Radio from Astra Satellite

[Gyn_Paul]

Has there been some sort of change to the availability of free-to-air radio from the satellite in the last few days?

I ask because we returned home from a short trip to find that our

dedicated receiver (French, so obviously non-sky) which is permanently

tuned to R4 is giving out nothing, and my friend and neighbour says his

free-to-air receiver now says 'scrambled'  on his R4 setting (mine

makes no distinction in the listing so I can't tell).

My first thought was that the receiver has cooked in the hifi cupboard,

as the 2nd feed from the 4-way LNB to the TV and Sky box works fine.

Before I grovel around in the mare's nest of cables and try to swop the

receivers around I'd appreciate a 'heads up'

p

[trumpet]

Yes, you need to re-tune. Or a network search.

[Tim]

Yes, they've moved - well apart from 5 live that is.The info you need is :- Frequency: 11.95350 GHz  Horizontal polarisation Symbol rate: 27.5 FEC2/3

 

Tim

 

[Gyn_Paul]

Hmmmm....

Something odd going on: a full auosearch reveals about 68 TV channels

and no radio channels !  More investigation needed, I fear !

But thank you both for your swift responses.

p

[Tim]

Well, I would have advised against a full search because you usually end up with a load of junk channels.

Question - are you getting BBC Parliament? If not, then your box probably does not have the transponder that contains the new frequency for the radio channels loaded.

In that case, go back to menu and perform a manual search and input the parameters from my previous post.

If you do get BBC Parliament, try deleting it and then manually input the parameters.BBC Parliament's frequency also carries the radio channels you are missing.

I'm sorry I can't be more precise as I don't know what sort of box you are using - apart from it's not a Sky box - and they vary quite a lot.

It may be that you have to do something such as selecting to load a new transponder first. These are sometimes abbreviated to TP.

Let us know how you get on.

Tim

[Anton Redman]

On one of the French purchased receivers which I have there is an option for Radio or TV search buried in the menus. 

[Gyn_Paul]

Thanks Anton,

 

Now this is getting more and more weird...

I spent much of last night watching a receiver on a 12" screen slowly finding

everything (well, everything but the stuff I want) to no avail. If I plug a

skybox into the 2nd feed I get R4 with no problem, but neither of the French

receivers, when asked to search for everything, comes up with anything on 11954H

/ 27500 either on a full band search or a single transponder

search.

 

Is there any way of finding the actual

frequency of a channel on the skybox?

 

p

[Anton Redman]

If you try the add channels options from the menu oin the ski digibox ( 4 then 4) using the parameters you have been using it will either find them again so you could add them or it will not in which case you will know the parameters are wrong.

[Gyn_Paul]

A sort of reverse engineering solution !

I'll give it a try after we've sat through Laurent Romejko's latest

dire meteo.. (we have a fete on Saturday.... en la champs ou en la

salle?)

p

[Gyn_Paul]

Well I tried that on the 2nd sky box and it found all the missing

channels at once. So why, I wonder won't either of the French ones do

it?

Most odd.

You may be wondering why I'm bothering about either of the French

boxes, and not just leaving the 2nd sky box in place. The reason is

because it feeds a small FM Transmitter which gives us R4 on radios all

round the house. The Skybox line out is a bit too high level and

overloads the transmitter causing the signal to distort, the little

French boxes allow one to tweek the level with the remote; a feature

sadly lacking on a sky box. I suppose I could always rummage around in

my box of bits and see if I can find a stereo pot to pad it down a bit.

What do you think Anton, -  100k log ??

p

[Anton Redman]

Ideas :

1. Are the French boxes memories full ( 999 stations ?)

2. Have you tried 11953 rather than 11954 ?

3. Do you get BBC Parliment TV on the French Boxes ? ( SID 6902)

Link below is straight from the horses mouth

http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/info/sat_frequencies.shtml

 

[Tim]

Glyn, I've had strange anomolies on one or two of these boxes, but you didn't say whether you get BBC Parliament as I asked yesterday ( and someone else has also asked today). This may give us a clue as to what is going on here.

Also I asked what sort of box is it? Again, it may give us a clue. Quite a few of these boxes have passed through my hands over the years and it may be one I'm familiar with.

I can't guarantee anything from a distance, but some of these answers may help.

Incidentally, a friend is interested in a system that can pipe radio around the house - can you tell me what you are using for that.

Tim

[Gyn_Paul]

The two boxes are a Samsung DSB 9401F which i am about to take by its

fixed mains lead, whirl it round my head, and project it as far up the

garden as my strength allows. I've had it with its endearing habit of

letting you get 3 levels into the setup memory and then freeze.

The other one is an Echostar DSB 707 which is much better behaved,

although it really needs connecting to the PC and having its software

updated, just as soon as I can find an RS23whotsit nul-modem lead.

The good news is that I've finally convinced it to search for and find

the channels on the right transponder. I was watching it 'finding' channels

whilst at the same time I scrolled through the Astra listing on Lyngsat and realised that

the transponder frequencies it said it was scanning were producing

channels actually on quite different frequencies.

So I re-installed the LNB, changed a few configurations, and finally  the contents of Astra 2A transponder 13 (R4, Parliament et al) were displayed.

phew!

Thanks to all for you contributory head-scratching

paul

[Tim]

Well done Glyn - you have moved on already to my next suggestion concerning checking the transponders - hence my question about BBC Parliament.

I'll leave you carrying playing with all your new channels - incidentally, you didn't mention what kit you are using to pipe the radio around the house - any info gratefully received.

Tim

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote user="Timco"]

Well done Glyn - you have moved on already to my

next suggestion concerning checking the transponders - hence my

question about BBC Parliament.

I'll leave you carrying playing with all your new channels -

incidentally, you didn't mention what kit you are using to pipe the

radio around the house - any info gratefully received.

Tim

[/quote]

I use a small FM transmitter - more powerful than the ones sold to

transmit all of 2 feet from an ipod sitting on the passenger seat to a

car radio. this is tuneable over the whole of band II and has a range of about

50-60ft which is enough to cover the house and barns but won't get to

the bottom of the garden when I'm on the mower! - I didn't reply last

time because I've been racking my brains to remember the company i bought it from: it's

immaterial really since I noticed in their last catalogue that the FM

TXer wasn't listed. it's something like Electrospares, except that I

think that's actually a company in Birmingham selling washing machine

parts. The item itself is made by a company called 'Mgear' which is

Chinese I think, which may explain why it's no longer available;

they've probably moved on to make bigger and better things!

Anyway if I do find it - or an equivalent - you'll be the 2nd to know.

paul (not Gyn, and CERTAINLY not Glyn [:)])

[Tim]

My apologies 'Paul' - don't know what I was thinking there?

Thanks for the info - I seem to remember seeing something along the lines you describe a few years ago - wish I'd got one now - I too will have a nose around the net.

At the moment the only fairly easily available device to do this is the 'Sky Gnome' and I think there are mixed reports about that.

Again, thanks - Tim

[Pierre ZFP]

I use a 'Rabbit' as they are known made by Phillips.  It's actually for transmitting TV signals around the home but I plug it into my non-sky sat box and use a pair of powered speakers (no telly) in the bedroom just using the audio output.  The great thing is that it's bi-directional so you can use your remote control to beam back to the sat box to change channel/volume whatever.  Cant remember the model number - I'll have a look on Phillips website.  I do remember it was 25euros on special in my local Hypermarket.

[Tim]

Merci Pierre - I've heard of the Rabbit - never seen one - how does it sends it's signal? I'm looking for something that can be 'tuned in' on an FM radio so any ordinary radio can pick up the signal around the house or garden.

Tim

[Pierre ZFP]

[quote user="Timco"]

Merci Pierre - I've heard of the Rabbit - never seen one - how does it sends it's signal?

[/quote]

By magic of course [:D]

No, seriously, you have a base station which you connect to your sat box or whatever and a slave in the remote location.  Both are quite small (paperback book size) but both require a 12 volt supply, usually not a problem as it's designed to be used with a telly but maybe not so good for you.  The 2 parts communicate wirelessly I think on a similar frequency used for radio mikes - anyway, a frequency that you don't need a licence for.  The clever part is that the base station has a LED which you place in front of sat box then at the remote location you can point you sat remote at the slave and the key codes are transmitted back to the base and hence to the sat box.  I think this is maybe not what you want though.  You can't transmit on FM frequencies to a normal radio, strictly verbotten, the sort of thing you get for inside your car is begrudeingly allowed because it is such low power and so short range.  Another thing I eventually got going after some fiddling was a bluetooth dongle on my PC (most radio I listen to is on the net anyway) which I bluetooth to my PDA and a pair of headphones, if you substitute headphones for powered speakers bingo!

[Tim]

Ok - thanks.

Tim

[Martin963]

Timco - knowing that you know what you're doing,  you could have a look at

http://www.nrgkits.com/

and follow the links to Radio Kits/VFO transmitter kits/

1Watt FM Transmitter Kit - STEREO

You can buy it in kit or assembled form,  and it comes with a dummy load which is ideal for up to about 100 yds.   Clip a bit of wire to the hot side of the dummy load and it can cover our village up to about 1 km.  Put up a proper dipole and it's up to a mile.

It's obviously NOT something to use in a town where the CSA might be monitoring (although goodness knows they do an even worse job than Ofcom on that front) but if you're out in La France Profonde (as we are) then it's very useful.   We have two so "la direction" can listen to BBC 7 while I listen to other things....

[Tim]

Thank you Martin - that thought had crossed my mind, although I haven't had the chance to do a search for the kit yet, so thanks for that. Takes me back to my wicked youth!! Although the frequencies may be little different - and no, I was not a CBer!

Tim