New Setup problems

R

Rich963

Member
My Satellite Setup
Quad lnb 45cm dish
Compro S350 sat PC card
Grundig Sky Digibox
My Location
Cornwall, UK
Hi, I would really appreciate any help you can give. I bought a dish with quad lnb and tried to set it up with a Konig sat finder. Hours later - not a twitch on the meter, so I set up a portable TV connected to a Sky box with the signal strenth page showing. Within minutes, I had almost full strength and quality showing.

However, the box is telling me that 'No Satellite signal is being received'. Is it possible I have the wrong Satellite? If not, what else could cause this? The Sky card in the box is not a current one, but I understood that I should be able to get some channels without one, is that the case?

I also gather that there is a way of 'adding' free channels to the sky box without getting a freeview card from sky. Could you point me in the right direction for instructions on how to do this?

Sorry for all the questions - I'm new to all this!

Thanks,
Richard.
 
You are almost certainly aligned onto the wrong satellite. Probably either 13E or 19E. If you scan the none Sky box what channels do you get? If theres a lot of German stuff you have 19E, a lot of Arabic and Italian stuff its 13E.

You should be able to get all the free channels even with no card in the Sky box.

Theres virtually nothing on 28E that isnt already on the Sky epg. You can put the other ITV regions onto the box if you wish, you use add channels to add them then watch via Other Channels. Not much point these days though - apart from the local news theres bugger all different between the regions these days (apart from maybe STV from weegieland)
 
Yes if you are not on the correct satellite you will not receive an epg, you could attempt to scan for extra channels and see if you get one however it is difficult to know if you would get anything as so much of the functionality on the sky stb is nobbled to stop them being used on other satellites, I would suggest you try moving Eastwards very slowly as is you are on another strong satellite it will probably be 19.2 East ot 13 East.


Edit

must type faster
 
Thanks for the replies. I found that using the 'add channels' function brought up some, e.g Boomerang & Cartoon Network. I selected them and used the 'save' feature, but after coming out of this the box still tells me there is no signal.

Are the above channels free to air? If not, is there a frequency I could try to store some free channels to see if that works?
 
Some extra info - the frequency I'm getting these channels on is 11.778V 27.5 3/4
Telesur
Cartoon Network
CNN Int
TCM
Boomerang
Would that mean I'm on the right sat for the free to air channels on my sky box?
 
You are set up on 19E :)

Re-align the dish eastwards and down a fraction when its light tomorrow
 
I tried your suggestion of moving the dish, couldn't find any other strong signals, though I only moved it horizontally.

I haven't managed to get my PC card working yet, so can't scan for channels until midnight when tech support open in Taiwan!

Richard.
 
Thanks - that's great to know, will do.

Richard.
 
You will need to lower it as well as you go eastwards. No more than the diameter of the face of the lnb.

Before you start mark the dish mounts up with pencil, tippex, white paint etc so if you get hopelessly lost you can rapidly reset and start again. Theres nothing more frustrating than the dish slipping and you being unable to find your starting point again!
 
Oops - posts crossed, sorry!

Just to clarify, I previously only moved the dish horizontally, but thanks to your subsequent post I now know I need to move it down a touch too.

Thanks for all the help:-)
 
No problem - good luck & let us know how you get on. You might run across 23.5E first - some of the signals are very strong off that cluster.

-http://www.flysat.com/astra23.php

In fact - if you aim for the free Dutch channels on 11914H you know you are halfway there :)
 
Well, what a saga this has been!

I tried your suggestions yesterday, but to no avail. Nothing would lock on except the 'other' satellite I had before. I decided to call out a local firm to align the dish for me. The chap who came left after 20 mins saying he couldn't do it! He did suggest a tree might be in the way, so I got a tree surgeon out to prune it back drastically.

Today I called out another firm who quickly lined up the dish, (they actually moved it to the North) but my box still reported no signal. Luckily they had a box to test it, and it worked fine, so decided my box must be faulty. I got out an old Amstrad Sky+ box, but it will only stay on for around 5 mins at a time before going to standby. It did prove the signal was OK though and I tested my sat finder with the good signal - not a twitch, meaning that's faulty too!!!

Just to top it all off, my Compro Freesat HD PC card won't pick up a digital signal. The only options it offers are analogue, the digital one is greyed out. I'm currently waiting for Compro support to get back to me about this issue. So, still no satellite for me:-(

Thanks for your input, I'll get there in the end!

Richard.
 
If you're using a (working!) Digibox then, when you eventually find Astra 2, the background music starts playing which is very handy. Incudentally, I'm assuming that you're using the signal quality (not strength) bar in the Services section.
 
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