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But how do you explain that I have ‘NO SIGNAL’ rather than something like at least 10% signal? And also the Good Quality appears in a fraction of a second but disappears again? They’re DEAD flat …
roozbeh – 21 minutes ago »
But if one is having Sky service with no problems, doesn’t it mean it is correctly setup?
You said in your first post “Sky works great” you also said “I checked CBS Action, and Sky box said no signal.”
So you think getting no signal on a Sky channel is great and that isn’t a problem and it means your Sky dish is correctly setup ?
roozbeh – 14 minutes ago »
But how do you explain that I have ‘NO SIGNAL’ rather than something like at least 10% signal? And also the Good Quality appears in a fraction of a second but disappears again? They’re DEAD flat …
The digital cliff is very steep – when the quality falls just below 40% on a channel (very heavy rain) both my units can no longer find any usable signal and report no signal.
Take the unit around to a friends and set it up there – you will then be able to use the unit normally except for stations you also cannot get on Sky like CBS Action.
It is expected that the remaining channels at 28.5E will move next year sometime to 28.2E where you should get them fine.
Sky unit also need to access their default transponder if you cannot get a lock on them you will get nowhere.
Thanks for your replies.
SPoke to Humax and they confirmed the dish needs realignment. I complained to Freesat why they advertise Sky to Freesat is a matter of unplug and plug.
Anyway I looked at the differences between 28.2E and 28.5E orientation, and found out all the alignments are plus or minus less than half a degree different, except LNB skew which is a massive 7.7 degrees difference!
It should be straight-forward then, turn on Sky box, tune into CBS Action, attach a satellite finder between and play with LNB skew till I get signal.
roozbeh – 19 minutes ago »
Thanks for your replies.
SPoke to Humax and they confirmed the dish needs realignment. I complained to Freesat why they advertise Sky to Freesat is a matter of unplug and plug.
Anyway I looked at the differences between 28.2E and 28.5E orientation, and found out all the alignments are plus or minus less than half a degree different, except LNB skew which is a massive 7.7 degrees difference!
It should be straight-forward then, turn on Sky box, tune into CBS Action, attach a satellite finder between and play with LNB skew till I get signal.
For you not to be getting it, if you are in the UK, then you have got to pointing to less than 28E. Skey 7.7 is not much – just over 1 minute on a watch.
Aligning a dish is not so easy – work out which direction you need. Dishpointer.com is a great site for showing you where you should be pointing for both satellite groups.
roozbeh – 17 minutes ago »
I complained to Freesat why they advertise Sky to Freesat is a matter of unplug and plug.
That’s exactly how it should work, it’s hardly Freesats fault for not saying that you may not receive the service if the dish is misaligned.
If anything you could lay the blame with the Sky installer for not installing it correctly, providing of course the dish hasn’t moved slightly since it was installed.
Freesat do actually say “in most cases”.
Quote:Freesat uses the same dish and satellites as Sky, so if you already have a satellite dish and cabling, whether you are currently receiving satellite TV or not, in most cases you can simply connect your Freesat digital box or TV – it’s that simple.Simple, clear, and correct.
roozbeh – 1 day ago »
Reffub – 20 hours ago »
roozbeh – 1 hour ago »
What you said seems strange: if Freesat states I can use my existing dish, I really should! .
Freesat are expecting customers like yourself to have a correctly set up Sky dish, that means it should have a reasonable quality of signal from all their channels ! (And obviously it isn’t normal to have something blocking the satellite signal).
But if one is having Sky service with no problems, doesn’t it mean it is correctly setup?
There were channels from Eutelsat28A on the Sky epg. In all probability you couldn’t have watched them anyway. It’s just more obvious on a Freesat box because the home transponder happens to be on this satellite. Had you set up the box on a correctly aligned dish and then connected to your dish it would then appear to be working ok just like your Sky box did until the next channel change.
-gonzo- – 50 minutes ago »
roozbeh – 17 minutes ago »
I complained to Freesat why they advertise Sky to Freesat is a matter of unplug and plug.
That’s exactly how it should work, it’s hardly Freesats fault for not saying that you may not receive the service if the dish is misaligned.
If anything you could lay the blame with the Sky installer for not installing it correctly, providing of course the dish hasn’t moved slightly since it was installed.
In that case it was not bolted down correctly.
I used a separate satellite receiver to test my signal.
When flicking through different satellite transponders, I get 99% strength with 50% quality, but on the CBS Action is flat dead 0%. Randomly I get some 99% strength out of the blue, but it can not find CBS (three channels which the pictures comes distorted).
I used a satellite finder (the beepy one) to fine tune the dish alignment while receiver was looking at that transponder, and could not make it any better than it currently is.
Could there be a frequency interference?
Yes, there are thin tree branches with leaves in the dish course, like 15m away, but shouldn’t it equally affect Sky signal too?
Unless Sky Satellite is looking at my dish from a completely different location than the Freesat one!
Totally confused.
Hi roozbeh,
there shouldn’t be any confusion. It’s either dish alignment and/or the tree. My money is on the tree, have you looked at dishpointer.com as repassac suggested post #20?
a beepy sat finder will never be as good as a professional installer; however it’s a good start and one that I’ve used in the past and so long as the cabling, connections, fixings etc. are all up to scratch then there shouldn’t be a problem. There may be some tweaking a professional installer could do, but it’s not going to help if the tree is in the way.
Take a look at dishpointer.com. As for my setup it tells me that there shouldn’t be anything in the way higher than 6m above the dish height within 15m distance when pointing at freesat. There is a tree, not under my control unfortunately, and it is higher than 6m above my dish at 15m distance. As a result I can get some sky channels when manually tuning, but cannot get anything on 11428 H 27500 until November through to March which is when the leaves fall.
No amount of returning the freesat box for a new one or complaining to freesat will alter the fact that I have a tree in the way and there’s no place on the house here that I can place a dish where the neighbour’s trees aren’t in the way even though I can tune in to some sky channels.
I’d suggest you take a look at dishpointer.com and if the tree is a problem either remove the obstacle or move the dish. If it’s not the tree then tweak the dish to get a signal on 11428
Alternatively you could take the box to a friend/neighbour and tune it in there, once tuned in it should work; however if the tree is borderline then you’re only putting off the inevitable – I’ve moved my dish 3 times over the last 10+ years and short of turning it into a lightning conductor can’t go any further.
50% quality is low. 90%-100% is normal
REPASSAC – 2 hours ago »
50% quality is low. 90%-100% is normal
Reason could be the tree branches 15-20m away. It’s not bushy though. I wonder how the Sky engineer managed to get a signal from there when he installed it last year (he had to try two positions).
What all are saying would’ve made sense if I didn’t have Sky signal. For a 60cm dish, alignment shouldn’t be sensitive to
fraction of degrees.
Yes I used dishpointer.com and got the data for dish alignment, Astra 28.2E and 28.5E had a difference of 7.7 degrees in LNB skew, and the rest of the angles (azimuth, elevation, etc) are within 0.3 degrees of each other so I’d say if one could get Sky signal, only LNB skew should be tweaked, right?
UNLESS, Sky signal has far superior signal strength compared to Freesat which can cope with dish slight misalignment and/or obstacles such as trees.
roozbeh – 9 minutes ago »
REPASSAC – 2 hours ago »
50% quality is low. 90%-100% is normal
Reason could be the tree branches 15-20m away. It’s not bushy though. I wonder how the Sky engineer managed to get a signal from there when he installed it last year (he had to try two positions).
What all are saying would’ve made sense if I didn’t have Sky signal. For a 60cm dish, alignment shouldn’t be sensitive to
fraction of degrees.
Yes I used dishpointer.com and got the data for dish alignment, Astra 28.2E and 28.5E had a difference of 7.7 degrees in LNB skew, and the rest of the angles (azimuth, elevation, etc) are within 0.3 degrees of each other so I’d say if one could get Sky signal, only LNB skew should be tweaked, right?
UNLESS, Sky signal has far superior signal strength compared to Freesat which can cope with dish slight misalignment and/or obstacles such as trees.
Freesat do not transmit any channels, all they transmit is an alternative epg to that used by Sky.
When you watch say BBC or ITV using a Sky box you are watching exactly the same broadcast. The only difference is you are accessing it via a different epg.
The satellites orbit at a height of 22000mls in a circular orbit directle above the equator. The length of the orbit is approx 165000mls. A 1 degree error in the azimuth adjustment of a dish will miss it’s target by roughly 1,650 mls.
The SES Astra 2 group have a non standard skew, Eutelsat 28A is the standard for it’s orbital location. A compromise is required to receive from both locations.
Eutelsat 28A has a pan European wideband transmission beam. This means it can be received in most of Western Europe but as the rf energy is less concentrated the field strength is lower than the tightly focussed UK spot beam transponders which carry the UK PSB services. Within the primary footprint they are very strong but the signal falls of rapidly at the beam edges.
Footprint map of 28A (The numbers are approx dish size required)
http://www.lyngsat-maps.com/footprints/Eutelsat-28A-Super.png
One of the Astra birds
http://mayenne-satellite.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/astra2f-1n.8482714_std.jpg
Your problem is merely down to not being able to get the Freesat epg, the Sky one is transmitted from the Astra 2 group.
As Repassac says Eutelsat 28A is to be retired, at some time the Freesat epg will have to move to Astra 2.
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