Maplin satellite suitcase help

[wakel]

Hi

I'm a newbie.

I've bought a Maplin satellite suitcase to experiment with (Comag SL65 with a 39cm dish). I wasn't confident that I would pick up any satellites from our house as there is a banking behind the house with trees on top.

I'm in West Yorkshire half way between Leeds and Manchester.

Fortunately I can pick up Astra 2 28.2 degrees east with good picture quality However I can't get any thing much on 28.5 degrees east (I only noticed that I got very bad reception on the God channel) so my questions are:

1. Is a strength of 79% and a signal quality varying between 60% and 68% the best I'll get with my setup for Astra 2.
2. Do you get a constant signal quality when you have a clear line of sight to the satellite? Is my varying signal quality an indication that my satellite is "looking" through the trees?
3. If I line up my dish for best reception on Astra 2, as in 1 above, should I expect to get Eurobird 1 28.5 degrees E channels as well?
4. When I tried to line up on Eurobird 1 I couldn't get a decent signal quality. Is Eurobird 1 weaker than Astra 2?
5. With these 2 satellites being so close is it possible for a tree's leaves and thin branches to block out Eurobird 1 but get a good picture on Astra 2?

Any help would be much appreciated.

wakel

 

[rolfw]

Unlikely that trees will block out one and not the other, as they are thousands of miles away.

Have you skewed the LNB, twisted in the holder to allow the angle of the satellite from your location?

 

[Simba27]

1. Is a strength of 79% and a signal quality varying between 60% and 68% the best I'll get with my setup for Astra 2.

I don't know for sure. 28E is probably the strongest signal in the UK. I get 99% on my Comag with an 80cm dish.

2. Do you get a constant signal quality when you have a clear line of sight to the satellite? Is my varying signal quality an indication that my satellite is "looking" through the trees?

It's quite normal for the signal quality to fluctuate a few percent. If it fluctuates a lot on certain transponders, that could be due to interference from radio emitting devices such as cordless phones.

3. If I line up my dish for best reception on Astra 2, as in 1 above, should I expect to get Eurobird 1 28.5 degrees E channels as well?

Yes. I get both satellite positions without moving the dish.

4. When I tried to line up on Eurobird 1 I couldn't get a decent signal quality. Is Eurobird 1 weaker than Astra 2?

If you look at the footprints here:
http://www.sateuropa.co.uk/information/footprints/default.asp
you will see that the two beams are not focused on exactly the same area. Obviously, the closer you are to the centre of the footprint, the stronger your signal will be. The inner contour is for a 47cm dish, so you need to imagine another line inside that one for your 39cm dish.

5. With these 2 satellites being so close is it possible for a tree's leaves and thin branches to block out Eurobird 1 but get a good picture on Astra 2?

I have had similar problems where I can pick up one satellite, but not another in the same orbital position. Tweaking the dish alignment by 1mm or so usually helps.

Any help would be much appreciated.

In short, the limiting factor is the size of your dish. A 39cm dish will only pick up the strong signals and only in good weather. A 60cm dish will improve things substantially, especially when it's raining. An 80cm or bigger will allow you to receive many more satellites. But bigger dishes are obviously much less portable than your 39cm dish.

 

[rparkera]

I'm not really answering your questions but thought that you would like to know that I got great results with that kit from Maplin in Cork, Ireland on all the satellites you mentioned - even from behind glass (though it was in good weather). It is a better made dish (resin I think) than the usual perforated Sky dishes we beginners start with - maybe that needs a more accurate alignment?

 

[wakel]

Thanks for your answers

Simba27: thanks for the detailed answer - I've bought this setup to experiment with and realised it is limited however since we'll probably move house fairly soon I didn't want to go the whole hog immediately. Not sure I could have got a big motorised setup past my girlfriend at this point in time - however thats where I'm planning to end up!

rparkera: its good to know that you get good reception - I've also managed to get Astra 1 19.2 degrees E from my bathroom window sill!!!

rolfw: I'm interested in your answer. I wasn't sure exactly how to clamp the LNB on when I assembled it. I don't think the LNB is rotated at all - so I think that's OK. However I've got the clamp nearest to the back of the LNB whereas I could have the clamp nearest to the feed horn end of the LNB. This would move the LNB away from the dish maybe an inch - could this be the problem? Presumably I've got to have the LNB at the "focal point" of the dish? I'll try playing with this tomorrow night...

wakel

 

[rolfw]

The focal length is difficult to setup with only a receiver wakel, so the best you can do is set it to get the best quality/strength reading. The skew is important, as it will improve your signal quality, looking from behind the LNB, the bottom should be at around 7 O'clock.

 

[wakel]

Thanks - I'll give that a try tomorrow. I thought I'd read up on satellites but I wasn't aware of skew until you mentioned it!

Lots to learn...

wakel

 

[2cvbloke]

As an owner of the Comag Porty/SL65 kit (it's the same kit, be it from Lidl, Maplin or some scammer off ebay), experience with the dish states that the LNB has to me moved as close as it can go to the dish rather than being pushed away, that way it should be on the dish's focal point, but it depends on the LNB supplied though, just play about and you'll get there...

As for the skew, depending on your location, it's best to start off setting the LNB so the cable (if connected underneath the LN is somewhere around 7 O'Clock for 28.2/5e, then adjusting either way until you get the highest signal quality. Also, it's best to get the dish straight up (I.E. not leaning to either side looking from the front or back) to get the skew right...

 

[wakel]

Thanks for all the help.

I tried out the skew last night and picked up most of 28.5 with a decent picture quality.

I'm going to get the dish semi-permenantly put up over the weekend. Do I need to use self amalgamating tape or will the rubber sheath provided to go over the LNB connector be sufficient?

wakel

 

[Llew]

Always best to use tape. Rubber can perish/ suck in water.

 

[2cvbloke]

Always best to use tape. Rubber can perish/ suck in water.

Plus the rubber boots supplied with the kit turns the white cable balck at the ends!!! I though my LNB had fried when I saw a black cable end...

 

[wakel]

The cable supplied wasn't quite long enough at 10m so I needed to buy some more. When I looked into it I realised that this setup came with RG59 cable which, having searched the forums, I realise isn't really that good for satellite... so I've bought 15m of CT100 - I'll try this tonight and hopefully it will improve my signal strength/quality.

I also read somewhere that you should put vaseline on the ends of your CT100 cable to prevent corrosion. Do people agree with this???

wakel

 

[rolfw]

No, don't do it, get some self amalgamating tape and seal the F connector with that, as a temporary measure if you don't have self amalgamating tape, put some clingfilm or a carrier bag over the whole LNB.

 

[wakel]

Sorry ... maybe I didn't make it clear. They were saying use self amalgamating tape AND put vaseline on the actual wire inside the f connector. Is this worth doing, in addition, to the self amalganating tape???

wakel

 

[rolfw]

No, don't do it, absolute overkill and I'm not sure whether you would want anything like vaseline on the inside of a connector anyway.

If you take self amalgamating tape off a connection after several years, everything looks brand new, no other protection required.

 

[TrevMid]

Hi, and thanks for the useful posts and replies contained in this thread.

I've recently bought the Comag SL65 Suitcase setup from Maplin. Excellent results, with consistently 70+% signal strength on the Astra 2 sats and Eurobird 1.

My problem, which I hope someone can help with, is that I can't seem to raise any other satellites. The Astra 1 group at 19.2 degrees East don't register - in fact, nothing does apart from Astra 2/Eurobird 1.

It's almost like this pairing is so strong it drowns out everything else! Which is crazy...

Any thoughts would be appreciated. It's not that I'm desperately wanting to view Astra 1; simply that I'd like to be able to take full advantage of what this rather neat little system offers.

Many thanks in anticipation.

 

[Llew]

As it's a very small dish, that may be all you can get. Presumably you are aligning correctly onto Astra 19E? Otherwise you need to go motorised for other satellites, or a larger dish with two (or three) LNB's for a choice of satellites.

Llew

 

[2cvbloke]

I can personally vouch that an SL65 (not a/12 version) and a "suitcase" dish (Porty dish to me!!!) works perfectly on Astra1, excluding in bad weather, but it is only a small dish!!! It takes a little practice to get to know how it works and how to align it, but once you get it going you won't forget and it's a useful little toy...

 

[Sharkadder]

i also bought 1 of these systems but from lidi which is the same sort of thing, the problem i had wasnt getting a signal once it was set up it was getting a signal again once i previously got one.

when i first set mine up i managed to pick astra 19.2 (astra 1) within 10 minutes of putting the dish on the window, i then brought it in and when i put it out again i managed to get astra 2. The third time i got astra 2 again but after that nothing.

Ive had it out for the last 5 days about 20minutes each day trying to get a signal and nothing, ive checked the connections and redone them 3 times, and i noticed that the signal intensity stays on 35-36% but a mate of mine who has same thing sdays it should be on around 50%.

I had my dish out in the rain the other day but i dont think that should of made a difference to it but as i say i can no longer get a signal and the intensity stays on 35-36, maybe the cable i got with it is just totally crap and has given in somewhere im not sure but any ideas?

in a few weeks im changing to an 80cm motorised system but it would be nice to get this working in the mean time.

thanks and any ideas apprechiated

 

[2cvbloke]

The RG-59 cable is crap, I still have the cable I got 2 years ago with my original kit, unused aswell, and I used decent cable. As for the meters staying at a certain level, they all do that, when they get near to a satellite they meters drop then rise as you focus on the satellite. One odd quirk about the dish is that it has to lean slightly forward (looking from the side) on Astra2, you just have to be persistant and you'll get there in the end!!! Believe me, I got extremely frustrated when I was in the same boat when I couldn't get a thing with my dish, but I managed it!!!