just got all the bits together to get sat on site.
been trying to get it set up at home, with limited success, I can get a sat signal, and get the receiver to see the transponder, but cant get it to lock, only getting a 50% signal on the box.
can someone put my mind at ease that its because Im trying this in a built up area, I seem to remember the sky guys having fun trying to position my dish when it was installed a few years ago.
I don't want this attempt at keeping the OH happy onsite being one more thing to get annoyed with whilst setting up camp!!
my sat dish wont work at home at all, tried for 2 hours but works great on site, took about an hour at first but its down to about 10mins now, they can be very fiddly.
The astra satellite that sky and freesat use is far to the east - 28 degrees. Try starting your sweep with the dish from east to south. If there is something blocking the signal then you can be there forever. If you track to the wrong satellite then there will be a signal showing but you wont get a lock. You the have to reset the box by switching it off and on.
In the end I bought a meter that identifies the satellite signal is from the correct satellite. Makes setting up a doddle but not the cheapest option.
thanks, Im getting the 07d4 transport stream and 002 ID, just not enough signal to get a lock on it.
I bought a cheap satfinder it has an irritating tone and a needle guage, managed to get a little more using that, but not got enough for a picture yet.
Ill take it with me at easter and give it a go there.
I find the cheap sat finders useless, if you have the suitcase type satkit then the strength bars on the tv display are usually better. When setting up in the caravan would suggest putting the TV screen in the window!
I think the most common problem is having the dish horizontal, it is tempting to point it up at the sky and this screws your levels up! The Astra 28.2 is quite a tolerant forgiving signal to find.
Never have a problem!! hubby leaves it to me to set up i have tv and sky controls go outside have the wind open and sorted in minutes!! i have more patients than hubby (or is that the male population!! oops started something now!!) i sue the meter and check out other dishes in the area,
once the signal found its just very slight movemnt. Some times turn the machine off and wait a minute then turn back on again as the signal freezes sometime and you could be moving it around thinking nothing happening.
As we take our home sky box we have connected connectors(left that to hubby!!) so that they push in and out of the box at the back as keep screwing everytime could damage the coax all the time. Now i just pull the connector at home and push in in the van makes it easier.
I got a good tip off the satelliteforcaravans website which was glueing the small tube out of a level onto the lnb arm so that the bubble centres up between the black lines when you're at the correct elevation for Astra.
Set the dish up, peaked on Sky, then get the hot melt glue gun out, prop up one end of the tube till the bubble's centered, then flood both ends with hot glue.
Works great and setup time is down to a couple of minutes.
Also cut a notch out of the standard 45cm sky dish so that the arm/lnb can fold up for travel.
I like the idea of using a spirit level bubble, although the angele is different for every location, but as a reference for a rough guide then it would be handy. Of course if you always go back to camp within the same area, say 50 miles radias, then your method will alway be spot on, I notice some of the Sky dish's come with a small clip on spirit level, mounted on the lnb arm.