Advice Needed Relative newcomer requires set-up help please

[Xenoman]

Although I've been watching FTA German or British satellite TV for about ten years on my seperately purchased kit, I don't know much about how it all works.

I haven't watched German TV since analogue was switched off (I speak German fluently) but want to watch it again for the Formula 1 and MotoGP.

Until yesterday I had been tuned to 19.2E and watching channels from Astra 1KR etc and Astra 3. Signal 97% and quality in the high 60's.

Now we want to use our Technomate TM-5200 D M2 USB Super+ to record UK based FTA channels (our DVD recorder went belly-up last week), so I bought a Technomate 2600 motor, with the intention of switching between 19.2E and 28.2E as required.

I seem to have set it all up okay - I'm receiving Astra 1KR\L\M\2C at 19.2E; Astra 3A \B at 23.5E and Astra 2A\D\F at 28.2E - all at 97% for both signal and quality.

I'm receiving more British channels than ever before, all excellent pictures and audio, but all of my German channels have vanished. I'm pretty upset, as I've been playing with it for 3 days solid. Get such a great reception and now this! And the first Formula 1 live practice is tomorrow morning, very early on Sport 1.

Does anyone have any idea how this came about? It just seems inexplicable to me - yes, I'm a novice at this, but still. I have the LNB (inverto Single HGLN 40mm) skewed at approximately 6°, as recommended on THIS website, for Astra 1.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

[Mickha]

Have you now set up your dish and motor?
Are you using USALS to move your dish, or have you set it up using Diseqc 1.2?
If using USALS, check that you have entered your correct latitude and longitude, remembering that negative longitude readings = West.
Check lyngsat.com for the correct frequencies and try manually scanning in the German FTA channels.

 

[Xenoman]

Thanks for your reply.

I have it all set up nicely, but still without those channels.

I started off with USALS, but it was a couple of degrees off the best signals for each satellite, so I switched to Diseqc and stored the positions instead. I had the lat/lomg correct - I know it from my amateur radio activities.

I will try scanning the individual frequencies for the German channels - thanks for the advice.

 

[Xenoman]

Okay - I have sorted the problem now.

I ended up turning the dish on it's own mount (not the rotator) a couple of degrees back West. Remember I had to turn it a couple of degrees East of it's own setting, to receive the best signal from Astra 1 - which got me all the UK TV channels. So the situation is that I need to have two settings for the 19.2E satellite if I want to receive both German and UK stations from the one satellite.

However, rather than messing about like that, I just saved the bearing for the German channels, which also got me the German and other Euro channels from 23.5E and Astra 3, and use Astra 2 at 28.2E for all the UK stations.

So now I have everything I want, and was able to watch the F1 practice sessions on Sport 1, although having to put up with the awful commentary is a negative - but it's a price I'm willing to pay!