New satellite - No signal

margaretireland

Hi guys,
I tried to set up my first satellite today for freesat and have been having no luck at all. I have the satellite mounted to a bracket on the chimney and it has a clear unobstructed view pointed roughly towards astra 2. I have run two lnb cables down from the satellite and have two new freesat boxes in the house. The cables are secure and are definately connected correctly at both ends to the satellite and receiving box.
However, when i connect either cable to either of the boxes, it reads no signal and no quality..
Just wondering if anyone has any ideas as to what the problem could be?
Dead lnb cable perhaps? Although it was purchased only a few weeks ago
Thanks in advance!

Tony

Just roughly pointing the dish wont do it i'm afraid. heres a video that may help just scroll forward to the part about dish alignment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl-rawdjA0Y

horse7

there are some good tutorials on u tube,you will need a signal meter.and make sure your receiver is locked into astra 2,before you scan for channels.

margaretireland

Well when i say roughly, we used a compass to point it to exaclty 28 East and it appears to be pointing the exact same direction as the other satellites in the area, does it still make sense that the signal would read dead zero until it was fine tuned?

John mac

yes . it needs to be exact!

the skew and angle have to be correct.
have a read of this

Tony

margaretireland wrote: »

Well when i say roughly, we used a compass to point it to exaclty 28 East and it appears to be pointing the exact same direction as the other satellites in the area, does it still make sense that the signal would read dead zero until it was fine tuned?

watch the video and you will see

watty

The satellite may be at 28 E. but a compass bearing of that is wrong because it's 22,500 miles above equator.

The Bearing and elevation depend on your location.

Also a Compass isn't accurate enough! It's just a very very rough starting point!

Less than 2 degree error (if dish is big enough), elevation (up/down) or azimuth (east/west) means you get nothing.

A TV aerial may have a 30 degree "view"


After the video... some reading... http://www.techtir.ie/articles/howto

A big dish gives ZERO if you are 0.5 degree off.

horse7

watty is the man,read some of his posts,excellent.

Trevord

Suggestion:

The last place you should be if you are learning to align a satellite dish for the first time is up on a roof.

Unless you can lay your hands on someone with experience, I'd suggest the following:

Remove the dish from the arm and bring it down to ground level.
Attach a cable to it and connect it to the box.
Get your compass and find the sat direction
Find a place at ground level where you have a direct line of sight in that direction
Sit or balance the bottom of the dish in a basin or bucket to give it some stability and then try aiming it at the satellite following the video instructions.

You will see there is a knack to doing it successfully.

Once you are confident that you can do this, head back to the roof and repeat the process (minus the bucket)

Also have channels been set up on the sat boxes? If not then you may run into further difficulty because some models seem to stop searching for the satellite signal after a minute or so. So I suggest going to a friend's house and attaching the boxes to their dish and running the installation process. At least then your boxes will show a signal when you are trying to get your own dish properly aligned.

margaretireland

Thanks for the replies everyone, had the satellite on the ground (view a bit obstructed) and it seemed to be picking up the satellite perfectly, I fiddled around with it until any minor move at all would result in a lessening of signal according to the sat finder, but still reading 0% signal and 0% quality on the receivers. Then also tried again on the roof (unobstructed view) with the sat finder, getting to the exact point where the signal was strongest according to the sat finder and again 0% on receivers..any ideas?

Tony

There are many satellites you may not be picking up the right one

margaretireland

Tony wrote: »

There are many satellites you may not be picking up the right one

Even if picking up the wrong one should signal not show on the receiver though? It does seem to be dead on where it should be for astra 2 though anyway

Tony

margaretireland wrote: »

Even if picking up the wrong one should signal not show on the receiver though?

No it does not work that way

margaretireland

Got it! Thanks for your help!

fat-tony

Sound man margaret - it was getting dark and you had me worried here on the sidelines:)