freesat reception

john overton

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I have a PMB receiver (no sky-type card)with a 1metre dish and a non-motorised lnb pointed to astra 28.2 east. I live in sw france (midi-pyrenees) and receive BBC1,2,3,4 and ITV 1 (but not 2,3,4 nor C4/5).
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Midi-Pyrenees, SW France. North-east of Toulouse
I live in sw france north east of toulouse. i have a 1 metre dish pointed to astra 28.2 east and get bbc1,2,3,4 and itv 1 tho not 2,3,4 nor channels 4 and 5. i have a pmb (french manufacturer) receiver with a non-motorised lnb (this is getting a bit technical for me!). should i be able to get the new freesat service from the uk unencrypted, which will give me the missing stations listed above plus a lot more?

thanks to anyone who can help

john overton
 

Robbo

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Hi,

You won't get Channel 5 because it is encrypted, channel 4 is Free to air so you should be getting that.

Check on lyngsat for the transponder frequencies and see if your signal quality is OK. Since you are getting BBC1 etc, it means that you dish is sufficient to catch Astra 2D. You may just need to re-scan so that Channel 4 is found, as until recently this was only available encrypted on a different transponder.

Robbo:)
 

wilsonlaidlaw

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Humax HD box, Audio Alchemy DAC, Invacom single LNB, 1.4 meter fixed dish, Dual gas valve in-line lightning protectors. All Mac compters
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France Dept 83 Var
I changed to Freesat HD in France last year after my Sky FTA box got zapped when the dish was struck by lightning (I now have two expensive gas valve ultra-fast isolator and earthing switches on my sat cable). Since coming back to France in April, my reception of ITV 3 and 4 is more fragile and susceptible to weather. I have a 1.4 meter dish with Invacom single 0.3dB LNB. On BBC channels, I am getting nearly 100% signal strength and quality. On ITV 3 & 4, I am getting about 80%+ signal strength but only about 60% quality. I have heard rumours that I may need to retune to a different lobe. Has anyone any information on this? Thanks Wilson
 

Topper

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I cannot say for sure what your problem is, I would suspect a slight movement of dish at some point as Astra 2D has not changed anything recently on those frequencies, also they are not in the range of DECT phone problem areas, if you have not had the stb switched on for a while are you sure you are not just missing some OTA updates on your stb, have you tried a forced update?
 

PaulR

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What are these isolator switches? If they are fitted in the downlead from the LNB then they will inevitably introduce a slight loss, probably a 1/2dB at least - possibly 2dB, and this may be crucial.

Mind you a 1.4 metre dish should be plenty for the Var, enough to overcome this sort of loss.
 

wilsonlaidlaw

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France Dept 83 Var
Many thanks for these suggestions guys. I will put a meter on the dish and trying tweaking it a bit, as over the winter we had a "Super Mistral" at 175+ KPH and this may have moved the dish a bit. However as my BBC seems spot on it cannot be too far out. I think I am more on the edge of the lobe for ITV than for BBC.

I know that these gas valves may give me a bit of signal deterioration. The first one (the earth shunt) is made by Foudretech and costs an eye-watering €200. The second one is all part of my Monster Cables power cleaner/surge protector and again is about €300. I lost about €6,000 of audio/sat/TV equipment in the strike last year and I don't want it to happen again. Luckily it was all insured and as I had all the other lightning precautions in place, the insurance company were not tooooooo difficult. It was the first time in about 20 years that the adjuster had seen a dish struck. It melted the LNB off the front of the dish and where the cable was in a trench from the bottom of my garden, it opened up the trench along its length and turned the cable into confetti. The Sky box exploded in front of my eyes - quite exciting. My house is about 2,200 feet above sea level and is built on the edge of a 1,000 foot high escarpment, so it is the first thing that storms sweeping up the valley will hit. I therefore have at least two layers of lightning protection on everything. I have a large box in my cellar with 4 surge capacitors in it, one for neutral and one for each phase plus an earth shunt cable about 3/4 inch in diameter, for the mains power system. This will absorb/shunt up to 10 strikes before the capacitors have to be replaced (they have tell tales on them).

I have had a firmware update on the Humax box since I came down in April and done a retune recently, so I don't think it is that. I saw on another forum that the Humax box defaults (due to my entering my Sussex post code) to the north lobe for ITV and it may be possible to tune to another lobe, which gives improved reception in the south of France but that forum gave no further details on how to do it (frequencies etc).

Wilson
 

patrick007

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HELP we cant get are free 2 air digital dish 2 work ,it wont pick up any channels???
we live in dublin
 

satelliteman

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patrick007 said:
HELP we cant get are free 2 air digital dish 2 work ,it wont pick up any channels???
we live in dublin


Please supply more information so that we can help you.
 

Lazarus

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satelliteman said:
Please supply more information so that we can help you.

Ten to one it's a Lidl Portable Camping Kit :toke:
 

Robbo

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patrick007 said:
HELP we cant get are free 2 air digital dish 2 work ,it wont pick up any channels???
we live in dublin

This may help:-

_http://www.dishpointer.com
 
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