Analogue angst Forums

Braesman

When I bought my van ('92 Hhmer 544) it came equipped with a satellite dish and portable satellite receiver. Great!, I thought, just what I wanted. All the accompanying literature was, of course, in German, but no matter, I can cope with the aid of Babelfish.

But, is it any good? As far as I can understand, the eqipment is strictly analogue, and now the world seems to be all digital. My dish is a Kathrein BAS 50 "Die neue Flachantenne fur unterwegs und fur zu Hause" mounted on an ASU-Sat-Gelenkmast A 80, in other words a square dish sitting on a rotatable, tiltable mast that really looks the business.

The receiver box is a Kathrein UFD 45, with 99 channels and a remote controller. It all appears to be in working order, I can get the box to generate a tuning signal which my TV undertands, but as for TV programs ---- zilch!

Reading the literature, it appears that I should be looking for Astra 1A, 1B & 1C at 19.2 East. Are they still up there, and what do they broadcast? I don't have any kind of satellite finder, and taking compass bearings gets me nowhwere, and I'm wondering if I may be outwith the range of any of these transmitters. (I'm in Aberdeenshire, at 57 degrees 27 minutes North, 2 degrees 44 minutes West).

Am I wasting my time. and should I stick to East Enders via a set-top aerial, or is it worth persevering with the best of German technology? Will it all work perfectly once I leave Civilisation behind and travel south of Edinburgh?

As you may gather, I'm a complete novice when it comes to satellite TV. At the moment, all the dish does is increase the overall height of the van, and if that's all it's good for then it's coming off.

Any advice will be welcome.

Anonymous

Yes Analogue is stil there on Astra 1 and will be for quite some time yet. You can watch Eurosport in English and CNN. There are a few more channels, but mostly in German. If you had Digital you could also watch free to air such as RTL, DSF, Vox plus 1000's of others Free to Air again mostly German with some French. If you had access to a Dutch system like we do, you would have access to around 60% English speaking programs. We have an Automatic Kathrien (now not automatic) which we use to tune to Astra 1, then step it round to Astra 2 to watch SKY free to air. Hope this helps. Very Happy