No satellite signal is being received

montaigne

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Our house in France has a satellite that the previous left. I bought a second-hand Amstrad DRX 400 from ebay pointed the dish (75cm) in the general direction and powered up. All I can get is "No satellite signal is being received". I've replaced the LNB and tried a different cable with the same result. Should I get some sort of signal even if the dish is not aligned properly? or is the digibox duff? Thanks
 

joeuk2000

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No.. a dish is not like a TV aerial, it has to be quite pointed quite specifically the transmitting satellite, as i found out when i set my system up, a millimetre up, down left or right when aligning the dish can make all the difference. Invest in a satellite meter, they are about £10 on ebay and worth every penny. Also its worth working out exactly where you should be pointing the dish to.

See my first thread http://www.satellites.co.uk/php-bin/forum/showthread.php?t=29202 theres some links on there which give you the parameters you will need

Joe :)
 

PaulR

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Where in France are you? 75cm should be large enough except possibly near to the Italian border.

I don't use any meter except what is visible on the digibox signal test (Services->4->6). You will need the digibox and a TV where they can be seen while you adjust the dish.

See h++p://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/ for an extremely helpful site telling you how to adjust the dish without expensive equipment.

PaulR
 

montaigne

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We're in the middle; half-way between Limoges and Angouleme. I've looked at satelliteforcaravans and what concerned me was the bit about not getting any signal strength at all.
 

PaulR

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Don't worry about the signal strength reading, this is fairly useless for alignment. Use the signal quality reading to get the dish spot on. With a 75cm dish you don't want to make the movements too coarse, also you have wait a few seconds before moving again as the quality reading takes time to show - if it's there at all of course!

Once you get a reading of quality check the NetworkID is showing 0002. Anything else and it's not Astra 2 you've found, Usually it's Astra 1 that you find so move the dish a bit east and a touch lower if necessary.

Just go out and try it!

PaulR
 

eghamhigh

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Here in the UK I use my neighbours' dishes as a point of reference for direction if I am trying to get a dish to pick up a satellite. So if you have any English neighbours there is a chance that they will have a dish pointing at astra. If you have any French neighbours they may have dishes pointing at the Hotbirds on 13E and you could use that as a start point.

And yes you have to move the dish very slowly as a digital receiver is slow to respond. Both sideways and up and down. The old analogue receivers are much quicker to respond.

I used to live in Angouleme a long time ago. Still have friends there.

Bonne chance
 

montaigne

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I tried to align the dish on Friday. I tried sweeping an arc from South to East and using a meter. The meter was getting power from the cable. I got nothing on either the digibox or the meter. Still stumped.
 

PaulR

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Just a thought. Do you know what type of LNB is fitted? If the dish was pointed at Atlantic Bird (5W or 8W I think) then it might have had a telecom LNB fitted. You need a Universal LNB.

PaulR
 

montaigne

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I thought it was the LNB so I've got an MTI 0.6 db Universal. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 

montaigne

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Got it! I used a satellite finder to start with and then used the signal monitor on screen. Skew made a big difference. Thanks for the help.
 

BGonaSTICK

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Well done. Feels good don't it?!
 
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