Getting ready to drill some holes in my house.

[nanochickin]

Hi Everyone, Forgive me if i sound like i dont know what i'm on about but at this momment in time i dont.

Having getting rather annoyed with Mr Murdochs > penny pinching antics i've finally told Sky where to stick their subscription and moved to Telewest cable.
Not really relevant at this point i know but i'm getting there.

Having a dish stuck on the side of the house and a receiver thats not much use to me i have started to experiment moving the dish to other Satallite clusters, that is until my digibox had a tantrum which it didn't seem to stop until it was realligned with Astra 2. Strange that isn't it.

Well my Grundig GDS3000 digibox now has a new home in Spain and i've purchased a cheap £20 Fortec Star lifetime classic FTA receiver to play with off eBay. It was supposed to have stopped there but unfortunately i went a little bit mad and spend more money than is probably healthy for a novice who hasn't got a clue what his doing. Suckered again by eBay.

I am now the proud owner of:

1x Fortec Star Lifetime Classic FTA receiver
1x Global Orbit 80cm dish
1x 0.2dB Platinum II Universal LNB
2x Neosat 0.3 db Universal LNBs
1x GOLD 4X1 DiSEqC Switch
1x Universal Multifeed Holder For 3 LNBs
1x Slx Satellite finder

:roflmao: I also have a brand new still in the box Philips BSB dMac Squarial which i found in the loft of my new house. Not sure if you can still do anything with this other than use it as a table top. If anyone knows if this could be still useful let me know. I guessing i will have to dig out my old Pace Prima to play with it. I might just stick it up for a bit of nostalgia or just to annoy the neighbours.

I'm hoping to leave the Sky minidish pointing at Astra 2 @ 28.2 degrees and pointing the other dish to get Astra 1 @ 19.2 degrees, Hotbird @ 13 degrees and hopefully Sirius @5 degrees if the arm will reach.

Any advice would be appreciated as i really haven't got a clue what i'm doing. I am intending to use the better lnb to point at Hotbird and the other 2 for Astra 1 and Sirius. Any help with configurations would be appeciated :?

I'm hoping to link both dishes with the 4 lnbs together through the DiSEqC switch to be controlled by the receiver.

Hopefully i should get something to watch from this combination.

Thanks for looking.

[BGonaSTICK]

Hi nanochickin

Sounds like you're going to have some fun

Don't know what you paid for your stuff, but it all sounds pretty reasonable VFM gear and should get you a whole bunch of satellite TV.

Your plan sounds good to me. 3 LNBs on one dish and one on another is one of the setups I have.

You might struggle to get 5E, and there's not much out there to watch FTA these days, but hey. You can always slide that LNB round to check out a couple of the other bids like 7E and 10E. Give it a go though.

Not sure what format/configuration your multi LNB holder is. If you could upload a picture I can probably give you an idea as to how to map your LNBs and align your dish.

Welcome to the forum anyway m8. You have an interesting project on your hands!

You may want to have a look at my multi-LNB setup which does 19.2E 13E and 7E, plus one other on a motorised dish.

http://www.satellitehelp.co.uk/forum...sg3261#msg3261

As for your squarial, I don't think it's of any functional use at all now

Nice keepsake though.

STICK

[Analoguesat]

You cant do much with the Squarial these days apart from experiment with it. Dont chuck it in the bin though - I'll take it off your hands if you are going to throw it out - Ive been after one for years (although so far Ive only managed to get hold of a BSB 35cm minidish.)

As for the other equipment. You have a capable receiver with the possibility of a large range of foreign services. Start with Hotbird 13 and Astra 1 19E. Theres a lot of free channels on both of these - and the signals are nice and strong.

Connect the Sky dish (assuming you still have it up) to the disecq switch and you can watch the free tv channels and listen to the radio as well.

[nanochickin]

I'm planning to use both my old minidish and my new 80cm dish connected to the same DiseqC switch so i can feed from all 4 lnbs. Not sure where i'm going to point everything yet.

I might feed the 80cm dish from 28.2, 19.2 and 13.0 and then see what i can get with the minidish. 8)

As for the Squarial i might just turn it into a beer table or maybe swap it for something else. I did think about getting a BSB minidish and changing the lnb for a newer one. Not sure how well it would work though. :?

This what i've got to play with Stick. Is it anygood for £106.28? :?

I've just thought that leaves me with £14 out of my budget to get some cable and connectors. I'm hoping that if i put the DiseqC switch near the dishes i can just run down the old skydigi cable. Should save me a bit if it works.

Unfortunately for me my receiver is at the front of the house and the dishes will be at the back so it could prove expensive if i have to run new cables.

[BGonaSTICK]

You obviously have quite a good idea what you're doing and have done well for the money.

I don't think the multi-LNB bracket has the look angle to do 19.2E to 5E. It probably only has a 10 degree look angle (range).

You could probably do 19.2E, 13E and 10E. It might be possible to do 19.2E 16E and 13E, but you may not be able to squeeze the LNBs close enough together (plus your dish is a little small for 16E in Wolves).

If you try and squeeze 28.2E on your multi-LNB dish, I don't think you'll reach to 13E at the other extremity.

If you have the small 43cm minidish, it's not great for much else except 28.2E. If you don't really want that, you could try it on some of the more powerful locations. 19.2E and 13E we've already mentioned, but 5E could yield something. Why not try Hispasat on 30W for a laugh (should get something), or give the weaker Thor birds a try at 1W (don't have high hopes of success here).

If it was me, I'd have the minidish at 28.2E, and try the multi-LNB dish on 19.2E 16E and 13E. If that didn't work, I'd go 19.2E 13E and 10E. There's not much point reaching for 7E with your FTA receiver. There's some interesting stuff hacked on 7E but not with your receiver.

Let us know if you want any help planning the setup once you've decided which sat's to target

STICK

[nanochickin]

Stuff started to arrive today so i'm getting closer to my first digital installation

:? Just wondering which cable would be best to use without losing too much of the signal over the 40m run between the dish and the receiver. What do you think?

From what i can see i have the choice of RG6, CT100, H109, CT63 Sky+, H109F or CT125.

What happened to using just satallite co-ax? > Ahh gone are the days when you could get away with tv co-ax

I am intending to connect the DiSEqC switch into the existing cable line that Sky installed and then run the 4 Lnbs into the DiSEqC switch.

The only problem is that the signal from my minidish is to be honest pretty poor (35%) but i'm guessing thats due to misalignment as it has been up there for a few years and the fact that i left the alignment switch on the new lnb i installed at 2 when the old lnb was set at 3. I didn't notice until later and by then i couldn't be arsed to get the ladder out again. ops:

I'm just hoping its not the cable length thats causing the problem. (42m)

I'm just on the look out now for a Sky or Telewest van with a driver that might just chuck enough cable my way for a small sum. :clap: Definately cheaper than Maplins. :spite:

[BGonaSTICK]

CT100 is the coax of choice. CT125 is a bit over the top, and I think I'm right in saying all the others fall a bit short. They would all do at a pinch, but maybe not a 45m run.

More important than being baffled by the numbers - just make sure it's double screened in copper. I prefer foam filled as opposed to air-cored.

100m of PT100 (CT100 equiv.) from tlc-direct for £20.

The cable Sky use is not quite CT100 but it'll do. A 45m run is no problem unless you use poor cable. It might be your existing cable that's causing your problem, but more likely alignment.

STICK

[nanochickin]

I spent most of this afternoon working out if i would have line of sight for some of the less watched sats.

After advice from Stick i thought i have a laugh and try and get something from Hispasat at 30w on my puny sky minidish. I was shocked to find that some inconsiderate b*****d has built his house right in the line of sight of 30w. >

I did consider asking him to knock a bit off his roofing apex but then thought the better of it. Its just unfortunate that my house sits about 15ft lower than his. Looking on the bright side though i seem to have a nice wide window from about 1e to about 36e so that should give me something to play with.

I managed to find a Sky installer a few doors down this morning. I tried to blag some cable of him, even offering him some money. I cant really write down his response as it breaks forum rules, but i guess you have a good idea.

I'll give you a clue, it has 3 "F"s in it and rymes with cough.

Anyway i managed to get 100m of CT100 from the very nice blokes at Newey & Eyre for £21.

After checking the previous line install by Sky i discovered that they had in fact used Raydex CT100. I am utterly shocked and stunned that they didn't use RG6 like they did at my sisters house. Yes they used the old cable off the Sky analogue setup. Cheapskates.

Anyway the morel of this Story is make sure you have line of sight to your chosen sats before spending stacks on Satellite equipment instead of buying your misses a table.

[Analoguesat]

Originally Posted by nanochickin

I'll give you a clue, it has 3 "F"s in it and rymes with cough.

Fluff???!!!

> :-X

[nanochickin]

Originally Posted by Analoguesat

Fluff???!!!

> :-X

?