Freesat & FS-4200

[Robertio]

I don't know what I did differently, but it is now working fine If I had known posting on here would fix my problem I would have done it the second I got home

 

[PaulR]

That's the magic of just simply being here ;)

 

[rob1974uk]

Hi folks. I have just bought one of Fortec Star's kits with an FS-4200 receiver, a single LNB, and a 60cm dish. Essentially I want to get radio channels. I have not even got as far as most posters here in getting it up and running. In fact my query is apt to sound amateurish in the extreme :-)

I've hooked up the receiver to the dish and to the TV (using "RCA Support"). During my initial attempts to position the dish I was looking at what I'd got so far: the receiver is set up with all the channels and is set to receiver Astra 2 and hotbird.

However the signal strength seemed stuck forever at 45% with quality switching between 4% and 5%. Suspicious, I brought the receiver into the neighbour's and plugged his dish (which points at astra 2) into my receiver - that too was registering 45% and a quality of 5%. Any ideas? Now here's the dumb question: in the menus under 'other' there is an option to have the receiver supply power to the dish. Should this be 'on'? And, more importantly, is that the problem?

Grateful for any help to this nutter!
Thanks
Paul

Hi there, I am new to this forum and have the exact same problem as above, the signal intensity is always at 45% and signal quality is at 4 or 5% even if the sat is inside the house. I would be most grateful if any of you guys can help me as been trying to install the thing all of today.)(-red

 

[Topper]

Welcome to the forum rob1974uk

Well there are lots of threads on the forum about this particular piece of kit as many have had problems, not least of which is

http://www.satellites.co.uk/satelli...tar-lnb-fckuvn-icecrypt-0-1db-single-lnb.html

I recommend you do a forum search for fortecstar and read all the advice given

 

[eclts]

Hi,

I also have the fs-4200 and after spending who knows how many hours attempting to align the satellite i have constantly got the same 45% and varying between 4 and 5% problem.

I have (an old) satellite metre as well which seems to give a higher reading if i put my hand in fornt of the lnb (any help on this matter wld be greatly appreciated).

I have NEVER got anything different for signal strength or signal quality whether i point it to within a degree of the satellite (as far as i can tell) or if it is pointed towards the ground.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[rolfw]

If you have a Fortecstar LNB, have you checked the skew as advised in the thread mentioned above?

 

[eclts]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

I have checked the skew (I apologise, I should have said that in the
original posting). The LNB is more or less in the position indicated in
the photograph - the mid-line is pointing between 4 and 5 o'clock. There
is, as I guess you know, a set of markings or gradations on the LNB: I
started with the central (teardrop shaped) one vertical (as advised by
Forte) and varied the skew position around that point.

I know I'm very close to 32.7 degrees east of magnetic south - although I
do not know how close I *have* to be. I've got a pretty good compass, and
there are plenty of other dishes around me.

As far as the vertical position is concerned I'm assuming the correct
elevation is 22.5 degrees: I have the plane of the dish 22.5 degrees from
the vertical (rather than the arm 22.5 from the horizontal - the plane of
the face of dish is not at rightangles to the arm: all I have done is lay
a piece of wood across the face of the face, cut a piece of cardboard to
22.5 degrees, laid it against the wood and checked with a spirit level
that it is vertical). It has to be very close. I have telephoned Forte,
and they indicated that the dish should be 32-34 degrees from the
vertical, which I cannot understand, but I tried it anyway without any
success.

** Amended 28/04/2009: Now I did not realise this was an offset dish...
there was no documentation to that effect in my Maplin pack. I should
have thought about it of course but I did not. Thanks to the mail below!!
I have since looked up on-line and, as far as I can determine it is offset by
24.62 degrees so (where I am) it should point a couple of degrees down
when viewed from the side. I'll certainly try this and update the thread.

I have line-of-sight.

I have stepped the dish around and the the readings on the
receiver never vary - intensity 45%, quality 4/5%. The satellite finder
indicates some variation but remains in a fairly narrow band (3-4 on a 10
point db scale) until - and this I cannot comprehend - I put my hand between
the LNB and the dish when it goes up to 7-8.

I do not know how long a time a change in position would take to be
reflected in the reading on the receiver, I have tended to give it 10-15
seconds. The satellite finder appears to reflect what small changes there
are in real time.

One final curiosity. I noticed that the meter was powered only when the
receiver was set to H or Auto (polarisation?) in the antenna setup menu
(at least when the Satellite selected was Astra 2). If I select V, the
lights go out on the finder, so I assume there is no voltage in that case.

Most of my attempts have used the factory settings.

Any help appreciated

 

[Topper]

To make it easier your dish should be almost vertical when viewed from the side

 

[eclts]

My error was in elevation: and it is working well now. To summarise:

Information:

_www.dishpointer.com can be used to establish the relative position of a satellite

Elevation:

The Fortec dish (65 cm at least) has a built in offset of 24.62 degrees. This information is available online but was not, at least in my case, included in the documentation I received. ... for me the Astra 2 is at an elevation of 22.6 degrees so the vertical plane of the dish should point 2 degrees down (22.6 minus 24.62 degrees up).

Skew:

As indicated in this thread, the centre line of the LNB should point to about 4'oclock. There are markings on the LNB indicative of a scale of some sort but rather unhelpfully there are no figures. Although I have not optimised the skew, a good starting point appears to be when the slightly teardrop shaped mark - which is central - is at 12 o'clock.

Azimuthal position:

A good compass is quite sufficient. I found it easiest, when ground mounting, to establish magnetic South and cut a piece of cardboard to 32.7 degrees - the position of the satellite east of magnetic South for my location - to get a good idea of initial position.

What happens:

The free to air sat receiver (in the Maplin pack: FS-4200) indicates signal intensity and quality... see Menu, Installation, Antenna setup (from memory). When you are nowhere close - I was pointing well over the satellite although in the correct 'direction' azimuthally - the readings are 45% intensity and 4-5% quality. As you move the dish into the correct position: which you can do reasonably quickly - there is no need to 'set' it for a few seconds because the display updates in close to real time - the figures will jump... on a rainy night, indoors, through glass, once I had the correct elevation, with the skew set as indicated above (teardrop mark vertical) and knowing the azimuthal position to within a few degrees it took only a couple of minutes before I saw 90%+ intensity and 70%+ quality. I can see broadcasts from both Eurobird 1 and Astra 2 and both H and V channels which I take to mean that the polarisation is Horizontal/Vertical.

Finally... thanks to those who replied to my request for help. I hope this summary will help others in a similar position.

 

[DavidTocher]

I'm not sure this is the correct forum for my problem with Fortec FS 2400 sytem bought from Maplin. I aligned the dish and searched ASTRA and EUROBIRD for all TV and radio. I get a 'no signal' message for all channels 1 to 396 even though the signal strength is >90% and quality >70%. I did notice that there was a flicker on BBC1 on channel 1 when the strength dropped to 45% and the quality to 5%. Also there are no radio available.

As I can get good pictures and sound on the FTA channels the dish must be pointing in the right direction and the skew is similar to others in this thread.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[rolfw]

Which channels can you receive?

 

[DavidTocher]

They are mainly German, French, Spanish, Italian and various eastern european Polish(?)channels and I can get a Sky News on #443. A fair few are scrambled

I think my numbers are the ones allocated by the scan process.

 

[Topper]

I would say with that mix of channels it is pretty much for sure you have found 19.2 East and not 28.2 East, if there are no adverts on sky news then that is the reason why, you need to rotate your dish further East and down a tad.

 

[DavidTocher]

I thought the azimuth direction was given as a true bearing rather than magnetic as a consequence I was pointing at the wrong satellite!

Thanks for the help.