Satellite help required

[Mutiara]

Hi,

I have two questions for anyone who can help please?

1. I already have Sky TV via satellite. Can I change the LNB to a 4 outlet LNB and have four separate SKY digiboxes so people can watch different programmes in different rooms? I lready have a 4 way LNB so is it as simple as it sounds?

2. I want to install a satellite dish for French TV reception. I have a dish and free to air receiver bought from Bicomarché a couple of years ago. My question is; I want to mount the dish today whilst the weather is good but was wondering if the satellite for French TV is roughly in the same direction as the astra one - ie: can I mount the new French dish next to the Uk dish? I don't want to put it up and then realise it needs to pointy in a completely different direction! If so can anyone tell me wher it should be pointing ( I will probably borrow a satellite meter for the fine tuning by the way!)

Mut

[Martin963]

With regards to Sky (Astra 2) and the 4 o/p LNB:   provided the LNB is a true 4 output one and provided it will fit onto the mounting of the dish arm,  then yes that's fine.   There is a type of 4 output LNB that is used in blocks of flats which outputs Hi/V Hi/H Lo/H Lo/V  but if you didn't ask for one of those then you're probably OK.   The gain of these 4 o/p LNB's can be marginally lower than a normal one  but if the dish works OK even under adverse weather conditions then this shouldn't be a problem.

There are various satellites on which French TV appears (Astra 1,  Hotbird,  and Atlantic Bird 3) but assuming you are referring to free-to-air then it will be Atlantic Bird 3.   In which case it is a shade to the west of true south.  Have a look at the sun at 13.30 ish CET tomorrow (it would have been 14.30 CET today!)  and it will be - very roughly - there (at this time of the year the sun roughly follows the satellite arc). 

So there's no reason why you can't mount the dishes near eachother provided they are on a south facing wall and there are no trees in the way,  but the French one will need to be pointing south ish whilst the Astra 2 Sky one is pointing a bit east of south.  If you see what I mean.

[Bannon]

It is as easy as fitting a quad LNB and running cable... but you would need a digibox at each location for watching different programs at the same time. If you wish to use your existing dish you may have trouble getting a quad LNB to fit as they do vary I'm afraid.

For Sky channels the dish points to the Astra 2d satellite at around 28 degrees east of south, for French channels you will need the dish pointing towards Astra 1 at 19 degrees east of south for Canal Plus, and Hot Bird at 13 degrees east of south for TPS and ABsat.

Hope this helps

www.centresatellite.com

 

  

[Mutiara]

Thank you both for your replies; The quad LNB worked a treat - it was a proper one for a sky minidish.

However I had no luck whatsoever with the French channels on Atlantic bird 3. The receiver I have is digital but although brand new was bought several years ago and didn't have this sat listed in the memory. I tried to enter it's details ( Frequency 12606 V, but didn't know what to enter in the other fields, such as Débit symbole ...KSPS ?? or numéro TP (transponder??) etc !!

I did manage to get the Hotbird satellite very easily but maybe this was because Hotbird was in the sat receiver memory already?? Any ideas please? I was told that the old name for Atlantic Bird3 was telecom 2C and did manage to get a signal using this satellite setting but when I searched for channels there was only a couple or screen banners. I only want the basic French channels -perhaps I need a analogue box instead of a digital??

Help!

Mut

[Martin963]

Well I'm not surprised you are having a certain amount of trouble as Bannon and I seemed to be giving you - on the face of it- conflicting advice!   I hasten to add that the advice doesn't conflict - Bannon and I are just coming from two slightly different directions!

Hotbird and Astra 1 only carry a limited number of French free to air channels.   That is why I suggested Atlantic Bird 3 (formerly,  as you correctly worked out,  one of the Telecoms (2B then 2D)).

The slight draw back to this is that the public service channels are FTA on AB3 due to a quirk in the way digital terrestrial TV has panned out.  There is a thread about this (FTA on Atlantic Bird 3 from a few days ago).

However,  the longer the quirk remains the more likely it is to become permanent.   But I digress.

The parameters you need are 11.591 GHz,  vertical pol,  SR 20000 FEC 2/3.  http://www.lyngsat.com/ab3.html

If you can,  key this lot into the receiver and then wave the dish around whilst watching the signal meter (assuming this is how you're doing it!).   If necessary you might need to tell the receiver that you are creating a new transponder with these details as - as you say - when the receiver was made the parameters were not known.   Otherwise modify the details of a transponder that you don't need to use.

It has to be said that the analogue route is in some ways the safer one,  but in trying the digital feeds on AB3 you would have the dish pointing the right way if they are eventually switched off - all you would have to do is get an analogue box which would be pretty cheap and connect it up to your AB3 dish. 

On this digital transponder you have all the main networks minus TF1 and M6,  but with France 4,  Arte (24 hr version) and France 5 (24 hr version) and the parliamentary channels as bonuses (bonii?)

Please come back if there is still a problem

 

[Mutiara]

 Thanks again but I am still having problems!

Are you certain that atlantic Bird 3 will give me the FTA channels on a digital receiver? I cannot seem to lock on or find this satellite. I have found hotbird no problem, along with a few of the other satellites, but no luck with AB3.

Maybe I am not entering the transponder settings correctly. I entered 11591 MHz vertical, but am not sure what you mean by the SR 20000 FEC 2/3??  The only other important looking field to enter that I have in my Worldsat digital receiver is "Débit symbole"  in Ksps ? I entered the figure of 20000 in that field. To give you a guide, the hotbird satellite pre - programmed into this receiver has 27000 ksps in this field. I was also told that the frequency of the AB3 was 12606 V, so should I try this frequency instead. Or perhaps, as you have already hinted I should go down the analogue route - or just put up a French TV aerial

Mut

[Martin963]

Mmmm.... difficult to say.  You've certainly put the 20000 in the right box - the trick may be persuading the receiver to save this data and then give you a signal meter for this frequency (11591 MHz) to look at whilst you play with the dish.  On mine the signal display comes up straight away when you've entered the parameters,  but I know on some you have to press save or OK and then "look" at this transponder on a different menu...

The 12.606 GHz (12606 MHz) is one of the analogue transponders.   If your receiver is in fact trying to display the signal strength for this one it won't show anything as the digital giblets won't recognise the analogue signal.  Which makes me wonder whether indeed you haven't "persuaded" it over to 11591 MHz.  On some receivers you can "create" a new satellite position;  you could try that from scratch and put in 11591 MHz as the "default" frequency.

One way round it is to find someone with a working AB3 dish and set your receiver up on it (11591 MHz) so that you are confident that it's all functioning correctly and that the signal meter is OK.   Save the channels so that you can be sure,  then go back to your place and work from there.

About the best I can think of from over here in Devon.....

Maybe Bannon has an idea as he's probably familiar with all sorts of receivers' menus.

Laters:  just one other thought - hope I'm not insulting your intelligence here:  AB3 being nearly due south is a little higher in the sky than Astra 2/1 and Hotbird.  You can just about get the other three by swinging a dish round horizontally with no adjustment to the tilt,  but by the time you get to AB3 it does need a slight lift in comparison.  Just a thought.

[Mutiara]

Thanks Martin, unfortunatly I've run out of light now here in Northen France to dp any more tonight!

Interestingly, Telecom 2C must be very near to AB3 as I got a good lock on to that sat and thought maybe it was named wrong in the sat receiver. When I looked at the transponder seetings they were nothing like the AB3 ones so I suppose couldn't be the same satellite?  I will try and fine tune the dish more, and thanks for the elevation tip too! I have the dish on the ground on a pole right next to the TV so am trying to make things as easy as possible for myself . I will have another fiddle around with the box, although I did save the settings for the new sat when I programmed it into the box.

Will keep you informed or progress and much thanks for you help,

 

Mut

[Martin963]

Without going back into the dim and distant past I can't remember,  but I'm pretty certain that if you've found what your receiver thinks is 2C then you've hit what is actually AB3.   I say I can't remember 'cos the French spent a lot of time trying to keep the service at 5 deg west going with a lot of fairly moribund satellites (2B and 2D certainly) and most of of the 2* were at 5 deg west at some point....

Anyway, you can check easily as the only other thing likely to float your receiver's boat in this locality in the sky is 8 deg west where 2D and AB2 are located (and not doing much).

So I should try a scan of 11591 MHz on the one you've found and keep fingers crossed.

Report back please (I'm getting interested) but as it's dark here in Devon I'm going off for the evening....

Best of luck - links below should tell you which sat is which

http://www.lyngsat.com/ab3.html

http://www.lyngsat.com/8west.html

[Mutiara]

Eureka!

At last I managed to figure it out ! The problem was the sample rate (or Ksps in french ), that I had previously set up was 19636 (from the BIgDIsh sat website) with frequency at 11590 Vertical. When I changed the sample rate to 20000 at the same frequency, the signal shot up from a dissapointing 30% to 95% . Now don't ask me why this should be but it now it works fine, thanks to your help

Now you will never believe the next bit.........Her indoors and the kids now say why haven't we got M6 and TF1???? I can't win, can I?

So my next question is:are;

What would be best to do to get these two channels - are they available on an analogue receiver on the same sat AB3 ? Or would you suggest I either get a French TV aerial or a motorised dish?

Regards,

Mut

 

[BJSLIV]

If you look at the Lyngsat page listed above, you will see that TF1 and M6 are indeed available on AB3 but only in Analogue. If you want Digital quality you will have to pay for a TPS package  over on Hotbird!

[Martin963]

Glad you got it working - I was beginning to run out of inspiration there!

Some families living near us in 24 would applaud you for NOT having TF1 and M6 - at least one lot consciously chose Canal Satellite for the fact it doesn't transmit these channels, and then ditched their terrestrial aerial so that the kids wouldn't be sullied by them.

The picture quality on analogue AB3 is actually superb as it is used for the back up feed to the terrestrial analogue transmitter network.  However it is in SECAM (nothing wrong with that if the signal is good) except that if you have a UK sourced set it probably won't display it in colour.  But €40 ish for a receiver is often a lot cheaper than getting a UHF roof aerial up and running.

So it's a toss up really depending on what TV you have and what state the roof aerial is in (if it exists).