Am I pointing at the right satellite?

freeme3

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Hi All. I am trying to get the best signal from my setup in SW France and have pointed my dish at what I believe to be 28.2 East for freesat. I am also getting a signal from 26 East BADR satellite which is stronger (higher quality) than the freesat signal. Does this mean I am probably pointing the dish slightly away from 28 and more to 26 degrees? The freesat signal breaks up in rain but the BADR doesn't.
 

4wd

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Hello, can only say that doing lots of blind scans on my France (06) 28e dish I have never seen any signs of anything else than the 2 E\F\G transponders.

My procedure is usually very simple, get the absolute best possible levels from a 2E Europe freq., then move on to some fine adjusting to a 2E UK SD freq., then move on to some 2E UK HD freq. From there test 2G & 2F to try to get the best results \ compromise overall. Find a time of day (and weather) when signals are strongest to do the initial adjustments.

When done and all bolts tightened, let it 'settle' for a while, levels fluctuations \ weather \ mechanics, then some fine readjusting.
If still problems, dish is too small for location. Playing with lnb's and different receivers is fun (imo) and may improve some results, but nothing beats a large enough dish !

Ref: FlySat Astra 2E/2F/2G @ 28.2° East
 
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davemurgtroyd

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Your location is ? (nearest town/city would help = SW France is too vague)
Your dish size is?
Do you mean the BBC. ITV, C4 etc channels?
 

freeme3

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Hello, Thanks for the help so far.
I have a 70cm oval mesh dish pointed at what I thought was 28.2 East. I have a simple technomate tm-3000D box. I am in the Dordogne in a village called St Privat des Pres - nearest town Ribérac. The current dish position gives me a reasonable signal on 28.2 in fine weather - I get signal strength and quality bars on my screen and the 28.2 satellite strength is about 80 and the quality varies but about 57-60 for BBC1, sometimes a little higher for say BBC1 channel islands. Similar for ITV etc. When it rains they all pixellate. On the BADR C-34 (26E) satellite which I also get from this dish , the signal strength is similar but the quality much higher at 80-90 and remains ok during rain.
 

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60 or 70 would be fine quite some distance further north afaik. May try moving the dish and try some more, but bigger dish is the real solution. If possible. As large as you can, then there will be stable reception even in rain & snow (except very extremes). Try to find someone in the region with a 28e setup that they are happy with, and ask for dish sizes.

In Alpes Maritimes (north of nice\cannes) my 125cm (aka 130x140) is just adequate, a 150 (real size) would be correct.
 

La Fargeotte

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Slightly South East of you, 30kms South East of Perigueux towards Sarlat, 80cms works fine except in very heavy rain/thunderstorms.
 

sonnetpete

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For where you are, I'd suggest a 70cm dish is on the small side. I'd suggest at least a 1m dish of good quality (i.e. Gibertini) or possibly a 1.2m if you can. That way, you'd take the rain fade problem out of the equation.
 

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For where you are, I'd suggest a 70cm dish is on the small side. I'd suggest at least a 1m dish of good quality (i.e. Gibertini) or possibly a 1.2m if you can. That way, you'd take the rain fade problem out of the equation.



..... and eliminate the BADR bleed-over :Y
 

freeme3

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Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll try a "fiddle around" and then a larger dish if that fails.
 

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Adjust the dish, you should not receive channels from bard. Try to move the dish a bit to the right and adjust lnb skew.
 

freeme3

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Adjust the dish, you should not receive channels from bard. Try to move the dish a bit to the right and adjust lnb skew.
Thank you. This is what I intuitively thought - that perhaps it is pointing closer to 26 than 28 degrees.
 

Lazarus

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Take care with right/left as this depends upon whether you favour defining direction from behind the dish or from looking along the LNB arm towards the dish - Moving the dish marginally further East is, however, unambiguous.
 

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How do you know you get a signal from 26 East ?
 

freeme3

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Thanks all. I've been up the ladder fiddling in the hot Dordogne sunshine! The angles have all been altered slightly, the lnb twisted to and fro and the signal is much better now. Im getting 95+ strength and quality on the sky channels, 70+ on BBC1 and some of the weaker channels which pixellated are now clear. I can't wait for the rain to see if we can still see anything! Now, the BADR that I was picking up at 26E. I do not think that it was BADR at all, just the old box confused as it is obvious that the channels on this are sat are all astra 28 ones. It must think a nearby astra satellite is the BADR one and as the box is quite old it doesn't recognise it but guesses it is BADR.
 

freeme3

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How do you know you get a signal from 26 East ?
My box tells me there is a strong signal from 26 East - but see my explanation above. Thanks
 

Lazarus

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But your box doesn't know where the dish is pointing .... Your BADR "Satellite" is just a list of Transponders of which many share the same or similar frequencies to those at 28E.

To prove what you are actually getting, we need Channel names ......
 

freeme3

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But your box doesn't know where the dish is pointing .... Your BADR "Satellite" is just a list of Transponders of which many share the same or similar frequencies to those at 28E.

To prove what you are actually getting, we need Channel names ......
Thanks. My box shows a list of satellites which could be available. Under each satellite name it gives a strength and quality of signal. For the BADR listed satellite this was very strong. So I searched and added the channels to the box. It is only now that I have realised that these channels all come from somewhere other than BADR. I can't list them all but they are all similar to those from the satellite listed at 22.8E. There are some differences. for example BBC 1 west is available on the BADR named satellite but not the one listed as at 28.2. The BADR listed satellite has BBC,ITV, ch4,5 BBC news, CNN, Sky news etc etc. So you see, I think the box is mislabelling the satellite.
 

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If you change satellites on your box , for example put it on 23 east or 13 east you will pick up a lot of signals but your dish being fixed on 28 it just means they are similar frequencies .. it doesn't mean you have a signal on the other satellites as Lazarus has explained ..

I don't know why someone hasn't picked on this earlier but you can't get 26 east in France with a 70 cm dish :)
 

Lazarus

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The box is doing exactly what it should.

And labels can be edited.

I think you should entirely and utterly ignore any "Satellites" your box has stored other than 28E.

And if you perform a Blind (or Auto) scan it will pull in everything to be had from where your dish is aligned to, by adding all the live Transponders that are evidently not pre-stored against "28E". It's entirely normal for the lists to be inaccurate as changes take place all the time and the box has no way of kniwing what those changes are. So you're left either to manually edit/add or to start again and blind/auto scan.

Everything else is a dead herring.
 

davemurgtroyd

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So you see, I think the box is mislabelling the satellite.
It is NOT the box, it is you mislabelling the satellite by telling it to scan that satellite when the dish is not aligned on 26E- it is finding channels that are on the same frequencies as its stored list for 26E - the tuner does not know where it is pointed and cannot identify satellites - a very common mistake by newbies and non tech sat enthusiasts.
 
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