Changing to a new satellite

[lockettpots]

Hi All

Since my requirements are low (at the moment anyway) I've bought a cheap kit from B&Q it consists of a 60cm zone 2 dish and a skyline DSR4000 receiver.
I have installed the dish connected up the receiver and managed to get a (low quality) signal from the Astra 2A sat. I did this because the receiver is set up for FTA from there and I wanted to test things.
I haven't bothered tweaking the dish alignment because I really want the setup for Italian language broadcasts from Hotbird 6/7a/8 at 13E.
I can see how to select a different satellite from a list on the receiver but Hotbird 6/7a/8 isn't on the list. At 13E it only shows Hotbird 1,2 as an option.
It looks as though I can change the name of the satellite but is there anything else I need to change or do before I move the satellite dish to find Hotbird 6/7a/8?

I'm a complete newbie at this and I don't understand what any of the details on the satellite info page on the receiver mean , so words of one syllable would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

John

 

[rolfw]

Just use the one that is listed (what they call it is not important), if necessary you can always add transponder frequencies if the channels you want do not show up on a scan.

_http://www.lyngsat.com/hotbird.html shows a full list of transponder frequencies for that satellite clusters.

So all you need to do now is swing the dish Westward by 15 degrees and up a couple of degrees, then scan for channels.

 

[lockettpots]

Thank you very much rolw.

If you can bear with me for a little longer,
I've read somewhere that you can use the receiver rather than a satellite signal strength meter to find your satellite. Could you expand on that for me please. The only place I can see a strength and signal quality indicator is on something called TP scan.

I'm guessing that I can set the frequency to one of the transponders shown on LyngSat for Hotbird and watch the indicators. Have I got this right?
What would be a good transponder to use from where I live. (Birmingham UK).

Sorry to be such a pain but I think I need my confidence boosting. This is a whole new territory for me.

John

 

[rolfw]

You are spot on John, just use a transponder with a few free to air channels on it like 10941 V it has a few distinctive channels on it which will immediately confirm whether you are on the right satellite or not when scanning.

 

[lockettpots]

What a wonderful forum

I'm feeling much more confident about the whole thing now


John

 

[lockettpots]

Thanks for your offer moridark. Very kind of you.

However;
I took advantage of the lull in the stormy weather this morning. Tweaked the signal from Astra 2a until I had the best signal possible. Then I took a note of the azimuth and elevation. I increased the elevation by 5 degrees and swung the dish to where I had calculated the azimuth of Hotbird 7a would be.

Switched the receiver to Hotbird and selected 11766 (where the RAI channels are). Instant success with a reasonable signal intensity and quality. Spent a while tweaking and got a signal quality of 75%.

Did an autoscan and there were all the channels .

The only trouble is it has now whetted my appetite and I suspect that in the very near future I'll be looking at a larger, motorized setup.

Thanks to everyone on the forum! Reading through some of the posts plus the replies on this thread gave me a lot of information without which I'm sure I would not have succeeded.


John

 

[HB13DISH]

Hello lockettpots,

The best Italian channels are in the Sky Italia package with lots of encrypted channels from Hot Bird 13E.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to buy this package outside Italy and you also need to marry the box and the smartcard.
Take a look at this:
http://www.satellites.co.uk/satellite/sky-italia/103975-sky-italia-package.html
There are few very expensive offers from the UK for this package.

 

[Topper]

Well done John glad to hear it all went well, you feel quite gobsmacked the first time you see all those channels being found, there is a definite buzz about it and then of course, which one do you watch?

 

[rolfw]

Great to hear another success story, well done John.