Signal from my sat dish

Ian John Walker

I live in Norway and last year I bought a FreeSat tuner and a dish for our cabin, as we couldn't get a digital signal by arial. Everything worked fine until sometime in the winter when suddenly we didn't have a signal. I assumed the snow had affected the Lnb on the dish and thought no more about it. As the weather improved I checked the signal at the Lnb (with a signal beeper) and found it to be fine. I then check the signal at the tuner and that was fine, but the tv told me I had no signal. I then surmised that the tuner was faulty and acquired another, one only to find the same problem.
I get a loud sound on my signal beeper at the entry to the tuner (the coaxial cable) but the tv tells me the signal strength is 0%.

I'm not too good with these things and cannot fathom why it doesn't work. I'm desperate, any constructive ideas would be welcome.

byte

Freesat in Norway?

Maybe dish moved and is aimed at the wrong satellite? The beeper is no help in determining what satellite you're pointing at, and, IIRC, they beep even when there's no signal at all? You've to use the knob to attenuate signal and the beep pitch.

Ian John Walker

I find it difficult to believe that the dish moved (whilst I was clearing snow off the roof in the winter) and ended up pointing at another satellite, but of course it's possible. I'll try turning the dish later today and see if I get a useable signal. Results will be posted later. Thanks for you input byte.

redout

The wind could have quite easily moved your dish if in anyway exposed.

Happens me a couple of times a year due to my dish not being protected.

If using a motor you should be able to manually reset the dish.

Ian John Walker

The dish is exposed, but seems pretty firm on the brackets. I tried turning is again yesterday without success. I'll try tilting it today as I think (hope) I have it pointing in the correct direction now. At the moment the picture from the Freesat box continues to show 0% signal. I ended up watching a couple of podcasts on the laptop yesterday evening but I would like to get the Freesat working again.

polyfusion

You don't say what receiver you have, but most will have some sort of auto or blind scan options in FTA mode.

If you think you have the dish pointed at a valid orbital position, then performing a blind scan will pull in whatever channels are available.

You can then search for the channel(s) at sat sites like kingofsat (has a nice channel search), or compare with lists like at flysat or lyngsat.

As an afterthought, did the dish get covered in snow? If the connections weren't waterproofed, could result in some LNB damage or even water in the cable could bring about some resistance which could give some funny results.

Also, make sure the LNB is skewed; this could make a critical factor on your location.

At least you've ruled out the receiver. It's always good to have spare equipment to swap in/out to troubleshoot problems like this. Another LNB and a length of cable is always good to have around for testing.

Ian John Walker

Thanks for your input Polyfusion. The LNB did get a good dump of snow, so next weekend I'll take another LNB to the cabin and try again. The problem with the equipment being at our cabin means I only get to use (try to repair) it at weekends. The whole point of getting the Freesat in the first place was because Norway went digital on their tv signal to antenna and our cabin sits in a digital black hole. Freesat seemed the obvious answer and it worked very well until last winter. Hopefully next weekend I'll get a signal once more. Thanks to all for your constructive inputs.