Receiving Astra 2D and Astra 1 with 1 Dish

[xerxes]

4 cm seems a bit much. Maybe your dish is aiming a bit too high?
How did you align your dish? Using your skybox but no direct sight to a TV?
I found my Panny's "meter" a bit slow in responding (if at all) to small adjustments of the dish. Without seeing the TV, even a small delay could cause a minor misalignment on Astra 2 .
Do you have a digital receiver other than the Skybox? I found that a analogue receiver is great for finding a satellite, but not as good for fine tuning as a digital one with a "real time" meter.

I aligned the dish initially using my Panasonic 30's "Signal Quality" indicator, and got the value up to 90% pretty quickly, without too much problem.

Still no BBC reception at that stage though - and no "no signal being received" messages either. But found did have poor quality picture for "The Amp" (EPG 469).

Moved the dish small amounts till I got good reception for "The Amp". Found at that stage had now got good picture with the BBC.

Later on noticed ITV (EPG 103) picture breaking up a bit - and picture breaking up badly on ITV2 (EPG 226). So moved dish tiny amounts again till I got good ITV2 picture.

At all stages signal quality and strength remained constant at 90%.

In other words, I used the actual TV pictures to fine-tune the alignment, rather than using the Signal Quality indicator or changing the default transponder.

I didn't actually notice any delay using this method. But then I was up the step ladders at the time adjusting the dish, and relying on my wife to call out about the picture quality. Must measure her reponse time when I have a spare moment.

As you've already pointed out, Tom34, it doesn't take much to lose the 2D signal - so I really think my dish is now pointing pretty accurately at Astra 2.

I might have been a bit out with the 4 cm measurement, as I held the LNB completely in front of the multifeed rail, and the LNB might have been pointing upwards a bit. It was all very rough and ready.

Found the Astra 1 test-card quite good for positioning the Astra 1 LNB, but always had more sparklies on ARD than with the test-card. Trouble is, it's difficult to minimise the sparklies when the picture keeps on changing. Of course, you being digital, you wouldn't know anything about sparklies ...

The only digital receiver I've got is the Panasonic Digibox. Probably stick with the 2 analog receivers for the forseeable future, as to replace them and the LNB with digital stuff would cost perhaps €300. There appear to be a few more FTA digital channels than analog ones on Astra 1, according to "Infosat" - but not many.

Checked Astra 1 reception this morning, and found it has improved a bit. Perhaps an obliging birdy has done its business on my finely balanced Astra 1 LNB, changing its alignment a fraction.

Xerxes

 

[Tom34]

I aligned the dish initially using my Panasonic 30's "Signal Quality" indicator,
At all stages signal quality and strength remained constant at 90%.

Of course, you being digital, you wouldn't know anything about sparklies ...

The only digital receiver I've got is the Panasonic Digibox. Probably stick with the 2 analog receivers for the forseeable future, as to replace them and the LNB with digital stuff would cost perhaps €300. There appear to be a few more FTA digital channels than analog ones on Astra 1, according to "Infosat" - but not many.

Checked Astra 1 reception this morning, and found it has improved a bit. Perhaps an obliging birdy has done its business on my finely balanced Astra 1 LNB, changing its alignment a fraction.

Xerxes

"Signal Quality Indicator" at 90%
Lol
Sounds familiar
As long as BBC stays visible during rain.. sounds like your alignment is ok.

I know about sparklies, went digital less than 2 years ago, but unplugged my analogue receiver only last November.

You are right, FTA digital on A1 is just some german, french, spanish and arabic channels, but no english ones...
Infosat? The "magazine"?

 

[xerxes]

"Infosat? The "magazine"?

Yes, that's: "Infosat - The Multimedia-Illustrated. Europes No. 1 for Sat & Digital Themes", or so it says (in German) on the front cover of the magazine I've got in front of me at the moment.

Don't know if you're familiar with it, but if you're not it's a very serious German monthly. Not like the UK's "What Satellite" at all. Has quite interesting info in it, like technical details of all the Astra 1 digital and analog channels, satellite footprint diagrams etc. And ads for equipment, of course.

Xerxes

 

[deepbluesky]

Hello, i just wanted to express my opinion about the "Sat-magazine" Infosat:
I have read it from 1993-2001 regularly and found out that many articles were published again and again, especially concerning Technisat-products. It's ok when someone starts learning from it but sooner or later many people have found out this what i said. Since the publisher is the same company that produces the Technisat equipment one should be a little carefull when reading it. In the first years when i was reading it, the quality was good but then it lost more and more. Everyone should feel free and decide which magazine is good or not. Me personally having read most european magazines for 10 years now can say, my favourites are
Tele Satellite International and for the greek speaking folks Digital TV Sat and those two are enough to be well informed about new equipment. Further on there are many useful forums like this one and so there's no need or more printed material. I have also heard that in the eastern european countries there are also good magazines like russian Tele Sputnik, czech, slovak, hungarian, polish and serbian ones (don't remember their names now) and those are quite good for technical topics because they are struggling more with low signal level and so they have to use more tricks but only few can understand the language.
Not to be misunderstood: Each magazine has its pros and cons, but none of them is Europe's No1 just because it's sold in german speaking area so much.

Best regards, Chris

 

[Tom34]

Yes, that's: "Infosat - The Multimedia-Illustrated. Europes No. 1 for Sat & Digital Themes", or so it says (in German) on the front cover of the magazine I've got in front of me at the moment.

Don't know if you're familiar with it, but if you're not it's a very serious German monthly. Not like the UK's "What Satellite" at all. Has quite interesting info in it, like technical details of all the Astra 1 digital and analog channels, satellite footprint diagrams etc. And ads for equipment, of course.

Xerxes

Infosat = Technisat's cataloge with a few "info's" .....
Used to be a good magazine, but that was some years ago.
Unfortunately there is no "good" Sat-magazine available, but there is lot's of infos on the net.

Have a nice weekend,
Thomas

 

[xerxes]

Thanks Thomas - you too.

I was planning to "re-engineer" my multifeed holder this weekend with a hacksaw and some nuts and screws, to position the Astra 1 LNB closer to your 2 cms below the Astra 2 LNB. But the gaffer-tape solution is working horribly well at the moment - Astra 1 reception just seems to keep on getting better all the time. Damm.

Was amazed my lash-up survived the storm and torrential downpour we had here last night, but it did. I have to admit actually that the LNB is in fact held quite securely to the multifeed rail with 1 of those plastic cable binder strips. The gaffer-tape is more for fine-tuning its position.

Occurred to me there's actually an advantage to the gaffer-tape solution, as it does allow you to rotate the LNB vertically and horizontally a fair amount, which you can't do at all when the LNB's in its proper holder, of course.

I suspect though that however I position the LNB I won't be able to get rid of all the sparklies - I'll have to go digital for that.

You seem satisfied with your Astra 1 reception, Thomas. Just what sort of LNB have you got? And what sort of receiver? I think rolfw recommended a cheapish "Topfield" in another thread. Got any views?

Xerxes

 

[Tom34]

Thanks Thomas - you too.

I was planning to "re-engineer" my multifeed holder this weekend with a hacksaw and some nuts and screws, to position the Astra 1 LNB closer to your 2 cms below the Astra 2 LNB. But the gaffer-tape solution is working horribly well at the moment - Astra 1 reception just seems to keep on getting better all the time. Damm.

Was amazed my lash-up survived the storm and torrential downpour we had here last night, but it did. I have to admit actually that the LNB is in fact held quite securely to the multifeed rail with 1 of those plastic cable binder strips. The gaffer-tape is more for fine-tuning its position.

Occurred to me there's actually an advantage to the gaffer-tape solution, as it does allow you to rotate the LNB vertically and horizontally a fair amount, which you can't do at all when the LNB's in its proper holder, of course.

I suspect though that however I position the LNB I won't be able to get rid of all the sparklies - I'll have to go digital for that.

You seem satisfied with your Astra 1 reception, Thomas. Just what sort of LNB have you got? And what sort of receiver? I think rolfw recommended a cheapish "Topfield" in another thread. Got any views?

Xerxes

I'm a bit surprised about those sparklies, maybe I should look for my old analogue receiver and hook it up on my system.

My LNB's, let me think, I've got 2 Mikrotechnics (I'll have to check the name) 0,6 db and a Humax 0,5 db on the big dish and a Samsung 0,6 db on the small dish.
The Humax is now used for Hotbird because the rain drops tend to stick more on it, and to me there was no noticable difference in reception.
My receiver is a X-Sat, but that's because we wanted to get dutch-TV, which is using Seca encryption. Reception of low signal channels is quite good.
I don't know how good the current models are, but ours is painfully slow when changing channels.

What receiver you should go for depends a lot on what you want to do. If it's only for free TV, get a cheap one, if you may want Pay-TV now (or in the future), get one with CI slot(s).
Can't give you advice on manufacturers or models.

 

[zizox]

how can I get software for receiver astra

 

[PaulR]

zizox

It would be better if you make your question into a new posting.

You will also need to give some more information such as:- what satellite you are trying to receive, what receiver you are using, where you are situated (if not in the UK), size of satellite dish, etc. In short, all information will help to get an answer.

PaulR

 

[paulllllll]

very interestinh

 

[TonyWhalley]

Xerxes, been reading about your great setup. I have recently moved into West Munich and over the weekend tried installing my Pace 2200 with Sky card, 1 metre Gilbertini dish and 0.3dB LNB.

What elevation is your dish set at as I continuously get no signal from teh Pace box which was working well when I left UK and I hand carried it so should not have any problem??

The metre seems to pick up Astra 1 and Eutel peaks OK and the dish is at about 28 degrees according to the mount

Please see this thread http://www.satellites.co.uk/php-bin/forum/showthread.php?t=28403

Tony Whalley