Satellite dish crisis

  • Thread starter Chilliflake
  • Start date
C

Chilliflake

Guest
Hi all

I got SKY about 2 months ago and the engineer attached a 60" dish to the side of my balcony and everything was fine. Except for the fact that we are not allowed have a dish permanently attached to our apartment (which we knew but were hoping to get away with for as long as possible as it was discreetly hidden). Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I had to take it down a month ago. Since then I've been without a tv service as the only supplier to our development is a company called Cablewatch who are charging a fortune for basic channels and a mediocre service at best by all accounts. So it's against all my principles to be forced into subscribing with them.

I have no idea about satellite dishes but gave it a go. I ordered a tripod on eBay and set that up when it arrived. I then attached the existing 60" dish to it but it wouldn't fit on the pole and then was too top heavy for the tripod, plus I didn't know how to find the satellite signal or connect it up. So I ordered a smaller, 43" dish and a sat finder, both of which arrived today and spent most of the evening setting them up. I have a quad LNB (I think..!) which is needed for SKY + apparently, so I took that off the existing 60" SKY dish and connected it to my new smaller dish (which only came with a single LNB).

I did what the instructions instructed me to do and put the cables from the existing quad LNB into each side of the sat finder and tried to find a signal. The sat finder seemed to be working as it went up to 5 or 6 and the light was on, but then after that I just don't know what to do. Every time I take the cables out of the sat finder and reconnect them to the LNB, no signal. I'm not sure if the cables are even in the right connectors on the LNB but I've tried swapping them around (each connector says "P1" or "P2" etc,) but still no signal. I don't know how to find the signal and make sure the dish is going to pick up the signal, and then after that I don't know what I'm meant to be doing.

Should I be doing it at a certain time of the day or should I be doing something else? How come the sat finder seems to find a strong signal but that's as far as I can get?! I know I have to have the dish lined up correctly, but I'm not even sure how to do that because the sat finder seems to find a signal at every angle the dish is facing.

I'm sure I sound like a total moron but I'm tearing my hair out and tired of looking at the four walls while spending a fortune on satellite dishes and equipment that I can't work. I would very much appreciate it if anyone could help me as my last resort, apart from knowing someone who could fix it for me (which I don't), is to go with Cablewatch, but that means continuing to pay my €79pm SKY subscription on top of Cablewatch's sub, and I'm only 2 months into my SKY sub.

Help me!! Is there an engineer or a "satellite genius" of some description I could call that any of you know of that might call out to my place to have a look??

Many thanks everybody

Chilliflake
 
Here's a method that enabled me to find the sat and fine-tune the dish's position in 20 minutes. You'd make life much easier for yourself if you began by trying to locate the satellite. As mentioned, it's at 28E (of South that is) but in more practical terms, from my location in S Dublin it's at 145 deg (Compass) which is approx South-East. The elevation, i.e. the angle at which the dish should be tilted is virtually correct when the dish is vertical.

If you really want to know the exact angles from your location I can recommend a website where you zoom in on your location on a map and it gives you the corresponding readings but 145 deg is okay in general.

Have you a compass? If so, use it to determine where South is. Mark a line on the floor/ground from directly under the centre of the dish to as far out to the South as you have room for. Use a protractor to mark a second line from where the 'South' line begins, running out at 35 degrees to the east. If you have done this correctly you'll now have a reasonably good angle for the sat.

Connect your sat finder in the coax line between the LNB and the receiver (it's useful to have a short length of coax for this purpose) making sure that you connect it the right way round - it's marked on the back. Tighten up the dish's mounting bolts just enough so that you can turn the dish using gentle pressure. Switch on the receiver and swing the dish until it points along the 145 deg line. There is a reasonable chance that the meter will sound and the needle will indicate that it has found something. If necessary adjust the volume control until the needle reads 6 or so. Now very gently move the dish in 1" movements to left and right while you try to maximise the meter reading. You'll notice that you will lose the signal very abruptly 'off the edges'. If the meter goes off-scale reduce it to 6 again. When you think you've maximised the reading, change the elevation of the dish up and down in similar small amounts and again maximise the reading. You have to be prepared to be very patient during this phase.

Can you see your TV from where the dish is located? If so bring up the signal bars and focus on 'Signal Quality'. If you need to, adjust the dish's angles again in tiny increments in order to maximise the 'Quality reading. I'm getting over 80% but you'll get acceptable signals below this level.
 
Last edited:
pat127 said:
The elevation, i.e. the angle at which the dish should be tilted is virtually correct when the dish is vertical.
Click to expand...
Surely that depends on the dish and the angle at which the LNB arm is attached? Or is that standard or something!?
 
ClubMan said:
Surely that depends on the dish and the angle at which the LNB arm is attached? Or is that standard or something!?
Click to expand...

It depends on the dish, yes but as a generalisation, enough to get started with and to avoid the necessity of using an inclinometer, an average figure of 22 -24 deg can be used. Astra 2D is actually at 21.5 deg from my location.
 
Hi folks

Thanks for all the info - much appreciated. I've had another go at setting the dish up using your advice but it seems to be beyond my abilities...still no joy. So I called Tony in satellite.ie and he's very kindly calling out to me tomorrow to check it out. Will let you know how it goes...fingers crossed he can find a signal and get it up and running as I'm running out of DVDs at this stage!

Thanks again people

C
 
Just to warn you. Satellite dishes on tripods are against the rules in some devlopments too. Ours treats them in the same way as clothes horses on balconies ie they are not allowed.
 
Just to let you know I set up a sky sat dish recently, with no compass or sat finder.

Mounted the dish on the wall and pointed it in the direction of the sun at 11am roughly, but not at the sun if you know what I mean (the dish was facing straight out across the field but in the suns direction). I had someone else in at the TV watching the signal strength. When the strength got up to about 3/4, I started tilting the dish up a little each time.

Then both signal bars on the TV started showing about 3/4 and when I checked the picture, it was there.

Move the dish in small increments each time and keep the bolts relatively tight so when you find the position that works, lock down hard.
 
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