new French digibox advice please

[guerdeval]

A friend who already has sky box/TV which works fine has just bought from bricodepot a new digibox for connection to a 2nd TV, he has a dual LNB, the dish still points to Astra as sky is still OK, taken 2 cables from dish/lnb, one to sky box the other to the new digibox/tv but gets nothing on the new set up, uses scart to connect but gets no picture just describes a "rolling screen" effect, he has no computer at present hence my posting but I haven't seen it myself so cann't add anything further, any advice that I can pass on woud be most appreciated,regards

[Anton Redman]

Things he could have done wrong :

1. The French numerique/digital decoder/receiver should,even if no cable is connected to the dish and LNB, show a menu when it is switched on and the TV is set to the SCART. Check the SCARTS are pushed in properly and if that does not change anything test the box with another TV that can receiver French Terrestrial. Set what happens when you push various button on the French remote.

2. The Dual LNB may be a French one with a 6 degree split on the heads swop the second Co Ax to the Sky Digibox and check that the SKY box still works / has good signal quality when using the other head.

3. Check that you have purchased a numeric/digital box as opposed to an Analogue one which will output SECAM.

4. Check second TV with Sky Digibox and First TV with French Box.

Would be useful if you could post the make and model of French receiver as somebody may be using one for SKY.

 

[guerdeval]

many thanks for that I will pass it on

[Normy]

Hi

I am have a Systec numerique box with a twin LNB, bought from Leroy Merlin and I am having difficulty receiving Beeb and ITV, is it the box.

Any help would be appreciated.

John

[Anton Redman]

[quote user="Normy"] Hi I am have a Systec numerique box with a twin LNB, bought from Leroy Merlin and I am having difficulty receiving Beeb and ITV, is it the box. Any help would be appreciated. - John[/quote]

At the risk of being 'flammed' out of existance for an inaccurate use of twin I suggets the following. If you bought the equipment as a package from LM then it is likely the LNB contains two heads with an offset of 6 degrees so that a French buyer can aim it at one of the main satellite clusters. Suggest posting the model number so we can check if this is the case. 

If you have any friends with a working SKY digibox and instalation close to you suggest you do the following.

1. Borrow their Digibox and use it to align your dish. That way you will have far fewer things to do in order to get the dish pointed in the right direction.

2.  When you have succesfully done '1' then try and set the French box up to receive the SKY chanels. You may find you have to add 'transponders' -  'frequency'  'FECs' . The cheap French box which I use for UK Radioand Videoing FTA had none of the numerique channels on Antlantic Bird set up. Despite performing well once set up it was a the worst / most complex set up I have ever done. Far worse than a standard French PPV set up which was a complete doddle by comparison.

[Normy]

Hi Anton,

Thanks very much for the help, the digibox is Systec TNS - 4801. The antenne is Systec  85cm Monobloc I can post specs if you need them.

Thanks

John

[George]

I posted this as a reply on another forum, but it may be relevant in that I got absolutely no response from the digi box itself originally

Over Easter, while it was raining I bought one of those cheap offers from Castorama - Optex - with much the same result, couldn't access menu, suspected remote control was at fault, felt cheap and nasty, so what could I expect. Eventually I ran out of time and brought it back to UK with me.

Plugging it in to my system in UK, I got slightly further. A message saying "no signal" I think and then suddenly after pressing several keys it fired up. Was able to change the language and point away from the the default Hotbird etc to Astra 2 where it started picking up channels from my existing dish. It did place them towards the end of the list, but hey it was working. Going back to french house in June and look forward to starting all over again, when the pressure will be on for the World Cup. Will take my digi box this time though but not sure its going to work with the monoblock lnb.

Obviously I don't have the complete answer yet and certainly wish I had seen Antons advice on a Satellite forum first, but was too late and only saw that after getting back here.  The fact is I thought it was useless and annoyed with myself for buying it, but all is not lost yet and it remains to be seen if the monoblock itself will work with Sky as I did only bring the box back.

[Anton Redman]

The Systec box should be able decode BBC1 and ITV.  Which if any channels are you getting ?

If you can get any channels have a look at the link below and check that you are aimed at 28.2 degrees east ( Eurobird1 and Astra 2A 2B 2D) . Note if you followed the French instructions for finding Astra it is likely you were directed to Asta 1 which is are 19.2 degrees east and broadcasts lots of French FTA digital TV. Are you getting  and other channels ?

Link below has a list of Frequencies, SRs FEC which you may need to input to the box before it will receive them.

Whereabouts in France are you ?

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

[Normy]

We are in Charente Maritime.

We have a twin LNB, and get asian and arabic channels.

If I do line it up correctly will it search out Astra 2D automatically or will I have to input the perameters

I get lots of asian and arabic channels also Bloomberg, sky news BBC 24 etc.

I am out next week so any info I can gleam will be useful.

 

Thanks.

[Anton Redman]

If you have lined it up correctly and are getting SKY news then you have to tell the box about the other channels which exists. The box will then search / scan for them and will then add them to its menu.