astra 1H at 19.2e no signal help for total newbie

[mdfenemer]

Yeterday after much thought and lots of research on the net I went out and brought a 90cm Fortec star with lifetimeII reciever which came in kit form from Maplins. I would like to pick up free to air German channels for my partner who is of course German. Armed with my new equipment and satelite meter I installed the dish facing 19.2 degrees east of south as directed on many websites..I have alterd the LNB skew as also directed to -8.1. I have also altered the dish angle to 153.42degrees as instructed. All the angles and directions for my setup came from.... _http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/satmeter.htm
where upon I entered the required satellite and my home address. My knowlwedge of this subject is nil. I have tried my best but cannot even get a signal. In the installation of the reciever it seems I can only search for certain Sats. Astra1 is one of many so is Astra3 and hotbird and many more but Astra1H is not listed. There is a section however that enables me to name a new satellite to search for, but it also asks for TP and SR and H/V . I really have no idea. This was supposed to be a valentines present but looks like it will end up down the tip and £90 worse off. I want to receieve free to air German Tv Stations I live in the West Midlands in the UK.. Please help but keep it simple..Many Thanks. Mark

 

[Topper]

Welcome to the forum mdfenemer

OK the first thing to remember is that patience is a virtue.
Without a signal meter or signal finder as a newbie you may struggle but on the other hand you may strike lucky firstly your dish should look something like the picture when installed.
You can get all you information from here regarding all the details of 19.2 degrees. You can then scan for the missing satellite and transponders as 1F 1G 1H 1KR 1L are all co-located at 19.2

As you appear to not have a meter then the problem requires your mrs to be looking at the picture and you playing around with the setting. So set your stb on a specific strong frequency SR and FEC from lyngsat then play around until you get a lock. The picture does not appear instantly in digital so patience is required. Hope this helps, post back and let us know how you are doing.

Oh and please no live links

 

[mdfenemer]

many thanks for the fast response, I will go away and have another play with the dish. I do have a meter which was recomended by Maplins but the instructions say refer to dish setup instructions and the dish instructions, say refer to meter instructions..I did have a little laugh about it but now, not so funny..lol. I will post my progress once again thx for you time. mark

 

[Robbo]

Astra 19.2E is a very easy satellite to set up for in the UK.

If you go to somewhere like dishponter.com , it will tell you the elevation angle to set on the scale on the back of the dish. If you put the wall bracket up so that the pole is level, it won't be far off.

As long as you are on a southish facing wall, and have a clear view of the sky at the desired elevation and azimuth settings, finding the satellite is more or less straightforward.

Pick a Transponder off the Link that Topper gave, get the quality reading of it up in the installation menu, then just carefully just wiggle the dish left and right until you get the best quality. Then do a quick scan on that transponder, and see if you have the correct satellite ( by seeing what channels you have). If wrong find out sat you did find (use lyngsat) and move accordingly. Once on the correct satellite, carefuly tweak both azimuth and dish ellevation for the best quality.

If you look roughly where other sky dishes are pointing, you want yours pointing about ten degrees to the right of them. (from behind)

Robbo

 

[mdfenemer]

HI I have been making adjustments for the last hour and realised that five gardens up there is a large fir tree.If I stand in front of the dish and look along the path it takes (19.2e). The path is obstructed by this fir tree, it is however around sixty to eighty feet away from the dish, with clear sky's either side.. I wouldn't of thought this would be a problen as my sky minidish is facing a row of houses about 150 feet away and that works fine. I think i know what is coming next though, i suppose this is the reason for no signal at all. I'm not even getting a week signal.

 

[mdfenemer]

hi again,

I have had success and I now recieve the asta satellite please can you tell me if these readings are OK.... Signal strength is between 69 and 82 fluctuating and signal quality is around 45 and 52... Do you think I can improve on this or is this about normal. thanks for your help. Occationally the reciever freezes and goes to a green screen the onlyway to unfreeze it is to unplug it to reset it. When it comes back on it seems fine. thanks for your time. mark

 

[perthkenny]

Hi Mark, hope you are getting more success in receiving Astra! If you can do it, and have a portable tv, a good way to tune is to take the box and portable tv outside close to the dish, then connect up and set your box so that you can see the onboard tuning meter. Then make small adjustments to the dish to get the highest level on the tuning meter. I'd say your signal level is good enough, but maybe the signal level is a bit on the low side.
Your Lifetime box should have a channel search function on it, which you can set to scan Astra 19.2e, set Network search to ON and scan, it should then list all the channels you can get. From there use channel manager to see what FTA channels you want.
Good luck, and be patient. It's worth it.

 

[Topper]

I have had success and I now recieve the asta satellite please can you tell me if these readings are OK.... Signal strength is between 69 and 82 fluctuating and signal quality is around 45 and 52... Do you think I can improve on this or is this about normal. thanks for your help. Occationally the reciever freezes and goes to a green screen the onlyway to unfreeze it is to unplug it to reset it. When it comes back on it seems fine. thanks for your time. mark

Well I am glad you have had some success, putting the correct amount of skew on the lnb can make a major difference to the signal quality and it is the quality figure that is the most important.
To be honest the figures are only ever an indication as opposed to an actual strength and will change with each different receiver

 

[mdfenemer]

hi all, thx again for your replies...I had a great signal when the coax was run to the portable in the bedroom next to the dish. I was very carefull when routing the cable down to my main TV, when I connected it to the reciever and tv downstairs the signal dropped and the reciever keeps freezing me out. Work tomorrow so I may not get a chance until later in the week to play again. ....Do you think that the reciever freezing is a fault with the box itself..regards Mark

 

[Topper]

hi all, thx again for your replies...I had a great signal when the coax was run to the portable in the bedroom next to the dish. I was very carefull when routing the cable down to my main TV, when I connected it to the reciever and tv downstairs the signal dropped and the reciever keeps freezing me out. Work tomorrow so I may not get a chance until later in the week to play again. ....Do you think that the reciever freezing is a fault with the box itself..regards Mark

I am a little puzzled here as there should be no significant signal drop apparent, you haven't put a splitter in have you?
Also what cable are you using it should be ct100 with a foil layer and solid electrolyte as per the picture.

Ordinary

 

[Analoguesat]

Also what cable are you using it should be ct100 with a foil layer and solid electrolyte as per the picture.

I use cheap stuff from B&Q

It has:
Aluminised plastic foil layer
Air spaced electrolyte

Its got all sorts of kinks, shart right angled bends and gawd knows what else in it. Parts of it probably sit in water a lot of the time as its buried in a a length of tube where it goes under a gateway

And it works fine.....

 

[perthkenny]

Hi again Mark. I agree with the guys who posted above...I doubt if the fault is with your box. You should be using satellite coax cable, not TV coax coz it's different. I guess you got the cable in the kit from Maplin, it should be thinner in diameter than the TV stuff.
Can't think of a reason why your box works upstairs on a short cable and not downstairs on a longer run, but check these....
1. Have you joined the coax? Check the joints, taped up joints won't do, use the proper connectors from Maplin. Better still, no joints in the coax.
2. Check carefully the makeup of the connectors at the LNB end and the box end.
3. Check that you have connected the coax to the correct screw fitting on the back of the box...where it says LNB, possibly has a little dish legend at the connector. There's another which is IF and loop-through, don't use them.
Please excuse if these things seem too obvious, but we all have made basic errors when initially setting up, it's all too easy when that picture pops up on the telly! Anyone who says they never made little boobs is telling porkies mate!!
Kenny.

 

[mdfenemer]

thanks all you for your thoughts and advice..... Firstly the kit came with 10m of coax which does look like the ct100 mentioned. One end was pre connected the other I had to connect myself. (checked and rechecked) 10m was not enough so I brought a further 5m of ct100 both ends prefitted. It was only when i moved the box downstairs and laid the coax down that the picture and box freezes to the extent that the only way to unfreeze it is to unplug the recicever. I have not put a splitter in line. Once it does come on I get a signal strength of around 78 and signal quality of 52. Then as said before screen turns green and freezes.. do you think that using one single length of cable may be a better option?? regards Mark

 

[Topper]

do you think that using one single length of cable may be a better option?? regards Mark

Absolutely, every connector introduces significant losses as there is what is known as an insertion loss. I suggest you get a full run of cable, make your own by getting screw on F connectors and try again. The cable may look the same but it has been proved already on this board that it is cheap and often faulty

 

[mdfenemer]

It seems like I have got it right now....In the few hours of daylight left today i yet again I played around with the dish while somebody kept an eye on the signal. So at the moment all is well. Many thanks for your help everybody. It does seem that patience is the best policy.

 

[mdfenemer]

after enduring many times pulling the plug on the receiver because it kept on freezing after giving us a green screen. I took the receiver back to maplins who then swapped it for another one... and now I have a perfect picture and no pulling the plug.......great stuff, thanks all for helping a newbie get the right results.

 

[Topper]

Well done, it is good that you had the sense to know that the stb was faulty and that has now been resolved to your satisfaction by Maplin

 

[perthkenny]

Nice one Mark, hope you and your Missus enjoy your free viewing! I had a similar nightmare with new kit out of the box when I installed my Sat+ FTA system 2 years ago. The disceq switch (I got a twin LNB system) was faulty straight off and I couldn't get Hotbird and Astra on demand...after hours of checking I went off up town and bought a new disceq switch, problem solved, but I was going mental trying to get the damn thing to go prior to that (probably still am mental actually!).

Glad we could help, and please revisit the forum for help and info, your'e a sat nut now!
Cheers, Kenny.