Tevion Digital Mini Satellite System

[praggy]

I have purchased a Tevion Digital Mini Satellite System and have attempted to set up the satellite/channels (In my opinion the instructions for the book are not very useful and hard to follow) it is saying that I have a high signal but a low signal quality and it is picking up no channels.
If you could help ASAP it would be fantastic and would help me extremely.
Thanks in advance (maybe)

[Robbo]

Hi, and welcome to Techwatch.

Just a few questions, What size dish is i?t, where are you located? and what satellite are you after?.

Answere these and we should be able to get you sorted in no time. Although you will probably have to work out the receiver specifics yourself.

Robbo

[merlodlliw]

My guess is you have it pointed at Astra 19,Lidl & Aldi kits get the two confused, give it a tweek to astra 28. Presume it was bought at Aldi?

Bob

[praggy]

Originally Posted by robbo71

Hi, and welcome to Techwatch.

Just a few questions, What size dish is i?t, where are you located? and what satellite are you after?.

Answere these and we should be able to get you sorted in no time. Although you will probably have to work out the receiver specifics yourself.

Robbo

Right, it is 30cm x 36cm (roughly), If you mean located as in town I am in Swindon, if you mean located as in around my house, I am in the bedroom (upstairs). I am unsure what you mean by what satellite I am after as I am a complete novice.


EDIT: @Bob yes it was bought from aldi.

[Robbo]

OK, I take it you want 28E then where the BBC and ITV channels are.


First thing to do is find somewhere you have a good view of the sky due south.

Then go to www.dishpointer.com, find your bedroom and get an idea which way to point the dish.

If you mount the dish on something vertical, set the elevation using the scale on the back to 25 degrees. Set the dish roughly where it should be pointing, see the yellow line on dishpointer.

Select 28E on the receiver.

Whilst looking at signal quality for say 10773H /22000, slowly swivel the dish from one side to the other until you get good sig quality. Once you have it, make some fine adjustments to maximise the quality.

Then do a scan of the transponder, or check your channels and see if you can watch BBC1 London on that transponder.

If you don't succeed getting good quality at first, adjust the elevation a liitle and repeat the side-to side swivel until you do.

Robbo

[kerrywez]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

I recently set up one of those sets for a holiday home owner, here in the sunny south west of Ireland. I did try the tiny dish and was able to get a signal from Astra 2, at 28.2E, but there was an old Sly dish there, about 80Cms I should think and I changed the LNB and realigned the dish from Astra 1 at 19.2E to Astra 2 at 28.2 E and had a good signal and signal strength with that wee box, But I did get a false signal and should imagine that it was from Badr at 26E, but that satellite is not in the box so there was no wat to be sure that it was it or not, but it had to be. I should have said that I was using the meter built into the box, in the end I have to put the box on BBC 1 and then move the dish till I got the right satellite, so what I am saying is that even someone like me, who has set up plenty of dishes, was caught out and so you might well be having the same problem with Badr.

Robbo has explained what to do to set up the dish and there is nothing for me to add to that. I would just say that the wee dish was much easier to get a signal from, way easier than the big dish. Good luck with it and I hope this has been of some help. In the end my advice would be to set the box to BBC 1 and then have a portable TV and the box near the dish, where you can see it anyway, and then have a go.

Very best regards Wez

[Robbo]

Originally Posted by kerrywez

I would just say that the wee dish was much easier to get a signal from, way easier than the big dish.
Very best regards Wez

I agree, with such a tiny dish it is much easier to line it up, Spent the day messing about with three of my dishes, got the Sky minidish setup in a few minutes. I'd forgotton how precise you don't have to be.

[merlodlliw]

Agree with Wes get a portable tv by the box, one thing with sat is when you move the dish, it does take a second or so to get the signal back to the box,my first error was moving the dish before it spoke to the box, so to speak. Also the guide will be translated from German,perhaps via China
this does create problems, anyhow have a go.


Bob

[Frank H]

I am new to this satellite lark, but the launch of FreeSat tempted me. The Aldi kit impresses; the instructions clearer than for most "flat-packs" I receive BBC 1&2, ITV 1&2 plus CBeebies. News 24 is listed, but no signal. I understood that there were some 80 channels? I realize that without a Freesat box, the bells and whistles are missing, but what gives with the channels? Regarding the news channel, I was hoping to use the kit when caravanning in southern France. I know about small-dish footprint, but have been told that one can get Sky News off a southern satellite - any experience or details please? Frank H

[sat.newbie]

praggy, I just bought the exact same kit (from Aldi?) and I almost gave up with it. Take heart - it can be made to work well with a bit of perseverance.

This is the first ever satellite tv system I've ever bought or used.

When I eventually found it, I was surprised how narrow the signal band must be. But then, having found a satellite to begin with, I was also surprised how without moving the dish I could pick up channels from several of the others!

First thing to realise is that you need to make sure you have put the connectors on the end of the cable correctly. Aldi/Tevion are such cheapskates that they make you do it yourself! One tiny short circuit between a strand of the earthing net and the core will mess you up. You'll need a sharp knife, a careful disposition, strong hands and a pair of pliers to do this well.

The good news is that any such mistake will probably show as a 0% signal strength (top bar). That top bar isn't measuring the signal strength from the satellite, it's measuring how well any signal is transmitted down the cable you have connected to the LNB at one end and the receiver at the other. The signal strength should be around 75% if you have done a careful job with the cable connectors.

The other bottom signal quality bar is useless until you are pointing south at a low angle. It defaults everywhere else to 11%-14% which is meaningless.

Next, make sure you start with the dish vertical. The required satellite azimuth or elevation angle is not very great in UK latitudes and you can sort that out last. The book page 42 says in UK most satellites are about 25 to 30 degrees elevation, but my dish didn't look much leaned back at all ... or maybe I was parked on a slope .

Next point the dish south, or a few degrees east of south. Google Earth might help or alternatively wait for 12 Noon GMT tomorrow and point it at the sun .

Next, go to the Menu / Antenna setup and make sure it is first set to Astra 28E and Exit. You don't need to bother with any of the other complex settings in there.

Then go to Menu/Preset Scan and select Astra 28E again. Then set it to scan Free channels and then select Search.

You should then see it getting hits (I think as long as you are pointing more or less south it will find plenty).

When it has finished it will try to tune the last channel it found.

If it doesn't, you should still find BBC1 London is tuned as Channel 1, and if you are lucky you may even be able to view it immediately.

Anyway, select Channel 1 and then press the Info button to see what kind of signal quality you are getting (that's the bottom bar). The book says you'll need 60%+ to get watchable tv. I found that some kind of picture appears at as low as 40%, but you get 'Weak signal' texted across the picture as a half way house.

With this Aldi/Tevion kit there is an earphone and additional line bleeper and flat window cable but I suggest you leave them in the box to cut down opportunities for error. I found that the receiver's inbuilt audible bleep facility helped me fine tune dish position from this point:-

From the Info screen on the channel you are viewing (I suggest Channel 1 BBC1 London) just press the '1' button to get the audible tone.

Then adjust the dish in the horizontal plane by a few degrees at a time. Stop briefly between each move of a few degrees (only) because there is a time lag.

You will hear the bleeper tone rise as you pass through the optimum position. When you have fine tuned the horizontal (you might get it to say 40% - 60% and may get a picture from it), you can then fine tune the azimuth or elevation angle. It may only be a few degrees from dish vertical, but when you have finished, you may have improved the signal quality (lower bar) to 70%+ and you'll be smiling broadly.

I was a bit dumb when I first set mine up, but I got lucky. We were on a campsite and I'd parked surrounded by some thirty to forty foot trees - my fourteen year old son told me they'd be a problem. He was right!

Luckily I had the dish on the roof and South was a four foot wide gap between two treetops


Hopefully you have no such obstacles.


Anyway, after we scanned on several satellites we ended up with no less than 2500 stored channels , which when pared down to remove duplicates and variations of all the ITV and BBC regions, probably means about 100 discrete channels. I'd say half those were wacko you must be mad if you pay sex lines channels or shopping or 'praise the lord' religious type thing, and half what was left was from Asia. That left me about 25 watchable, which roughly equates to a Freeview box, but I was reasonably pleased because terrestrial Freeview on that campsite is an appallingly bad signal.


Good luck!

PS Frank H, I disagree that the Tevion instructions are better than any flatpack kit! Looked to me that you start out of the box at page 32 out of 84 and then they proceed to make it all look so extremely complicated that I put it down!

I also noticed BBC News 24 was apparently tuned but no signal, but there was a watchable 'BBC News' channel on a different channel number. At home today, I have noticed that BBC News 24 on Freeview channel 80 have rebranded themselves as plain 'BBC News' - maybe that's the explanation?

And like you Frank, I am hoping it will work just fine sur le continent! I am sure it will . Turksat is over that way somewhere is it not?