Signal Strength but no Quality in Germany

[ndcoxhead]

I have installed a Sky Digital set up in mid-North Germany (Schwerin) using a 100cm dish and Pace receiver, but I only get very few Sky channels.
I get Sky News and some shopping channels, but nothing like BBC or ITV. I have a viewing card, which came with the receiver over ebay.
I assume I need a stronger signal by getting a larger dish and/or better decoder (Panasonic TU-DSB30 or Pace DS430N or similar) but would like to find out if it could be something else.
My LNB 'should' be low noise (it says 0.2d.

Can anyone point me in the right direction ?

Neil.

[Data from Sky decoder]
Signal Strength: (approx 80%)
Signal quality: (0%)
Lock indicator: not locked
Network ID: 0000
Transport stream: 0000

and the system details:

Manufacturer: Pace
Model number: 1.3.27
Version number: 9F0201
Serial number: 0003313*** (should I publish this?)
Viewing card number: 170090*** (should I publish this?)
Operating system version: 1.2S4FE
EPG software version: 3.4.4b

[some data from another (non-sky) decoder]

'LNB configuration' -
Satellite - Astra 2
LNB type - Universal
L.O. Low - 9750
L.O. High - 10600
22khz - off
LNB power - on
DiSWqC SMATV B

Transponder Edit
TP frequency - [7] 10818 Mhz
Symbol rate - 22000Ks
Polarization - Vertical

Channel list - 10818 22000 V V:2320 P:2320 A:2321

And it is 28.2'(E) Astra 2
And getting strength 70%, quality 0-22%

 

[Rob]

You are picking up channels like Sky News and the shopping channels as these are on transponders that you can receive, but channels like BBC and ITV are on transponders that are centred on England.

I'm no expert on this but I would imagine that you would need a much larger dish to pick up the BBC channels.

 

[rolfw]

If you are getting no signal quality and no lock or data stream, you are probably not aligned properly, or perhaps even on the wrong satellite.

 

[Low Profile]

Agreed, you are on the wrong satellite, this is confirmed by the lack of network ID.

 

[ndcoxhead]

Ok. Some more info that might be significant; The dish is fitted with a quad LNB (chess 1004 Ku-band LNB 0.2dB, RF:10.70 - 12.75Ghz) which is connected to a Chess multiswitch, which feeds 8 sockets in 3 flats (I also have another dish for German channels). But my flat is likely to be the only one that wants the Sky channels.
Could that impact the signal quality ?

 

[rolfw]

This may sound like an obvious question, but I'll ask it all the same, have you had a dish specially set up for Astra 28.2?

Did you do it yourself?

Are you sure that the LNB outputs are connected to the correct ports on the multiswitch, how many inputs does it have?

 

[ndcoxhead]

The dish is just for 28.2, it was installed by an electrician, not a specialist so I'm not sure about the multiswitch connections.
What I do know is that the decoder info for the sky channels I get (news, shopping, some 6-channels in one) reports that they are from 28.2. I could send photos of the info screens, but I wrote the data on a previous post.
I know the dish is the one that is supplying the signal because I tried adjusting the skew of the LNB which resulted in the signal getting worse but not any better.
I think the multiswitch has 8 inputs but I'm not sure. The 2 dishes each have quad LNBs going in it.
I'm thinking of getting a sat installer to come and check the dish alignment, I really want to get my UK TV for Christmas.
Should I try adjusting the dish a bit first ? I'm sure the electrician adjusted it as well as he could for the UK channels.
Does the decoder data just suggest that the signal is weak and that I need a bigger dish etc, or is there reason to believe something else ?

 

[rolfw]

If it is a quad LNB, then it will not work on most multiswitches, as only low band channels will work, it needs to be a quattro, the quattro has four outputs, one for horizontal low band, one for horizontal high band, one for vertical low band and one for vertical high band. These need to be connected to the correct ports on the switch, if they are not, very few if any channels will work.