Lost access to analogue channels

stylo

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HI all, I'm using an Echostar AD3000IP (V) with a 1.1m motorised dish. Had a problem recently with the motor and the installer put in a replacement so all seemed good again. That was until I went to the French FTA channels TF1 etc on 5 West which are in analogue. I get a 'no signal' message - these used to be fine. Any ideas on what I can check? Thought I'd have a go at troubleshooting (and learning in the process) before calling back the installer. Generally the I think the system is OK, can get channels on HotBird/Sirius but not any on Hipasat as far as I can tell.

Thanks for any advice.
Adam
 

rolfw

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Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
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Berkshire
Did he reconnect the loopthrough link on the rear of the receiver should be the first check.
 

stylo

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Yup - checked that is still there.


I'm assuming (maybe incorrectly!) that the channels shown on the Echostar TV listing that have a grey background behind the channel name and are analogue - correct?

It could be that the repositioning of the dish wasn't too good. Are there some good test channels that I could use on satellites close to due south and 30 degrees or so east and west that I should be able to access without too much difficulty - I guess this is an easy way to check the dish arc.

Thanks
Adam
 

rolfw

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Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
You should be able to look for BBC World on 1W, it is FTA and any of the FTA channels on 30W, did the guy not check to see if these were OK?
 

stylo

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He was keen to show me some 'interesting' additional channels I could get with a Magic CAM + card (not that I asked for them!) and Ithink this may have been a distraction if you know what I mean.... He's a decent guy and I'm sure will come out with his ladders abd meter to re-adjust if necessary.

Will check out the channels above and see what I get.
Adam
 

stylo

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OK, selected the Thor sat. Looked through the TV channel list - no mention of BBC world there. A few of the channles I could pick up such as Bloomberg (German I think) but pictures were not very clear.
Went into the Intallation menu and deleted Thor, then re-added.
Did the channel Auto Search - the receiver cycled through 30 entries but found nothing.

When I look at the screen (Program Satellites) which allows me to cycle through the video frequency/Pol (Analogue) and TP/Pol/SR (Digital) settings I see that with the analogue setting at 3800.00/V I have signal level at 45% but at 11001.00/V this goes up to 90% and a get a picture appear in very poor quality for some of the frequencies and none at all for others (probably no signal or encrypted I guess). But, when the process of moving through the settings takes me to the first of the digital settings (3912/H/8022) signal level =10% and quality = 10% these level/quality readings remain pretty much the same through all the digital settings.

Not sure if this above attempt at diagnosis is of any use...

Tried the same search for channels on Hispasat but same results - no pictures on any channels

Had another look at Sirius2_3 (5 East), level and quality is low (c10%) on most settings until I get to 12303/H/25547 where it goes up to 65/80 %. I thought that different frequencies etc would deliver a consistent signal strength & quality from the same satellite - clearly I have much to learn...

Adam
 

rolfw

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My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
Sounds like your dish is out of alignment, I am assuming that you are in the UK, so you should always get Thor, as this is what most installers use as their due South reference.

Have you tried fine tuning the dish in the motor menu, that may be all that is needed.

PS. Some satellites have different beams, transmitting to different areas, Sirius is one of these.
 

stylo

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Thanks. Tried adjusting the dish alignment and got some improvement on the signal level but didn't seem consistent across sats. Will get the installer back to check it out.

Thanks again.
 
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