Satellite Forums

johnsandywhite

Hi carolgavin. It sounds like you might be on the wrong Satellite. Slowly move it to the East and to the West. You will find lot's of signals. SKY (Astra 2) is where Sun (if there is any) is at around 11.30am. Hope this helps?

gaspode · Moderator

Hi Carolgavin

The signal strength meter reading is of no significance, it will read 60% if you point it at the ground! You need 60% or more on the quality meter to get a stable signal. Keep searching, you will find a satellite eventually. Just as a tip, ignore the inclination meter and set the dish just off vertical, that seems to be about right.
Following my saga last night the unit has been running on Astra2 now for about 17 hrs with no problem. It seems that the receiver doesn't like struggling with weak signals and locks up after a while. This may be the problem, rather than overheating as the receiver doen't seem to be getting too hot now, time will tell. Local store sold out by this morning so unable to make instant exchange and have decided to persist for now, there is a three year warranty if the unit turns out to be duff.

Gaspode

Brambles

Yep, as as been said the signal strength is of relative low importance when doing adjustments. Look at quality. When adjusting the dish always move it a small amount and wait a few seconds for the screen to update - there is quite a lack.

Once you have quality coming up you cando fine adjustments horizontally to find a max, and then do same vertically.
Now another tip. once you have the signal nice and strong, rotate the LNB slightly (say about 1 deg at a time) and see if you can improve further. (or rotate dish, but that is harder to do without losing vertical and horizontal settings.

Once you have the direction and all is working - check with your compass and make marks on it so you can repeat setup.
Hope this helps, if not fire another question.
Jon.

Brambles

Gaspode,
Whe you said your unit was overheating I think ypu also said you had it on 12volts at the time. What did you supply the 12v from. Just mentioninh as I would not be tempted to power directly from a bench battery charger.
Jon

gaspode · Moderator

Hi Brambles

No - I was powering from a gel-cell which was about half charged. I've had it powered up from 240v all day but will move it to the M/H tonight and let it run on the M/H battery for a while, it needs to stand 13+v really if it is to be of any use. I'm becoming convinced that the locking up problems are signal orientated as it hasn't faltered since being on Astra2 with a good strong signal.

Gaspode

Brambles

Hi again Gaspode,

It might have been caused by too low a voltage if the gel cell was only half charged. Bit agree with what you are saying about the satellite you were picking up. I have had strange things happen with mine occassionaly and I cannot remember what was displayed but it started to automatically scan the satellite I was watching and download all the channels settings on it. Did not overwrite what I already had but just added them onto the end.

The menu sytstem is all a bit strange at 1st but after playing around you soon get to know what is what.

I find it best to use the menu button (grey one below black) to see channels and pressing a second time puts then into alphabetical order.

carolgavin · Quiz Queen

Hi all, just a wee update on our satellite saga. We must be right tubes as we still can't get it to give us a picture Embarassed

. Do you know if it's affected by surrounding buildings? Our van is at the side of the house, which is in turn in a cul-de-sac with loads of flats on all sides. I didn't think this would matter so much aren't satellite waves kinda bendy? Anyhoo hubby kindly pointed out that I am useless in the techno dept, so I've retired to the computer to pick all your brains. I would catergorically deny I am in any kind of huff!

Chanstar

Yesterday I emailed for help after my troubles setting up. This is the reply I got
back. :-

The following steps might help you pan the dish in:

Go into the menu, select ‘Installation’ – the password should be 0000 unless you’ve changed it – and select ‘Antenna Settings’. Enter the details as follows:

Satellite: Astra 2

FTA Only: Yes

Leave the other settings.

At the bottom of the screens will be 2 percentage bars, one for the signal quality and one for the strength. Ignore the strength, the one you’re looking for is quality.
Someone should stay inside and monitor the quality reading while you are moving the dish. Now set the elevation angle of the dish to 21° (use the gradient at the back of the dish) and lock it there. If there is no gradient, have your dish almost vertical, tilted back by no more than 5°. Then point your dish south east, and start making your way south, VERY slowly – move it a fraction of an inch, wait a few seconds, then repeat… There is no point in scanning all the way south as the satellite you are looking for is at a south - south east (145°) bearing. You may well need a couple of sweeps back and forth to locate the satellite. The person inside should let you know as soon as they see some quality – even if it only flashes for a half a second – as it means you’re getting near or have gone over the satellite. Then use the quality to fine-tune the position of the dish. You are aiming for anything over 55% quality. When in place make sure the antenna is fixed very tightly as wind might move it and you will have to repeat the process. It will probably take you a bit of time as the dish is very small and needs to be set extremely precisely.

Once your antenna is positioned, on the same screen, select ‘Start search’, make sure ‘Satellite’ is selected and press OK. This will scan the satellite and retrieve any channel. When Astra 2 has finished scanning you can also scan for Eurobird – another satellite with 40 or so English channels that is at the same position as Astrta 2 – and the channels will be added at the end of the existing ones.
If after scanning you find that you don’t have the BBCs and all the other English channels, but instead some foreign languages ones, you have locked to the wrong satellite and will probably need to move your dish to the east a little. Remember Astra 2 is at 145° so there is no need to swing the dish too far south.

johnsandywhite

NO NO NO carolgavin. You must at least have clear sight to the South (slightly east of south actually). Satellite signals do not bend, they are beamed at an angle to the ground. Confused

carolgavin · Quiz Queen

Thank you very much. You know I was so sure they were bendy wee things, but you learn something new every day, I should have remembered about the beaming as Scotty on Star Trek once said that was how the transporter worked Laughing

Now all I have to do is find south Wink

Thanks again all. Very Happy