Pointing a minidish at Hotbird 13 deg E, and so much more!

hproductions

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Hi,

I am the proud owner of a Skystar 2 card that I've just installed and am having fun viewing BBC1 and a couple of Vegetable slicing, Thigh training, Lord praising channels.

At the suggestion of a couple of you guys I have an engineer coming round to point my dish at the hotbird satellite (13 deg E) - He seemed a little wary as to whether a minidish would do the job however. Any comments?

I read somewhere that with the one dish you can only expect to get a span of 10-15 deg's of reception. Haivng scanned for what I can get already with my dish pointing 28.3 deg E (I think that's right for Sky Dig?) I seem to be able to get some of the hotbird channels already, along with a few dodgy looking - is this possible or am I confusing what my software's doing?

I am the sort of person who needs to be able to envisage what the hell's going on with something technical otherwise I just stare blankly at people when they explain something to me - I think this is commonly known as 'pretty thick' :-)

So concequently if someone would care to explain how my software recognises a particular satellite for example that would probably help - I presume it doesn't actually 'look' 13 deg East when it scans for hotbird for example - I imagine there's something in the settings that differentiates between say Hotbird 1 and Astra 2? Is there a site anyone can point me to that gives the lowdown on what all the abbreviations refer to - NID's PID's and all that - I have What Satellite which has been really good at helping me understand how the whole crazy jigsaw fits together but there are still lots of pieces missing!

Here's another one that occurs to me - To get a specific satellite notoriously requires a great deal of accuracy in dish pointing I believe - so how come pointing accurately at one satellite allows you to pick up other several degrees out from the 'target' satellite?

And finally if anybody has made it to the end of this post, is there any free internet service provider that allows you to use your exisitng dialup connection for upload and satellite for download - I realise this is unlikely but you never know - I mean I can watch adverts for smoothy makers for free....

Thanks for your stamina,

Howard.
 

BGonaSTICK

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Whoa, lots to answer.

Here's my first attempt.

Your dish can only pick up transponders from a single satellite grouping at a time, i.e. one orbital location (if it only has a single LNB, like your minidish).

Larger dishes with multiple LNB's can have each one aligned to a particular orbital location, and as you say, the overall dish setup may span several degrees.

Your minidish is almost certainly too small to receive all the channels off of the Hotbird location but depending on your location and the prevailing weather conditions at the time, you should get maybe half to three-quarters if you're lucky

The channels that you a managing to scan at the moment just happen to be on the same transponder values as the ones that are on Hotbird.

Check www.lyngsat.com for a complete breakdown of what is where.

This is the best place to get all the explanation you need. You post, we answer. Easy!

No free sat-ISP's that I know of, but there are some 'free' data transponders where you can pick up as many free viruses as you like!

HTH

STICK
 

hproductions

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Brilliant! Thanks for the reply! I figured the apparent reception of hotbird channels was something misleading - now it's all clear - can I call you Stick?!

So I'd be right in saying that when the satellite guy points my dish at 13 deg E I can expect nothing more than what the transponders on that satellite transmit and anything else that purportedly is from another satellite is just a coincidence of frequencies and suchlike? Forgive me for sounding contrary but it's definately not another satellite? I'm probably imagining this but I'm sure some of the channels I've got from 'other' satellites were different? I'm probably just mistaken... No I'm deflinately mistaken, ignore me.

Thanks for the link too.

H.
 

BGonaSTICK

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hproductions said:
Brilliant! Thanks for the reply! I figured the apparent reception of hotbird channels was something misleading - now it's all clear - can I call you Stick?!

So I'd be right in saying that when the satellite guy points my dish at 13 deg E I can expect nothing more than what the transponders on that satellite transmit and anything else that purportedly is from another satellite is just a coincidence of frequencies and suchlike? Forgive me for sounding contrary but it's definately not another satellite? I'm probably imagining this but I'm sure some of the channels I've got from 'other' satellites were different? I'm probably just mistaken... No I'm deflinately mistaken, ignore me.

Thanks for the link too.

H.

LOL, that's OK m8.

Satellite dishes are very highly directional.

A car radio aerial is roughly omnidirectional, i.e. it receives signals equally well from any direction. TV aerials are directional in that you need to point them roughly at the source of the transmission.
Satellite dishes are extremely directional. It's the only way to collect enough signal from something so far away, transmitting at such low power levels. Half a degree either way will give you a hugely significant signal drop-off.

Trace one or two of your mystery channels from your transponder list back to the details on lyngsat http://www.lyngsat.com/hotbird.html . It's a bit painful at first, but once you've done a couple, your learning curve will take a major leap skywards.

With your SS2 (I have one too, it's superb) you will get nearly all of the channels coloured cream on that list - with an appropriately sized dish.

Not a bad idea to play with your minidish but if you're having an installer out anyway, I'd go for a new dish and LNB (the biggest you can stomach). It'll probably cost less that the installer visit itself. Or maybe just upgrade to a zone 2 Sky dish.

The five satellites at 13E tend to transmit with a lot less power than the Astra locations.

:)
 
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