Dish Alignment in Sweden

[Ant]

Hi there,

I have searched the forum for ages but can't find the answer to the following question, though I know its probably here!

What it is is, do I point my dish south then work "backwards" towards east to find Astra 19.2? I have done a search of the forum but can't find anything and my "ead" is cabbaged now

The setup I have is from Germany (Conrad.de) and a Eurosky digital receiver with a 80cm Off Set dish and a universal single LNB, I have also brought a sat finder from Sweden (big mistake buying it here, could have got it cheaper in the UK and had it shipped out for less than I paid for it!!!!!) I have tried "finding" Astra but to no avail yet and I desperately need to watch some English channels before I go mad

Any help would be very, very welcome, and sorry if this is a repeat question

Anthony

[Ant]

I have figured out where the dish goes now but I have another problem.
I have used the Sat Finder and can find 2 satellites close together (I think!) I presume they are Astra and Hotbird, The strongest signal I get is 6 on the sat finder I then adjust using the level adjust dial and that takes it to 9, but when I check the channels on my TV all I get is "No Valid Signal" and sometimes a padlock at the side of the channel name (I presume they are encrypted?) I have done a scan for new channels but can't find any. Also in the channel search menu I have 2 bars that are in yellow. I have managed to get the 1st to stay on Level: 254 but the 2nd (C/N) flicks between 4 and 12dB. I have tried to manually scan frequencies but to no avail.
I can't use the manuals for the Sat Finder as its in Swedish the idiots guide for the receiver is in German and my better half is at home in Berlin while I struggle here!!

Can anyone help me?

The picture below is from the Channel Search Menu, underneath the "Start Scan" button are the 2 bars I am talking about

[robbo71]

Hi ant,

At this stage it is not clear what satellite you are aligned to, and if you are aligned one, is it aligned properly.

To answer your previous question.

To find say Astra1 (19.2e) you would start from due south and swivel the dish to the left(from behind) eastward by about 3 degrees. The elevation scale on the dish should read approx 25 degrees.

check out
SatLex Digital :: Technology :: Calculators :: AZ/EL Calculator

or DishPointer.com - Satellite Dish Pointer / Alignment Calculator with Google Maps

I don't know what you meter is but normally with the needle type, you would adjust the knob until the needle is about 50%, and then adjust the dish to find a peak, if it goes offscale, readjust the knob for 50% full scale and adjust the dish a bit more to find a the peak and so on.

With you setup as it is now, I think you should do a full satellite scan rather than a transponder scan, and see if you can pick up any channels at all. If you can, make a note of them and check that you are on the right satellite by looking at LyngSat - Lyngemark Satellite and selecting 19.2E to see what channels you should get ( free to air only)
Astra 1F/1G/1H/1KR/1L at 19.2°E - LyngSat

Another thing to try is to scroll through the satellite list and see if you get a satellite that gives you a constantly good reading on the bottom yellow bar.

Also, another problem is that there are very few English channels on 19.2E, most of them are at 28.2E/28.5E. I don't know what dish size you have, but you would need a large dish to get the BBC ITV channels in your location (Astra2D) but you should be able to get the free to air channels on the other beams/satelites at 28E, there are quite a few on Eurobird1 at 28.5E.

Eurobird 1 & Astra 2A/2B/2C/2D at 28.2°E - LyngSat

Robbo

[Ant]

Many thanks for the reply Robbo, its appreciated.

I have the dish elevation set at 25.4 degrees though Dishpointer.com says it should be 25.7, will that make a difference being .3 degrees out? The dish is a 80cm Offset dish by the way and the receiver is a Eurosky Digital receiver SL2007S from Conrad.de (its a big store in Germany something like Curry's or Comet)

Could you tell me what LNB Skew is please? I have some markings on the LNB, an arrow plus about 10 marks on each side of it, do I need to turn the LNB? On Dishpointer.com it says LNB Skew: 5.4 degrees.

When I setup the receiver it asks me to pick a country, Sweden is'nt there but Germany and Poland are (with 7 others.) I pick either Germany or Poland because they are closest to me then it asks me to pick a satellite these are the birds I can choose:
Astra 9.2
Hot Bird
Turksat 1C
Sirius 2/3
Amos
Hellas Sat2
But when I go into the Channel Search I can scroll between more birds like Atlantic Bird 2, Eurobird 1, Eutelsat W2, Eutelsat W3A and a few others. How can it offer me 6 birds in the original setup then in Channel Search offer me more? If I pick, say Astra 19.2 when setting up the receiver can I then go and pick Eurobird 1 in Channel Search provided I have set the dish up to receive Eurobird? I am so confused now And to top it all I have to do this on my own!!!!

Anthony

[robbo71]

Hi, yes the skew means a twist or rotation of the LNB.

Astra 19.2E is a bit peculiar, as the skew for that satellite is an exception.
But anyway, from behind dish, i.e looking at the Sky, you need to rotate it 5.4 degrees clockwise.

Sorry, I haven't a clue of the oddities of your receiver. My receiver doesn't ask me what country I'm in, it doesn't care. I have about 60 satellites listed, which looks to be all the satellites that are above the horizon in my area. This list would have been set up by the Distributor of my receiver based on its intended market.


Edit: Just read the last part of your question.


When you select a satellite, the dish should be pointed at that satellite when you do a scan.

If it is not, you will get an incomplete or possibly empty channel list, and it will also be confusing.

You may still get channels to appear though, as many of the satellites share some of the same transponder details, but the channels that appear will not agree with the channel list (Lyngsat) for the selected satellite, but will correspond to the satellite you've actuallly got the dish pointed at.

[lincsat]

I would start with the LNB straight, the skew doesn't make that much difference. Have you seen any other satellite dishes around to gauge the direction from - I would imaging that most dishes in Sweden are pointed at 1W or 5E, I would imagine the 5E satellite is almost due south from you.

When you have found a signal, like you have, it might be worth doing a scan of a few satellites in the database to see if you can find any channels. Once you have found channels, you can identify the satellite that you are pointing at.

[robbo71]

Yes Lincsat is right, the skew adjustment is not critical for a strong satellite, as long as its roughly in the right place it will pick up a signal.
19.2E is closest to your true south.

[pontiend]

Hello.Ant.Somewhere in the menu of your receiver you should be able to setup new satellites.As robbo says 28e is the best for English channels.I have just looked at 'Lyngsat.com'and it seems that you should get all but astra 2d in sweden.I think that 28e means 28 degrees east of due south at greenwich.You can get your position at satsig.net I hope this helps a little bit. I also had problems at first .But I solved most of them. and I am sure that you will.ray.

[Ant]

Many many thanks for the replies and help, it really is appreciated. I am going to "have a play" when it comes light!!

There are only about 15 houses in this village where I am and the ones with dishes seem to be using them for the digital FTA channels (Freeview in the UK. Its not like the UK where we have about 30 channels on Freeview, I can pick up 7 on the Freeview box I brought over from the UK, the rest are encrypted and you need to subscribe!) The dishes do seem to be pointing East though.

I have looked in the menu and all I can find is to Delete Satellites, not add more and I didn't want to delete them incase I can't get them back. It does have a "download software" tab and when I go in there it will scan for new channels etc but I think it needs to be pointing at Astra before it can update itself. I will look again at the manual and try to work out what it says (my German and Swedish are very basic at the moment!)

I am also going to move the dish towards 28 degrees east but I think I might need to move the dish again as its not high enough to clear the roof!

Anthony

[Ant]

Well I have been trying all day to get a picture, I managed to get a strong signal at one stage but no picture (see picture 1) The bottom bar (C/N) stayed at 11dB all the time. The box to the right with 2 green boxes in (QPSK and FEC) also stayed green, before they were either red or changed from red to green. What they are I have no idea. I did a manual scan and also put frequencies in myself but to no avail. There was 3 strong signals I got but no picture no matter what I did, this was the strongest 1.



The only thing I can think of now is the fact that there is a tree in the way (picture 2) Its also cold and icy today (minus 5 all day) and very overcast/grey, would that be the problem? The tree in question is about 30-40 feet high and about 30 feet from the dish. 19.2 and 28 degrees are through the tree too!



I can move the dish further back onto the extension which is about another 25 feet away (picture 3)



I have ran out of ideas now, anyone have any ideas, apart from move or get a large pole and put it in the field next to the house!!!