06, works fine...don't wish to change it...yet! I set my mum up with the same gear/deal at the same time, but she is elderly and cannot fathom out the menus, so I now have her gear. I decided to use this to try to get French tv here at my house as a totally separate system from my own.

I have tried to research it as much as I can (which satellite- AB3, my own lat/long, azimuth/ele, checked lnb details, bought sat finder meter, etc., anything I forgot?)

Here are the settings I put in to the installer's menu on the Thomson-made Skybox...
11.591 GHz, V, 2/3, but the box does not accept 20,000 baud rate...there's only a choice of 22 or 27.5. It just toggles between the two.

I've adjusted the dish to give a loud signal on the meter, but the Skybox says there's no signal.

Is this the end of the road or can anybody help me with anything else I can tweak?!!! :)
 

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Welcome to the forum PopDorset.

No mate don't wast your time on it they are designed so that they are practically useless for any other satellite sell it on Ebay and spend the money on some useful kit:cool:
 

PopDorset

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Yup, I was kind of expecting you to say that!!! If I sell the SkyBox, and buy say, a Technomate 1000D, would it be a) easy to set up/use, :cool: compatible with the existing Sky dish or would I be better off selling both receivers & upgrading the whole damn lot?

btw, thanks for your reply!
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you'd be better with that technomate recevier and a 60cm dish as does the minidish allow altering of the lnb skew ?

you could even go for a 80cm dish with a motor and have lots of channels not just atlantic bird 3 as theres some french channels on hotbird and astra 1 which you can get by patching the receiver but i wouldn't just buy it on that positive as the channels could not last long
 

PopDorset

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Wod,
I'm happy to upgrade the dish...I was appalled to see the dish start to deteriorate...ie rust! after just three months. The only snag is I have to hide my dish so you can't see it from the road...I'm in a conservation area. I can rotate the dish, but only have about 45deg of rotation because of obstructions coming into the l.o.s.

Can I ask you what does "patching" actually mean? I've seen this term used on eBay when I had a look last night at receivers.
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PopDorset said:
Can I ask you what does "patching" actually mean? I've seen this term used on eBay when I had a look last night at receivers.
Pop
It means loading your stb (set top box) with some unofficial firmware which contains emulators and keys allowing you to decrypt some encrypted channels. It can be a risky practice if you do not know what you are doing as if not done correctly you could end up with a useless box
 

PopDorset

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wod said:
you'd be better with that technomate recevier and a 60cm dish as does the minidish allow altering of the lnb skew ?

Wod, it allows a little tuning of the skew of the lnb, but it's a rather haphazard guessing game, and there's no lock arrangement: just some wobbly detents which you click over, if that makes sense...
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PopDorset

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Topper said:
It means loading your stb (set top box) with some unofficial firmware which contains emulators and keys allowing you to decrypt some encrypted channels. It can be a risky practice if you do not know what you are doing as if not done correctly you could end up with a useless box

OK...being a beginner, I thought it meant a hardware patch, like a wire or connector. Thanks for that. I notice that some people on eBay are advertising "ready patched". Is this something to be avoided then? Am I best off leaving well alone? Sorry for all the questions.
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PopDorset said:
OK...being a beginner, I thought it meant a hardware patch, like a wire or connector. Thanks for that. I notice that some people on eBay are advertising "ready patched". Is this something to be avoided then? Am I best off leaving well alone? Sorry for all the questions.
Pop
If you buy it patched you will enjoy things until something changes and you will then have to maintain it by either entering the keys by remote control or re-patching to get back what you have become used to
 

PopDorset

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Right you are! I understand, thanks!!
 
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