FreeSat.

[williamwright]

No they're all different.

Bill

[williamwright]

Yes.

Bill

[Andy Burns]

[tim...]

I've got one of those (currently unconnected as new house doesn't have a sat feed)

I've never had (nor seen) an app for it

[Dave Plowman (News]

Since it's very easy to get at from the roof terrace, I've dug out the motor instructions and compass etc and am going to start from the beginning.

I'm pretty certain the mounting is solid and plumb and hasn't moved.

[T i m]

<snip>

So are you saying it has previously worked ok with the same dish / LMB / mount (and you don't believe it's moved since)?

If so, whilst it might not hurt to check the settings (if it's easy to get at as you say) then it might be worth / also considering other aspects, like (guessing) the polarizer? Could it be possible the TV uses it differently to the previous setup?

Is this all on a single coax (I've only really had hands on with systems with separate polarizers (/ shotgun / FO8 cable etc) but the principles should be the same)?

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Plowman (News]

A guarded yes. But I've not really used it lately.

The first thing I noticed was the dish wasn't square to the drive in the 0 position. Used a large set square to get it a lot better. Then set the whole lot pointing south using a compass. After wasting time on true south over magnetic south. And finding the compass changed if I moved it along the parapet wall a bit. So may not be ideal. Motor elevation angle was correct on that scale, as was the dish angle bracket.

Found Astra 28 on the TV and stored it. Did a FreeSat tune which took only a few seconds and everything appears to be there.

So Bill was 'wright' again. ;-) Perfectly possible to get some of the Astra 28 group but not all, if the dish is off alignment.

[T i m]

<snip>

Gdgd.

Cool.

I think *all* bets would be off if the dish was out of alignment. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Plowman (News]

It's also not knowing what you can get away with. On the dish bracket, each degree marking is about 1mm apart. And the setting I got was 22.7. With the pointer being about 2mm wide.

I sort of assumed with a 1 metre dish it would be pretty tolerant. Find any one of the Astra group and the others would be OK. But not so - obviously.

[T i m]

Quite, something I learned very quickly whilst installing 10 satellite systems. The first one took 'some time' to understand / get right then after that I couldn't see why it took so long the first time. ;-)

Yeah, great. ;-(

With a single LNB you only get a few degrees of latitude and I think they are ~6 degrees apart ... so you could easily be 'off tune' for some of the group if you were focused on one of the outliers (and worse if you were on the edge of the window in the wrong direction on one of the outliers).

Like using a torch with a very tight beam to try to light up your whole back garden from the back door.

Multi Satellite is a fun step up from single Sat and both over terrestrial DTV and that is the same from ATV. ;-)

The shame is (often old) people paying to have their new DTV 'set up' when in many cases you just plug it in and follow the onscreen prompts and it does it all for you (unlike the old ATV where you had to manually tune each button and the video etc). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Richard]

The app, either ios or android, lets you do a variety of things. Mixed reviews.

If your box is connected to the internet, the app can be useful if you have a need for it.

[williamwright]

If you look at the full spectrum at 28E on an analyser and gently pull at the rim of the dish you can see some signals strengthen whilst others weaken.

Bill

[NY]

I imagine it depends on TV firmware as to whether the TV asks for a postcode to tune to the muxes on transmitter that is designated for that postcode, or whether it just does a scan from UHF 21 to UHF 68 to see what it can find. Usually you end up with all the muxes from the *same* transmitter, but I have seen cases when you get a mixture: before the aerial at my parents' holiday cottage was upgraded (presumably from grouped to wideband), there were problems that an auto scan would pick up some muxes from Bilsdale (the "correct" transmitter for that locality) and some muxes from Emley Moor (which is miles away over several hills). Until we had the aerial changed and a kink in the cable that fed the aerial wall-box repaired, I had to manually tune each mux to prevent it finding Emley. I presume, because of the old aerial's selective gain in different parts of the UHF spectrum, some Emley muxes were actually stronger than some Bilsdale ones. There is also the issue of atmospheric "lift" causing distant signals to be stronger at certain times, which is a problem if you retune at that time.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Right. I'd guess a spectrum analyser would be a bit of a luxury for me, though. ;-)

I did quite a bit of Googling on setting up a motorised dish. Most of the Utube stuff just confused me, as I simply wanted an idiots guide.

So here's mine:-

Make sure the mounting pole is truly vertical. That could be tricky working off a ladder.

Set the motor to 0. Mount the disc making sure it is pointing straight ahead, relative to that 0. Some dishes may not have a big enough flat on the back to use a set square, so measure from each side of the dish to the motor centre. Make sure the dish mounting is the correct distance up the motor mounting tube.

Set the elevation on the motor adjustment, using the motor maker's data. And then the disc bracket angle.

Now rotate the motor mounting to point due south. I found a phone app better than a compass.

My receiver then found all the satellites in its list - with the exception of a couple to the west where my dish is looking through a thick large chestnut tree.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Pretty well every TV I've seen in the last many years asks for your country and town, etc, before tuning.

Of course if you live in a remote area, you may have a choice of transmitters. and may want to choose the one which gives you all the progs you want.

[williamwright]

TV reception being what it is, the strongest signal might be the wrong signal.

They get a grandchild to do it.

Bill

[williamwright]

A remote area like South Yorkshire, with Crosspool, Emley, Bilsdale, Waltham and Belmont all competing for the TV set's attention!

Bill

[Dave Plowman (News]

Is that still the case with digital?

[williamwright]

Yes. It might be the wrong region. For example

1. Most of N Yorks gets a stronger Bilsdale than Emley but Emley is the correct region.
2. Some areas of Sheffield get monster signals from Crosspool but they are unreliable due to tree screening, so people tend to use Belmont.
3. Some coastal areas are affected by tidal fading so people tend to use a weaker signal from an inland tx.

Bill

[T i m]

Noted.

;-)

Or often along this row of cottages, yours truly. ;-)

That said, I think I've probably had to re-enable more things that they disabled because of finger trouble on digital systems than I have tuning or re-tuning analogue stuff.

Tell me if this sounds familiar ...

<Ding dong> ... Hello <yourname>, I'm sorry to trouble you again but I think I have broken something on my TV as I was just going to watch what I recorded yesterday and I pressed something and now it's all gone black but would you be able to come along soon and look at it for me and tell me if I need to replace something <we are now walking along to hers ...> as Cynthia and Joan are coming along at 2 and we are going shopping but I wanted to watch it before they come round as they will want to talk about it and we won't be able if I haven't watched it yet <going into their place> ... thanks for coming along and I'm sorry to bother you again but I phoned Darren and he said he can come round this evening and look at it for me but oh ... you've got it working ... thank you so much, what would I do without you ... can I give you some cake ... ;-)

Cheers, T i m