Old Lidl/Aldi Sat box info

greatgoal

Rigel wrote: »

Thanks GG and BL, you answered my main question, the dish will work. I plan on replacing the old analogue universal LNBs (they are working), diseq, and the cabling with current century equivalents.

As I’m hooking it up to a TV in different room to where I have Sky I want to point it at 28.2E and with the 1m dish and additional LNBs hope to get 19E and even 13E at a stretch and without a motor. What chance have I got?

you should have no problem there mate,especially with a 1m dish.

getcover

Lads,
Ive read through this entire thread and it's obvious that setting the satellite can be difficult and time consuming. However, I've spent 2 days, about 9 hours in total, and just cannot get the signal quality above 14%. This is driving me nuts now! I've tried every suggestion, been very patient, barely moving the dish from South to East, elevation of 22 degrees etc.
The high pitched whine from that sat finder ear piece has probably given me tintinus for life, all to no avail. Is there anything else I can try/check/redo?
Would the F-connectors I put on the coaxial cable be a problem? (in that I might have not done this correctly?
Anybody with any suggestions, that would save my sanity and probably my marriage at this stage!

THE GAFFER

Is there any need to earth satellite dish and if so how is it best done.:D

conceited

I bought one yesterday and im in the exact same boat can't get nothing above 14% .
I just came up from my nans there to read about aligning it.
Whats the vertical degrees supposed to be? 1 degrees?

Tony

THE GAFFER wrote: »

Is there any need to earth satellite dish and if so how is it best done.:D

In my opinion its best not to

micratoyota

conceited wrote: »

I bought one yesterday and im in the exact same boat can't get nothing above 14% .
I just came up from my nans there to read about aligning it.
Whats the vertical degrees supposed to be? 1 degrees?

I bought one a couple of months ago and have got it up to 79% but the signal on the ITV 1 channels and most other channels except BBC start breaking up when it rains, so I am going to pay a chap €80 to put up a mesh dish . He says that I will have no more problems that the mesh dish is far superiour. Am I do doing the right thing. ???

biologikal

To the lads having problems, what size dish are you using?

The manual explains how to connect everything up, so first of all, make sure that is is correctly set up, including your F-connectors.

Next, in the menus, make sure that the LNB is switched on (when you press menu on the remote, it's somewhere in the last item, IIRC.

Next, when you get a high pitched tone on the sat beeper, press "MENU" then "installation", select "Auto Scan" then select any satellite in the list, and let the system do the scan. See what channels you are getting, and make a note of the details of the channel (will be of the form like 12345 H 27500), then google the channel name with the numbers, and see if you get a hit as to what satellite it might be on. You can also search through the satellites here: www.flysat.com

Another resource to see if you're pointing the general direction you want can be performed here: www.dishpointer.com Home in on your house, select a satellite in the drop down menu (28.2E is a good one to start with), and see how it compares with where you're pointing yours. Have a look at neighbours dishes too, to get the general direction (most likely 28.2E).

I wouldn't waste too much time trawling through this site for useful information - it probbaly is here, but too fragmented to be coherent for someone new to this. Search google for tutorial and YouTube for videos. Invest a little time doing some research, and you'll find that it's not very difficult at all.

biologikal

micratoyota wrote: »

I bought one a couple of months ago and have got it up to 79% but the signal on the ITV 1 channels and most other channels except BBC start breaking up when it rains, so I am going to pay a chap €80 to put up a mesh dish . He says that I will have no more problems that the mesh dish is far superiour. Am I do doing the right thing. ???

I don't think so.

You probably only need to fine-tune the dish, or skew the LNB in it's holder.

Without loosening the dish, move it about gently in all four directions (up/down/left/right) and see if it improves the signal quality. If you see it improves, loosen slightly, adjust appropriately, and retighten again.

If that gives no better results, make sure the LNB is skewed. As you look at the dish from the front, the LNB needs to be rotated clockwise in the holder. Experiment with it and see if the quality improves. Google "LNB skew" for more info and pictures.

conceited

Lads thanks for your help and advice your great.
I got it sorted at last.Set it to south and set the vertical which was 22 degrees astra 1 or 2 i think. It says nothing about this in the manual but everything else in the manual was spot on.

The part that controls the tilt of the dish was a bit confussing i had it on backwords but it never said what way to have it on.
There's degrees written on it but the manual never explained this either.
The actual dish and things are great and the window connection is a great idea , no need to drill any holes

One other thing some channels are not comming on like fashion tv and things they stay blank.Do i have to manually set some things for these channels?

getcover I hope you get yours sorterd.
Just getting the vertical tilt right is the main thing.After that when your turning the dish to the east you can't really miss the satelite as it is in the arc your moving it.

biologikal

conceited wrote: »

One other thing some channels are not comming on like fashion tv and things they stay blank.Do i have to manually set some things for these channels?

A few possibilities here. First is slight misalignment of the dish, or LNB needs to be skewed. If the channels you're missing are all on one transponder, or all either horizontal or all vertical frequencies (indicaterd by either H or V in the frequency details), then either is a possibility.

If you're using the channels that were preset into the box when you got it, then it's possible that either frequency and/or PID's have changed since the presets were done. Check http://www.flysat.com/28east.php if you're pointing the dish at 28E (BBC's/ITVs/C4's/etc) for the details. For example, Fashion TV is on 11222 H 27500, and video PID should be 2305, and audio PID should be 2306. If they're not correct, then you need to do a rescan, either of just that transponder, or a full autoscan.

It is also possible to change the PID's if this is all that has changed - this is done in "list" mode for a particular satellite channel list. I can't remember off-hand, but the functions required are listed at the bottom of the screen, eg "EDIT" I think is button 5 on your remote. You'll find that mucking about with it is the best way to learn. You can't really mess it up. All channels available can be recovered with a full autoscan, but once you start setting up your channel lists, you'll find that you'll only be doing TP scans, or individual PID changes whenever needed. The Sky Digibox takes care of all these changes automatically, but the FTA box gives you a lot more flexibility if you want to customise your channel lists, or look elsewhere along the Clarke-Belt.

getcover

Lads,
thanks for your help so far.
I bought a Satfinder on Sunday and got the Astra 28.2E at 83% signal quality.
Did an autoscan and got hundreds of channels in German, Dutch and Polish!
However, the BBC/ITV channels are just a black screen, and no sound. The "No signal" icon doesn't come up, just the black screen. When I press info, it says that the signal quality is 83%.
Anybody come across this before, what am I doing wrong?

Thanks again...

SkepticOne

getcover wrote: »

Lads,
thanks for your help so far.
I bought a Satfinder on Sunday and got the Astra 28.2E at 83% signal quality.
Did an autoscan and got hundreds of channels in German, Dutch and Polish!
However, the BBC/ITV channels are just a black screen, and no sound. The "No signal" icon doesn't come up, just the black screen. When I press info, it says that the signal quality is 83%.
Anybody come across this before, what am I doing wrong?

Thanks again...

Sounds like you are pointing to Astra 1 (19.2E). Move the dish a little further the left and down slightly.

With some of these dishes it may appear angled slightly downward (i.e. leaning forward) when pointing to Astra 2 (28.2). This may throw some people off when trying to aim it.

Mark#1

I've only assembled the bracket onto the dish so far. :rolleyes: Been a busy week...

The bracket itself is plastic but seems sturdy enough, and the dish is mounted rock solid to it - I really doubt this will be a problem area.

The 4 mounting screws, however, are just 3" long or so - certainly not what I'd deem suitable for anchoring an 80cm dish to a wall/chimney.

I'm going to get some big FO 6" rawl bolts and stick those boyos in - they'll hold it.

I've assumed that I'll be mounting it on my chimney stack (3-bed semi in north county Dublin), but it sounds like mounting it that high and exposed may not be necessary?

This may be a dumb question, but how are you guys doing the dish adjusting if you're up on the roof and the TV is in the living room?

How do you really know you've got it right? 1-hour phone call from the missus on the house phone to you on your mobile up on the roof? "No... no... no... Yeah! No - back... BACK! BACK, you f*@king eejit!"

I got a beeper thing with the fitting kit - is that any use?


Thanks,

Mark

pjproby

i finally rigged it all up today but i am getting a no signal sign when i switch it on. I am however getting a signal quality and strength reading.
I am not convinced that I have wired it properly-does the fact that I am getting the above readings indicate the lnb is actually working.
I have made no attempt to realign it but i thought i would have got some channel even with very bad reception.
any advice appreciated.

biologikal

pjproby wrote: »

I have made no attempt to realign it but i thought i would have got some channel even with very bad reception.

Well, you'd be wrong. It's pretty much all-or-nothing when it comes to pointing the dish in the right direction. It's nothing like positioning an ariel for analogue TV or radio.

The meter will register a value, even when pointing straight at a wall, at about 14%, IIRC, though you might see if flucuating a bit.

A quick tip: the LNB arm (goes from the dish out to the plastic LNB holder) should be approximately horizontal when aligning for 28E. Put it in that position, and swing the whole dish left/right, SLOWLY, in conjunction with the beeper, and when you hear a high-pitched tone on it, tighten up the screws a bit, and then check all the various satellites listed to see which one you've found. Also, have a look at neighbous dishes to see the general direction they are pointing, and point roughly similar.

biologikal

Mark#1 wrote: »

I've only assembled the bracket onto the dish so far. :rolleyes: Been a busy week...

The bracket itself is plastic but seems sturdy enough, and the dish is mounted rock solid to it - I really doubt this will be a problem area.

The 4 mounting screws, however, are just 3" long or so - certainly not what I'd deem suitable for anchoring an 80cm dish to a wall/chimney.

I'm going to get some big FO 6" rawl bolts and stick those boyos in - they'll hold it.

I've assumed that I'll be mounting it on my chimney stack (3-bed semi in north county Dublin), but it sounds like mounting it that high and exposed may not be necessary?

This may be a dumb question, but how are you guys doing the dish adjusting if you're up on the roof and the TV is in the living room?

How do you really know you've got it right? 1-hour phone call from the missus on the house phone to you on your mobile up on the roof? "No... no... no... Yeah! No - back... BACK! BACK, you f*@king eejit!"

I got a beeper thing with the fitting kit - is that any use?


Thanks,

Mark

When people in this thread are referring to the bracket not being great, they're referring to the metal peice that you bolt to your wall.

Not a great idea at all to be bolting to chimney, you'd probably need a special chimney mounting kit for that. Can you not put it down lower? The dish doesn't have to be up high, unless you're surrounded by trees/walls or don't have the aspect to have it fairly low on the side of the house you'd like it most. It can be lying on the ground, as long as it has line-of-sight to the satellite you want to receive.

pjproby

biologikal


thanks

will keep trying

SkepticOne

Mark#1 wrote: »

This may be a dumb question, but how are you guys doing the dish adjusting if you're up on the roof and the TV is in the living room?

How do you really know you've got it right? 1-hour phone call from the missus on the house phone to you on your mobile up on the roof? "No... no... no... Yeah! No - back... BACK! BACK, you f*@king eejit!"

Get hold of an old portable TV that you can bring outside and put on a chair pointing upwards. Use this in combination with your sat meter.

I think a compass is a good idea as well just to get a rough idea of the direction of the satellite, but use it away from the steel dish. This page gives you the direction you need to point the dish if you enter your location.

micratoyota

Without loosening the dish, move it about gently in all four directions (up/down/left/right) and see if it improves the signal quality. If you see it improves, loosen slightly, adjust appropriately, and retighten again.

If that gives no better results, make sure the LNB is skewed. As you look at the dish from the front, the LNB needs to be rotated clockwise in the holder. Experiment with it and see if the quality improves. Google "LNB skew" for more info and pictures.[/quote]
HI BIOLOGIKAL Thanks for your information. The chap from the Evening Echo who was to install the new mesh dish for me has not contacted me since so I am glad that I am not getting the mesh dish. I will now wait for my son to come home from Derby in early September and he can have a go at aligning it, and if he follows your instructions he should improve the reception. As in the mean time I have received an old Pace Sky Box and remote control in working order I am thinking of attaching this to the Lidl 60cm dish and putting this in the dining room, and getting an 80cm dish put up and use the Silvercrest box with this in the living room. Am I correct in thinking that I can get a cable to run from the Silvercrest box to another box and receive the same signal in another room, also am I right in thinking that as the LNB is dual that i can run another cable from this to another box.????

micratoyota

Zaphod wrote: »

Lidl have sold packages with ~40cm, ~60cm and 80cm dishes. The 40cm are not really suitable for Ireland, the 60cm should be fine with careful alignment and the 80cm is ideal with good rain reserve. A mesh dish is inferior to a solid dish of similar size.

Skewing the LNBF can make a significant different to reception performance.
http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=How+to+align+a+satellite+dish

Hi ZAPHOD Thanks for letting me know that the Mesh Dish is inferior to a solid. The dish i have is a 60cm Lidl Dish. I hope to get a 80 cm solid dish installed, and root this to my front room with the Silvercrest box, In the mean time i have aquired an old Pace Sky box and remote and I will attatch this to the Lidl Dish and let my son play around with this when he comes from Derby in September. Thanks again for the info about the MESH dish.

biologikal

micratoyota wrote: »

HI BIOLOGIKAL Thanks for your information. The chap from the Evening Echo who was to install the new mesh dish for me has not contacted me since so I am glad that I am not getting the mesh dish. I will now wait for my son to come home from Derby in early September and he can have a go at aligning it, and if he follows your instructions he should improve the reception. As in the mean time I have received an old Pace Sky Box and remote control in working order I am thinking of attaching this to the Lidl 60cm dish and putting this in the dining room, and getting an 80cm dish put up and use the Silvercrest box with this in the living room. Am I correct in thinking that I can get a cable to run from the Silvercrest box to another box and receive the same signal in another room, also am I right in thinking that as the LNB is dual that i can run another cable from this to another box.????

You can run a cable from the SL65 to another receiver via the "IF out" on the SL65, but the SL65 has to be on standby for the other receiver to obtain the signal. Thus, only one receiver can use the LNB at a time.

Best solution for you, if for example someone wants to watch BBC1 in the living room and someone else wants to watch ITV in the dining room, would be to use 1 dish and 1 dual LNB, and run one cable to the living room, and the other cable to the dining room.

The 60cm, if aligned well, should be more than adequate for getting 28E. The 80cm would give better signal quality in heavy rain, but most of the time, the 60cm should be perfectly adequate. If you're having issues with signal breaking up in rain, only thing to do is tweak it to optimise the signal getting in. To be honest, if I was only wanting to get 28E, I'd prefer to have a 60cm up there, especially if the dish was exposed to the wind.

Do you have easy access to the dish? If you do, it might be worth rotating the LNB in it's holder to see if the skew is off slightly. This could be all it needs to rectify. Do you get Zone Horror/Movies4Men/Film24 ok?

micratoyota

Thanks again biologikal . Just checked if I am receiving Channels, Zone horror at 40 -54% signal quality Movies for men No but receiving Movies for men 2.no problem. Film 4 @72-74% in this fine weather. The dish is positioned about 12 to 14 feet from the ground in my back. It is pointing in much the same position as dishes around me to the south. There is a row of houses facing south about 30ft from me in a lane the one in my line also has a dish facing south on its chimney. This is a two story house. Would they interfere with the quality of my signal. I understand what your are saying about the cables for the dining and the living room. Thanks again

biologikal

micratoyota wrote: »

Thanks again biologikal . Just checked if I am receiving Channels, Zone horror at 40 -54% signal quality Movies for men No but receiving Movies for men 2.no problem. Film 4 @72-74% in this fine weather. The dish is positioned about 12 to 14 feet from the ground in my back. It is pointing in much the same position as dishes around me to the south. There is a row of houses facing south about 30ft from me in a lane the one in my line also has a dish facing south on its chimney. This is a two story house. Would they interfere with the quality of my signal. I understand what your are saying about the cables for the dining and the living room. Thanks again

I'd say the houses aren't causing a problem - the satellite at 28E is much higher than where your dish is "apparently" pointing at, because it's an "offset dish". So don't worry about that.

As for the channels, I mentioned Film24, not Film 4, they are different channels. These 3 channels (ZoneHorror/M4M/Film24) I've found to be the weakest, and I usually use them as reference in the final adjustment for getting the skew as good as I can. If you're not getting M4M, and if Zone Horror is that low, then I'd suspect your skew isn't near optimal.

What you need to do (if you have the means and can do it safely) is loosen the LNB holder, and as you're looking at the back of the LNB, rotate it clockwise, so that the top of the LNB moves from 12 o'clock, to about halfway between 1 and 2 o'clock.

With skew optimal, you should find the weaker channels improve in intensity and quality, and the ones you're currently getting also increase, so that they shouldn't become blocky in heavy rain.

This page will show you all the channels you should be able to receive: http://www.flysat.com/28east.php

(light blue = FTA; green = Sky/encrypted; yellow = recent changes)

micratoyota

Hi BIOLOGIKAL, Thanks again for the information I have printed it off and will keep it until my son comes home. I'm glad the houses are not the cause of my problems. I understand the rest of the details except that you say that my dish is an "offset dish" what does that mean?? At the moment the top of my LNB is leaning to the right and the bottom to the left of the dish when looking at the dish. Is that what offset means. ?? I am grateful for the very clear information you give me. Thanks

Near90fm

thanks to the excellent advice here and on satellite.ie I have at least 50 watchable channels on my silvercrest ( astra 28.2). Does anyone know how to create a new channel, as I;m missing ITV 4 and a few others. I did a scan, but can't get them, and even though I have read the instruction booklet, i can't create a new channel. I can't seem to create a new tp code. for instance zone horror is tp C1L 9 from the lyngsat.com site, but the silvercrest system won;t allow me to key that in. i hope that makes sense, as I'm still finding my way around.

also, am i right in thinking that the only way to get any other satellite is to move the dish accordingly, which I presume means I'll lose what I have on astra 28.2??

biologikal

Near90fm wrote: »

thanks to the excellent advice here and on satellite.ie I have at least 50 watchable channels on my silvercrest ( astra 28.2). Does anyone know how to create a new channel, as I;m missing ITV 4 and a few others. I did a scan, but can't get them, and even though I have read the instruction booklet, i can't create a new channel. I can't seem to create a new tp code. for instance zone horror is tp C1L 9 from the lyngsat.com site, but the silvercrest system won;t allow me to key that in. i hope that makes sense, as I'm still finding my way around.

also, am i right in thinking that the only way to get any other satellite is to move the dish accordingly, which I presume means I'll lose what I have on astra 28.2??

Zone Horror is on a weak transponder, you'd have to make sure that your LNB is skewed to get it (it's actually on Eurobird1 at a different position to the rest of Astra2 (28.2E/28.5E) but you should be able to get them all regardless) http://www.flysat.com/28east.php .

And the value you want for the Zone Horror transponder is 11261 H 27500.

To your last question, if you wanted to get another satellite, you'd have to either (move your dish), (get a motor), or (get a few more LNBs, a bracket to hold them all together, and a DiSEqC switch). In the last case, if you have an 80cm Lidl dish, you may get 15-18 degree spread of satellites, eg, a typical set-up might be 13E/19E/28E.

Another option would be to get another dish (or many dishes) and a DiSEqC switch to switch between all the LNB's on these dishes.

There is plently of info/advice thoughout the thread.

micratoyota

Near90fm wrote: »

thanks to the excellent advice here and on satellite.ie I have at least 50 watchable channels on my silvercrest ( astra 28.2). Does anyone know how to create a new channel, as I;m missing ITV 4 and a few others. I did a scan, but can't get them, and even though I have read the instruction booklet, i can't create a new channel. I can't seem to create a new tp code. for instance zone horror is tp C1L 9 from the lyngsat.com site, but the silvercrest system won;t allow me to key that in. i hope that makes sense, as I'm still finding my way around.

also, am i right in thinking that the only way to get any other satellite is to move the dish accordingly, which I presume means I'll lose what I have on astra 28.2??

HI Near 90fm I too am fairly new to satellite tv, but i am getting there . Here is how i input new channels. (step by step) Click on menu , scroll down to installations , press ok , scroll down to TP Scan. Press ok Scroll down to to TP Frequency enter 10759, Scroll down to Symbol enter 22000, scroll down to polarity enter V and then scroll down to search This should find the channel. It should then appear in your list and you can move it wherever you want. Zone Horror is tp freq 11261 symbol 22000 polarity V. Now channel C4 is called 8350 and can be found with freq10729 sym. 22000 and pol V. Hope this is of some help to you and to all who are starting out. Most of this information I have got from Boards.ie. Thanks

Near90fm

cheers. I'll try that. I've figured out deleting and moving channels,and renaming ( like channel 4 for instance). Like most blokes, I like to fiddle and meddle with this technology.

Earthnohow

conceited wrote: »

I bought one yesterday and im in the exact same boat can't get nothing above 14% .
I just came up from my nans there to read about aligning it.
Whats the vertical degrees supposed to be? 1 degrees?

I suspect a lot of first time installers of this dish system are (like me) making the mistake of matching the vertical axis to that of the Sky mesh dish we have gotten used to see all about us.

I have recently installed this system in less than two hours from drilling into my house wall for the bracket to sealing the F connector LNB joint with tape against moisture penetration.

I have a Sky dish perched above the smaller Lidl dish and used it initially for the directional alignment. The satfinder was used with the supplied earphone for accurate signal peak searching and as a word of warning: Do not over do this high pitched listening as it could damage your hearing.

I found the Astra 28E easily but failed to raise the quality level high enough for a full scan, despite rotating the LNB from the 7.05hrs to 8.10hrs positions. I had tilted the dish backwards very slightly from the vertical position as recommended elsewhere on the net and it looked a close match with that of the Sky dish in this regard.

It would have taken me much less time to lock onto the 65-75% quality setting that I have now, had I just moved the dish's vertical axis up and down without looking at it's visual profile. The dish now looks like it is tilting forward /_. instead of (_. and it is not because my gable end wall is not vertical either:). I suspect that the design of this Lidl dish is such that it has to be configured in this way due to it's small size.

My advice to those that feel inadequate in the technical end of things, is to follow the great advice already given here by having another person watch the signal quality readout on the TV as you fine tune the dish/LNB's movements. Find satellite direction with dish in vertical position profile, then lock down fittings slightly and gently move the vertical axis up and down while watching the quality readout on the TV. A final clockwise rotation from the vertical position of the LNB for that tiny signal improvement. Watch for any changes when you finally tighten those few lock nuts.
I have just cancelled my sky subscription and am enjoying the freedom that this very well put together system has given me. I will consider a larger dish later if the winter weather has any influence on the signal quality.

eam

hi guys. i bought one of these systems a few weeks ago. had it installed in a matter of hours. ive now connected my uk sky+ box to it in the sitting room which has neer 100% signal and quality (beat that sky engineers:D).

my question is, where can i get an octo lnb that will fit? theres some in maplin but not sure if it will fit or not.

any ideas?