Hello, brief intro and question.

[jawsum]

Hello to you all, I recently found an old Grundig analogue IRD in the loft and was curious to see if it still worked. I paid a guy to come and re-align my Sky mini-dish from 28.2e to 19.2e and was pleased when I tuned in some german channels. However I very quickly got bored of the limited number of german channels so went out and purchased a digital receiver, a Topfield TF5050CI because it was half price in the clearance section at Maplins. Pleased with the new amount of channels I could now recieve I started playing about with the menus of the reciever and realised I could tune in channels from four satellites all at the same time, Nilesat 7.0w, Astra 19.2e, Astra 28.2e and Intelsat 169e. I dont understand how this is possible. Can anyone explain how I am picking up four satellites on a Sky mini-dish pointing to 19.2e ?

Thanks for reading

[redoxide]

Your not! all the channels you are picking up are on 19.2e. If you are managing to get channels when selecting a different satellite its simply because they are channels being broadcast on 19.2e being transmitted on similar transponders and frequencies.

[jawsum]

Thanks for the reply, it makes sense but forgive me, I still don't understand. In the menu it shows bar graphs showing the signal strength and quality for the for individual satellites. All the bar graphs vary whereas if they were all for 19.2e wouldn't they all be the same, also I get duplicates of channels eg. I might get three versions of Euronews each with three different frequencies and the menu shows a different satellite name for each one??

Sorry if im being really thick!

[Robbo]

What redoxide says is correct. Can you provide a specific example?

[bamjames]

Originally Posted by jawsum

Thanks for the reply, it makes sense but forgive me, I still don't understand. In the menu it shows bar graphs showing the signal strength and quality for the for individual satellites. All the bar graphs vary whereas if they were all for 19.2e wouldn't they all be the same, also I get duplicates of channels eg. I might get three versions of Euronews each with three different frequencies and the menu shows a different satellite name for each one??

Sorry if im being really thick!

I had this as well at first
I had a FTA receiver - a silvercrest sl65(lidl receiver)
I was pointing at 28E yet when I scanned 19E I could get Euronews and a few others (but mainly news channels)

what I was told was that the receiver was not smart enough to tell the satellites apart and could then get a few common channels on the different SATs or just 1 or 2 channels!

for instance even tho I had my dish pointed at 28E I was getting a few channels from 5E and 19E,I did not have the dish pointed at them but the receiver thought it was and got 1/4 channels on 5E and 19E but they were only channels on 28E

Edit: my silvercrest shows higher signal on 19E than 28E event tho its not pointed at 19E!

[nvingo]

Your receiver comes pre-programmed with the frequencies that each satellite has transponders (transmitters) for.
When you "change satellite" on the receiver, all you are doing is changing the list of frequencies it will attempt to receive from. There will be some overlap between this list and that for the satellite the dish is actually pointed at, so the receiver will find some channels.

Analogy: imagine taking an old portable radio with BBC Radio 1 etc printed on the tuning dial to another country. You may still hear music on it, but that won't be the UK station on the tuning dial needle, and at some dial positions where a station is marked, you may not hear anything. You may need to tune to positions where no station name is marked, to hear other local broadcasts.

[jawsum]

Thanks for all the response. I think I get it now. After playing around in the menu's and with the help of lyngsat I think understand how my reciever works a lot more now.

Cheers everybody

[jawsum]

ps. Is my reciever any good?

[Robbo]

Originally Posted by jawsum

ps. Is my reciever any good?

No idea. What do you think of it?