Conversion of Analogue System to Digital - Problems....

[manfredh]

I used to have an analogue Sat TV system at my house - 60cm dish directed at ASTRA 19.2 degrees east, works fine.
Analogue channels on Astra have started to shut down, but digital ones have been added. So I decided to upgrade to digital.

I bought and installed a new universal LNB (0.2 dB) and a Panasonic DSB31 Sky Digibox (secondhand).

The Skybox came from a Sky subscriber and seems to work fine, but when i try to find the digital channels from Astra it says there is no satellite signal.

I doublechecked and realigned the dish with my SatFinder to get the best possible signal. To check I connected my old analogue receive, which gets brilliant picture and sound on all ANALOGUE channels (so the dish is positioned perfectly?).

Why does the SkyBox say it does not get a satellite signal? I thought a Skybox was the same as any digital Sat Receiver??? Any ideas what I am doing wrong???

Could it be the cables? - we still have the old style brown coax cables everywhere. They work with terrestrial and analogue, but will they need replacing to get digital?

PLEASE HELP. Any advice much appreciated!

[Analoguesat]

You are pointing at the wrong satellites for Sky digital!

If you want SKy digital you need to realign the dish from 19E to 28E.

If you want to use the box for german digital you need to use "add channels" (Services 4,4) then Other channels (services 6).,

You need to realise the sky digiboxes are more or less useless for anything away from Sky UK transmissions, and if you want to watch German transmissions you really want a non Sky box.

[manfredh]

Oh dear!

Just to get this right, does that in effect mean the Sky DigiBox cannot be used to receive digital channels from Astra 19.2 E ?

If that is the case, what kind of receiver do I need and where can I get one from? Any suggestions?

Would I be better off ordering a receiver from somewhere like Germany, as they watch a lot of Sat TV from Astra?

[Analoguesat]

No it means that a digibox is clunky, unfriendly and a right pain in the rear to use on 19E, since every time you want to change channels you have to go through the "Other Channels" faff.

It also only holds a maximum of 50 channels, and more often nearer 20 or 30.

Technomate and Fortec Star receivers are well regarded, and fairly cheap these days.

[BGonaSTICK]

The Sky digibox is far from ideal as they are basically restricted by Sky and will limit your enjoyment. They can only receive channels with symbol rates of 27500 and 22000. You can add only a few extra channels to those listed in the Sky EPG, but every OTA firmware upgrade seems to make that harder and less reliable :

My advice would be to buy yourself a nice digital FTA box, or one with a CAM slot or card reader slot if you think you may want to watch subscription TV in the future.

It doesn't have to be from Germany. Any box not issued as part of a subscription contract will do. There are other posts here about a selection of suitable boxes. Have a read and if you're not clear on what you need, ask away

If you want to play with the digibox on 19.2E then you can. There is a hidden menu on a Sky digibox that gives access to some extra engineering functions.

To access the Installers Menu, use the following set of key presses:

SERVICES, 4, 0, 1, SELECT.

Press the buttons quickly, and in the correct order with no pauses.

This will give you access to several additional menu sections.

Under 'Default Transponder' you can change this to any strong transponder on 19.2E. The standard transponder stored here may not exist on 19.2E.

You can find a list of valid transponders to change it to at www.lyngsat.com/astra19.html

Don't mess with any of the other settings unless you know what you are doing. The menu is secret to stop people trashing their boxes!

Don't forget to change this back if you want to sell it, or the buyer will be bringing it back as faulty!

Hope this helps.

STICK