Silver Crest DVB-S

Idgeitman

Hey all,

Hey all, my friend just picked up a Silver Crest DVB-S dish and box, We hooked it all up, and the menu's ect are showing up perfectly on the tv, but its totally dead, We arent getting a single sign of any signals,

Anyone ever had a problem like this before?

Thanks

- idgeitman

bigpaddy2004

Idgeitman wrote:

Hey all,

Hey all, my friend just picked up a Silver Crest DVB-S dish and box, We hooked it all up, and the menu's ect are showing up perfectly on the tv, but its totally dead, We arent getting a single sign of any signals,

Anyone ever had a problem like this before?

Thanks

- idgeitman

Did you try to align the dish while watching the signal menu on the box?

Idgeitman

yeah, for a long time lol

bigpaddy2004

Idgeitman wrote:

yeah, for a long time lol

Check each of the f-connectors that there is no braid touching the centre wire causing a short. Also be sure you have the dish pointed roughly where the sun would be coming in from at about noon, and just move it left 2 right very slowly while someone is inside watching the signal level. What satellite are you after?

watty

It isn't easy to point a dish at a particular satellite 45,000km way till you get some practice. It probabily isn't pointing at a satellite.

You did use Satellite cable and check the F-Connectors are correctly on each end?

watty

What size dish is it? While a larger dish gives a stronger siganl, it is narrower beam and harder to find a satellite.

Idgeitman

The Dish is around a 1ft and a half wide

HungryJoey

You will get it. Took me hours but I know I could do it all again in alot shorter time. I set this sat + box and i would advise using the built in acoustic noise signal detector. Press one when you are searching for a signal. This will enable a very loud but clear sound. When you hit any signal it will change to a higher pitch. And it will continue to a higher pitch, the closer you get to a perfect signal. Takes a while but you will get it. I thought I'd never get it but I did. Use the tool they supply you with aswel the compas / city locator. Works quite well. Just read the instructions, It does sound cofusing how to use it but I got the nag of it and works well. Always remember there is a 2-3 second delay between the dish + satelite so if you hit the satellite and you are still moving the dish, chanced are you are going to miss the signal. So small movements are the key.

Hj

Idgeitman

thanks for the reply, The only thing is did you every actually get any picture during the install?, were not even getting static the picture just remains completely blank but the menus are showing. Is this a normal thing before you pick up a satellite?, or should it show even some signs of static ect?

Ger Roe

You will see nothing until you hit a signal - it's either there or it's not, very little margin for in between signals and no static indication on screen

As the previous poster said, it takes patience and very small movements in and around the general area indicated by the compass. Remember to move the dish left and right as well as up and down, but slowly.... while listening for the tone.

In the end the dish should be pointing with the compass arrow lined to the satellite you are trying to see, and be just off vertical to look at.

It's tricky, but when you have managed it once it will be a lot clearer and easier to repeat.

Ronan|Raven

Have you the F connectors attached correctly to the cable? Also are you able to use a neighbours dish as a point of ref as to where you need to be pointing it?

stevethesatguy

if you do not have a good satellite meter then its very hit and miss, should cost €60 or so to get a satellite engineer out to align the dish if all the cable is run, saves a lot of heartache

L1011

Make sure the transponder the meter is looking for is:

a: active
b: on the satellite you want

The Silvercrest boxes seem to have no-longer-existant transponders for both Hotbird and Astra 1 as the default.

Idgeitman

what exactly are transponders?

L1011

Hello, and welcome to ICDGU's Satellite Transmission Technology 101

A TRANSmitter-resPONDER is the device on a satellite that receives the uplink signal and reflects it back down on a different frequency. Each satetellite carries anything from 10 to 50 transponders and each satellite position usually totals close to 90 or them. Each transponder (or virtual transponder, but lets not get in to that) has a frequency, which is what you tune to get to the channels on that transponder.

Check that you've got the box looking for the right satellite to begin with (Astra 2 for the BBC channels, Astra 1 for German channels, and so on), then make sure the that frequency/symbol rate/polarity its looking for match exactly with an active digital transponder - look on Lyngsat (www.lyngsat.com) to confirm. Analogue transponders won't set off the signal meter on the box, and neither will blank transponders.

Zaphod

http://bytelive.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=How+to+align+a+satellite+dish

I've tried to make it as clear as possible and also geared it towards Astra 28E as the vast bulk of questions here are for receipt of BBC or Sky.

watty

Looks like an excellent update Zaphod!