New freesat installation problems

P

paul4

Member
My Satellite Setup
SKY+
Labgear Freesat
My Location
North Devon UK
Hi, newbie here

I have read lots (great forum guys) but would like to start a thread here - hope that's ok :).

I am in a "difficult" reception area (locally hilly, near the sea) trying to install Freesat with a Labgear HDSR300, which will be in addition to my Sky+ installation (working) and will replace my Freesat (working but limited channels) installation.

I have fitted the dish and have signal intensity 83%, signal quality 76% (according to the on screen details). I believe I am correctly aligned with Astra2 + Eurobird1. LMB is skewed with cable at around 7 o'clock position - must say that rotating does not appear to change much to the eye.

The dish is on the same chimney stack as the Sky dish, just on a different face (90 degrees).

I have done several scans, following much that I have read on forums (here and other), and now have used single satellite scan. All settings are, as far as I know, ok but most channels have severe breakup. I say most as, for example, "Sky Hub" channel is ok.

I also have a horizontal "band" of what I'd describe as interference which does seem independant of the picture breakup artefacts. This band is towards the bottom of the screen and is about 90% width. I can "just" make out a red icon on the right of this band which says "EPG"

I may be wrong but have eliminated my existing installation (which still works ok) and have tried HDMI connection to my flatscreen TV, but also Scart connection on a portable.

Am at a loss to know what to do now. Going up on the roof is not a problem but cannot formulate a plan.

thanks
paul4
 
Urgh - get those dishes off the chimney stack if at all possible - we have already had one member have a stack crash through his conservatory roof this year thanks to the wind catching a satellite dish.....

Why not just replace the lnb on the Sky dish with a quad lnb and run the cable to that instead. You know thats already installed correctly
 
Certianly the easiest thing to do would be to use the existing sky dish, upgrading the LNB to a quad/octo depending on how many outputs you need.

Assuming your cables are in good working order, the allignment is probably the issue. You need to monitor the signal level on a channel that is breaking up and try moving the dish slightly to improve reception.

You might be classed as a "difficult reception area" for freeview, but satellite is differant. You can have the dish on the floor so long as they have a line of sight, around the 20 degree mark for the elevation of astra2 in the UK. In my opinion a chimney mount is only when there are no other options. And even then I wouldn't put more than one minidish up there.
 
Ay. You can get up to Octo LNBs for Sky dishes these days, so that would give you loads of feeds to use for Freesat.
 
Wow, thanks for the prompt replies, much impressed :)

Have taken note of your suggestions re. dishes on the stack. This is a new stack, in good condition, and we have been careful. I sure didn't know you could use the same dish with a quad LMB so that's an attractive option.

I might fiddle with the dish a bit this afternoon, trying to see if the breakups improve, but I have to say that the remote control and the consistency in actually getting control of the menus of this device is seriously making me think it's a bad bit of kit (box and/or remote) and I'm wasting time on this irrespective of the reception problems.

As I type this, and my friends have been investigating setup from the remote control, the box has just given up the ghost and all life has been exhausted from its feeble body.

Rapidly losing the will ................

paul4
 
Life has been restored, some unknown issue affected it.
 
Box still unwell. Front display says "ASH" and nothing works.
 
Who knows what ASH means? Antenna Short maybe? Unplug the cable, switch it off and then back on with the cable still removed.Check if the message is still displayed.
 
Decided to take the box back and get replacement. Haven't unpacked it yet but will report back. Hope ASH is history, whatever it means :)
 
New box - all sorted. What a huge waste of time :mad:.

Need to go up on roof again to tidy, but will definitely look into quad LMB.

thanks guys

paul4
 
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