Best receivers for Fringe Reception

BLUEPLATINUM said:
I have just had my 2.4m Raven dish tweaked and optimised for 2E. I am only receiving Vertical TPs but now have all the channels I need one way or another but some of them suffer slight to medium pixellation at certain times of the day.

I currently have Amstrad DRX-890 receivers and use the recording and catch up facilities all the time so I MUST have Sky boxes. I am wondering if any of the newer Sky boxes have better tuners that will relieve the pixellation problems.

I have squeezed every last bit of signal out of the dish and it is so close to perfect reception it is tantalising. Any ideas?
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that is impressive but i guess that was then and not anymore!

regards
 
The Octagon SX88 HD & Amiko A4K UHD Combo both have excellent tuners ideal for fringe reception.
 
Someone mentioned that Humax Freesat are best for fringe areas which we are here in Almeria Spain but a friend bought a new Humax 1100S and it finds no signal either on his setup or mine. Both of which work fine on any old receiver, mine on an old Sky receiver and my Gigablue and also an old Humax Freesat box. He really wants Freesat but I think that is the problem but I don't really understand as a non freesat box works fine. I think it must be something to do with a Freesat signal, if such a thing exists. Someone mentioned the epg signal but surely it would still show signal strength and quality in the setup but it shows nothing. Apologies for my ignorance but this is quite frustrating and looks like his only option is to send it back to Amazon. I just wondered if anyone had heard that the new Freesat boxes were less likely to pick up a signal in fringe areas.
 
A true Freesat receiver requires a signal from a specific transponder before it will load up channels, which for licensing purposes will probably be too weak in your region.

Try scanning outside the Freesat settings and see what you can get.
 
kilrail said:
Someone mentioned that Humax Freesat are best for fringe areas which we are here in Almeria Spain but a friend bought a new Humax 1100S and it finds no signal either on his setup or mine. Both of which work fine on any old receiver, mine on an old Sky receiver and my Gigablue and also an old Humax Freesat box. He really wants Freesat but I think that is the problem but I don't really understand as a non freesat box works fine. I think it must be something to do with a Freesat signal, if such a thing exists. Someone mentioned the epg signal but surely it would still show signal strength and quality in the setup but it shows nothing. Apologies for my ignorance but this is quite frustrating and looks like his only option is to send it back to Amazon. I just wondered if anyone had heard that the new Freesat boxes were less likely to pick up a signal in fringe areas.
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We have two Humax HDR 1100S Freesat boxes (latest one bought from Amazon, like your friend), no problems with new or older 1100s.
Pontevedra, Spain on NW Atlantic coast using 1.8m offset dish and an 8-way LNB. Return it to Amazon (free if you use Prime) and try another?
 
Channel Hopper said:
A true Freesat receiver requires a signal from a specific transponder before it will load up channels, which for licensing purposes will probably be too weak in your region.

Try scanning outside the Freesat settings and see what you can get.
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I did that and no problem whatsoever, found all the BBC ITV etc plus lots more but you don't get the functionality of Freesat - actually it's really messy fining channels. That's why I think it's to do with the epg.
 
Channel Hopper said:
A true Freesat receiver requires a signal from a specific transponder before it will load up channels, which for licensing purposes will probably be too weak in your region.

Try scanning outside the Freesat settings and see what you can get.
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I did that and it works absolutely fine, sees a strong signal and downloads lots of channels BBC , ITV etc which makes me think it's something to do with the EPG signal. If it doesn't see that in Freesat mode it sees nothing.
 
^^^ Just blown the dust off my old 1000s, still works good, with "not the very best" signal levels no problem using it in freesat mode.

Connect known good signal to lnb 1 in, do a reset (and software update check). The reset has fixed it for me when, after some random button pushing, being stuck in non-freesat mode.

About the tuner sensitivity, my Vu+ Solo2 is a better choice here for the weakest transponders.
 
kilrail said:
I did that and it works absolutely fine, sees a strong signal and downloads lots of channels BBC , ITV etc which makes me think it's something to do with the EPG signal. If it doesn't see that in Freesat mode it sees nothing.
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The Transponder that carries the EPG and other essential data comes in both H and V flavours. This has recently been shown by Forum Member @st1 to mean that LNB skew on the fringe is absolutely critical.

Have a look here
 
What size is the dish? Once you get to the southern border of Murcia a 1.8m dish is absolute minimum to receive 11426H, and the dish and LNB adjustment is critical.
 
Huevos said:
What size is the dish? Once you get to the southern border of Murcia a 1.8m dish is absolute minimum to receive 11426H, and the dish and LNB adjustment is critical.
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Yes 1.8m Famaval - ok on all other old receivers.
 
kilrail said:
ok on all other old receivers.
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That is irrelevant as they don't harvest data from the Freesat transponder.

The Freesat transponder is miles weaker than BBC/ITV transponders. Try to scan it on one of your other receivers.

28.2E DVB-S QPSK 11426 H 27500 2/3.
 
Lazarus said:
The Transponder that carries the EPG and other essential data comes in both H and V flavours. This has recently been shown by Forum Member @st1 to mean that LNB skew on the fringe is absolutely critical.

Have a look here
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As you can read in the other thread, I had exactly the same eperience as you with tuning Freesat.
My problem came after optimising dish to Atra 2G. The freesat transponder is in Atra 2E.
Because of the narrower beam-width of a 1.8m dish like your friend's, there is a noticeable difference between the two sats.

To do the initial tuning of the Humax, you need to get maximum signal *quality* from 11426H on 2E (as @Huevos wrote).
I could have done this by re-optimising the CM180, but it is now spot on 2G giving me the HD channels, so I'd rather not.
Luckily I had a 120cm aligned with 2E, and connecting this to the Humax did the trick.

So before sending the box back, you could try fine-tuning your friend's dish to point at 2E (use eg 10773H for initial alignment, then 11426H for fine-tuning). You ideally need a meter for this, although you may be able to do this with an STB.
Then do a Freesat tune to load initial network information.

A consequence may be that some of the HD stuff will not come in, but that's better than no Freesat.

Also, I don't think a different Freesat box will make much difference, is the signal quality that is the challenge here.
 
Lazarus said:
The Transponder that carries the EPG and other essential data comes in both H and V flavours.
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The above is slightly confusing. The transponder that carries the data is H polarised. There is a V polarised transponder on the same frequency but it is nothing to do with the Freesat transponder.

Also, a copy of the Freesat-EPG and Freesat-BAT is carried on all transponders on 28 east but a Freesat box only reads from these once it is already set up using the Freesat home transponder. So a chicken and egg problem exists. So for people that cannot receive the Freesat home transponder and still want the Freesat LCN and EPG it is possible to use an Enigma2 receiver running ABM and a modified provider file that reads from any strong transponder.

EPG data from the other transponders is identical to the home transponder but much lower bit rate. So it takes about 15 minutes for the EPG to populate fully with 7 day's worth of data.
 
Thank you for info. The problem is that it's a neighbour's dish so can't access it as he only paid for a single feed. I believe it's gone back already.
 
It seems identical boxes need not be so. I have three Manhatten HD boxes - all the same and connected to the same dish and LNB. A few days ago I re-tuned the non freesat channels to get a few newer stations and was surprised to find that two of the boxes gave me 132 channels but one only 54. Thinking I must have a dodgy feed lead or possible bad sector on my quad Invacom LNB, I swapped the machine for one of the others but it still performed the same on another feed. Just to double check I then moved one of the other boxes to the position of the poor performing machine and it worked fine giving all 132 non-freesat channels and thus showing the cables and the LNB on all feeds is fine. But why the big difference on two identical boxes - so they go soft for some reason?
 
In my opinion one of the worst Freesat receivers ever. Put an attenuator inline and turn down the signal level to minimum.
 
I know they are not well regarded, but for the price and performance they work pretty well here for me as a freesat box. A bit more friendly than my trusty Humax Foxsats but not nearly as selective or sensitive. I had not considered it being overdriven so will give the attenuator idea a shot. Maybe its not the worst of the three boxes but the best :)
 
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