Digital satellite receiver

[maconnaisemaconnaise]

We lost our (bedroom) Neotion digital satellite receiver in a thunderstorm. On it we could receive BBC 1,2,3,& 4 & ITV 1,2,3,4. BBC news, CNN & sky news etc. The local telivision shop has supplied a new Triax make which has no ITV stations listed. The new box seems to get the BBC channels on Astra 2A/2B/2D but has other satellites listed like Hotbird, Atlantic bird, Eurasia sat etc.

The original television set up in the lounge has a PMB digital satellite receiver that receives all the BBC & ITV channels but it says it receives from Astra 1. The bedroom television uses the same dish.

Shouldn't they be tuned into the same satellite?

Do the different makes of digital satellite receiver vary in the channels that they can receive or can they be programmed in?

I cannot find channel 4 listed on either box is it possible to find this?

[AnOther]

Something is wrong because you cannot possibly receive Astra1 & 2 on the same dish, Astra1 is at 19.2deg whilst Astra2 is at 28.2deg

If you were receiving the UK channels you mention then deapite what your other receiver is telling you you must be pointing at Astra 2

I am not familiar with Triax boxes but it may well have a facility to select which satellite you wish to use (Astra2) and a scan function to find all the relevant channels.

EDIT: You may find this thread useful in finding CH4 http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2/1388560/ShowPost.aspx#1388560

[Anton Redman]

Link below NB tales a while to load should give details of all FTA channels. The Triax must have somewhere in its menus where you can do scans for new channels but you may have to input the parameters first. Please let us know how you do.

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/skyuk.html

[Martin963]

Ernie & Anton have covered this,  but it's quite a common problem - I come across a number of boxes that list Astra 1 as their source but are actually using Astra 2.

The reason - generally it's European boxes that haven't been set up properly when first switched on.  So they assume they're going to be used on Astra 1 (sometimes Hotbird as well/instead of).

In practice it makes very little difference,  it simply means that the box looks at a different list of frequencies when it does its first scan.   For Astra 1 and Astra 2 the list is pretty similar (after all they're both engineered by Luxembourg Astra HQ) but explains sometimes why ITV (say) is missing from the scan list and has to be added subsequently.

And if you try a scan on say AB3 with Astra 1 as the default you'll probably get a msessage to say no channels found.

As Anton implies,  you need to do a manual scan on the frequencies listed on lyngsat for the channels you're missing.   There's an "add channels/manual scan" facility on all boxes of this sort,  but it's difficult to tell you how to find it as even same make boxes have different menu structures.

Come back if you get stuck!

[maconnaisemaconnaise]

Thank you Ernie, Anton and Martin for your prompt replies. I couldn't carry on experimenting last night as yet another thunderstorm meant that I unplugged everything. I can see how I will be spending today!

I find this very difficult so the chance of me getting stuck is pretty high!

[Tim]

As you can see, there are quite a few people on this forum who have 'played' with many different makes of digital boxes. As Martin says, the menus vary, even between the same make of receiver.

When setting up these things I got fed up with all the different satellites that came 'pre-loaded' when switching on for the first time, so I usually delete the lot. Then, with the help of a print out from one of the satellite info pages on the net, I  just scan and re-load the transponders and frequencies of the channels I want. I've found it better than getting a load of stuff I don't want and going through and deleting them.

Still, good luck. What better on a wet Friday afternoon?

Regards - Tim

[maconnaisemaconnaise]

I am giving an update before I have the breakdown.

The PMB digital satellite receiver responded very well and we now have channel 4 too. Fired up with this succes I put everything I wanted onto the favourites too!

Then I went on to the other ‘Triax’ box. Each day I have an hour of frustration before giving up and doing a factory reset because I’ve lost everything!

After reading on:- re: lost channels.

Anyway,  in some circumstances you need to delete the current channel parameters and *then* do a rescan.   If that doesn't work a full factory reset normally sorts it out.

However,  BEFORE you do all that,  are you sure you're using the latest parameters.  See

http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html

If you have to do a factory reset,  you may STILL not see all the British channels,  because the "master list" of transponders may not be up to date.   So aftre the initial full scan you may STILl need to manually add the missing transponders.

But before you do the drastic stuff,  first try a manual scan on 10714 MHz  H 22000 kbps and 11954 H  27500 MHz and see what you get.

I’ve tried all this and now I seem to have lost everything and the channels don’t come back with a factory reset. I have the lyngsat sheet printed out.

For the Astra 2A/2B/2D satellites you only have the options of transponder 1 to 24 and under Astra 1 you have transponder 1 to 45. So for eg: 10832, tp 49, 22000 H 5/6 is not possible. When I scrolled through the to get to 10832 it gave a transponder of hash 2 but you can’t change to anything or I get the message, “ can not change theis transponder--channel data exist”

I tried the system software update service but it says “Invalid of no signal”

[Tim]

Ok - a long post, so I'll try a bit at a time.

It seems as if you're having problems inputting a new transponder on one of your receivers. I hope I've understood that far. Have you tried adding a transponder? As has been said previously, all these boxes vary somewhat in their operation and I had a similar problem with a friend's machine - he wasn't able to tune into the latest channels because the transponder wasn't listed. I found 'Add Transponder' on the menu and away it went.

Is that of any help?

Regards - Tim

P.S. - I shouldn't worry too much about the software update - as far as I know, most of these take place on Astra 19e or Hotbird 13e and your dish is not pointing in the direction - I don't think!!

[Martin963]

Tim's idea seems very sensible.   Assuming nothing else is wrong and you still can't "edit" individual transponders the only thing I can think of is to actually "delete" them one at a time (eg 10832 MHz,  I guess you may have two sets of parameters for this frequencies so you might have to delete both)  then "add" it again as a new transponder (with the corrected Lyngsat parameters) and then do a scan.

You do seem to have a particularly stubborn box and I'm sorry if my advice on the other thread has caused you more grief than success - we will do our best to sort you out,  although without being able to see th ewretched thing it isn't always easy!

[maconnaisemaconnaise]

Thank you all for trying to help me. I did actually find how to add transponders but each time I altered something other numbers whizzed round and the 'OK' wasn't saving.

The television shop who delivered it at the beginning of August only found the two BBCs on the factory setting and said that they would be back to put the channels I wanted onto the favourites. They didn't say that the shop was closed for the rest of August!

Then the younger technician came and couldn't do it and said that he was sending the other one. Three weeks and several phone calls later they both came, spent a long time doing the same as me and then the elder found how to get 'sauvegarde' up. Result, after 3 hours the programs were in. Now I don't feel so thick.

With straight faces, they said that they only supply the one make of receiver because they know it.

[Martin963]

Superb!    Absolutely superb!

Some of these boxes have counter-intuitive menus,  to put it mildly.

Glad you've been sorted though...

[Tim]

Likewise - I'm glad you've managed to get it to do something!

 

Tim