Freesat: Setting up dish/tuner

lafors

My Foxsat HD PVR arrived this morning.
I was hoping it would be plug & play....yeah right, should know better than that
Plugged the Humax in before I changed the single lnb to the quad, to see the box working but it was on the searching for satellite screen for ages. I read the manual and it said to skip past and check the strength & quality in the manual tune setting.

So here's what it said......
Manual Tune
Transponder 11428 H 27500 A
Strength 80%
Quality 0%

So back to the manual, it seems like my dish isn't aligned correctly, so I've been using a sat-finder and dishpointer.com to line up the dish, but not having much luck. Initially, the satfinder didn't pick up anything where the dish was originally pointed. It looked like it was pointing too far eastwards, and the angle on the dish bracket was off. My next door neighbour saw me on the roof of the kitchen at the dish and she told me the previous owner had put it up himself.....no surprise there so. I've tried to move it so its pointing in the right direction and have kept lowering the dial on the satfinder everytime it saturates. I thought I had it in a decent position but its still giving 80%strength, 0% quality.

Anyone have any help/advise please?

btw here's the software etc of the humax, in case its of any use.
Humax Foxsat-HDR
Software Ver. HPRSFCI 1.00.03
Loader Ver. U7.52
System ID 3768.0000
(At bottom of page, Tuner1 & Tuner2 both 0% for strength & quality)

If its possible bring the foxsat and a small tv up on the roof with you using extension leads or whatever.

Then as you are moving the dish the signal quality will move.

This is what I did,it may be no good as you have a sat pointer but it may help.I will say thought that when I was doing mine the movements needed are so small its unbelievable,you better of getting the general direction and then tightening the dish up pretty good and leaving just enough to forcefully move it.

If you leave the dish loose and start moving it all over the place i.e 3 inches all around you will find it very hard,if your neighbours sat dish is workng then you ahould copy exactly where theres is and start from there,it should matter if the neighbour put it up himself,just use it to get the general direction.

Initially I tried dishpointed.com but found it useless in trying to help me as I am an amatuer like you,so I used my neigbours as a guide.

kuro_man

If using a single LNB, you should connect the second tuner with the loop-thru. The manual has a picture of it.

Does you kitchen have a flat roof with easy access to the dish?
If so, do the following:

• Wait for dry weather.
• Bring receiver and portable TV up to roof. Connect TV with scart and receiver to LNB, then switch on.
• Set the elevation to 21.5 degrees - the dish mount should have markings on the bracket and tighten bracket. (on most dishes, the puts the arm almost parallel to the ground)
• Skew the lnb to around 15% (point the bottom to around 7 o'clock as you look as the dish)
• Point your dish to the target according to dishpointer.
• Slowly move the dish left (not up and down) keeping an eye on the TV for signal quality (ignore strength). If no improvement, move it to the right.
• Eventually, the quality should increase to 70 - 80%. Keep moving until it starts to decrease, then move slowly back until you are in the sweet spot.
• Adjust the LNB skew slightly and see if you can increase the signal strength.
• Tighten bolts, keeping any eye on TV to ensure there is no movement.
• Scan channels.

If strength does not increase, repeat process with a slightly adjusted elevation.

Plug everything out and disconnect and then wreck your house with a big drill so the cables can be dropped into the living room.:D Make sure the hole is big enough for two cables!

lafors

Evie Rapid Wallaby wrote: »

If its possible bring the foxsat and a small tv up on the roof with you using extension leads or whatever.

Then as you are moving the dish the signal quality will move.

This is what I did,it may be no good as you have a sat pointer but it may help.I will say thought that when I was doing mine the movements needed are so small its unbelievable,you better of getting the general direction and then tightening the dish up pretty good and leaving just enough to forcefully move it.

If you leave the dish loose and start moving it all over the place i.e 3 inches all around you will find it very hard,if your neighbours sat dish is workng then you ahould copy exactly where theres is and start from there,it should matter if the neighbour put it up himself,just use it to get the general direction.

Initially I tried dishpointed.com but found it useless in trying to help me as I am an amatuer like you,so I used my neigbours as a guide.

Thanks, unfortunately the only house near me is about 10 houses away.
I could try bringing the tv out though. If I've to be as accurate as you say I may be way off the mark.
Here's a pic of the angle marked on the dish, at the moment it looks like about 10deg? I believe Astra 2A 28E is at about 21deg elevation?

kuro_man

I put a few dishes up using dishpointer, and it has been dead-on so far.

Check both sides on mount for elevation scale but yes, 21.5 degrees is typical for Astra 2.

mike65

Way off! move the bracket so 24 is under the bolt corner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXKo0ienGgg

lafors

I've answered in your quote in red....

kuro_man wrote: »

If using a single LNB, you should connect the second tuner with the loop-thru. The manual has a picture of it.
I've put the quad lnb on it already


Does you kitchen have a flat roof with easy access to the dish?
If so, do the following:

• Wait for dry weather.
  Lovely day today
• Bring receiver and portable TV up to roof. Connect TV with scart and receiver to LNB, then switch on.
  Any reason why scart? Does it matter if I use the hdmi?
• Set the elevation to 21.5 degrees - the dish mount should have markings on the bracket and tighten bracket. (on most dishes, the puts the arm almost parallel to the ground)
  From the pic I attached in the previous post, I should have that at 21.5 deg? btw the pole its on is point directly down
• Skew the lnb to around 15% (point the bottom to around 7 o'clock as you look as the dish)
  The lnb has numbers 1-5 which it can be turned to, don't think I could get it to 15deg?
• Point your dish to the target according to dishpointer.
• Slowly move the dish left (not up and down) keeping an eye on the TV for signal quality (ignore strength). If no improvement, move it to the right.
• Eventually, the quality should increase to 70 - 80%. Keep moving until it starts to decrease, then move slowly back until you are in the sweet spot.
• Adjust the LNB skew slightly and see if you can increase the signal strength.
• Tighten bolts, keeping any eye on TV to ensure there is no movement.
• Scan channels.

If strength does not increase, repeat process with a slightly adjusted elevation.

Plug everything out and disconnect and then wreck your house with a big drill so the cables can be dropped into the living room.:D
There's no hope of the boss letting me do that
Make sure the hole is big enough for two cables!

lafors

lafors wrote: »

Thanks, unfortunately the only house near me is about 10 houses away.
I could try bringing the tv out though. If I've to be as accurate as you say I may be way off the mark.
Here's a pic of the angle marked on the dish, at the moment it looks like about 10deg? I believe Astra 2A 28E is at about 21deg elevation?

Ok well your first problem is the piece of **** dish you have which I have the exact same one aswell
Im guessing we bought it in the same shop in Dublin.
(could just be me not knowing how the angles work properly)
This dish's angles are completely wrong,when you set it to 21 degrees or whatever its supposed to be (cant remember off hand) its completely wrong.I dont know what the story with it is.

What I did was to ignore the angles marked on the dish and basically align the dish so that it is perfectly vertical and then angle it very slightly towards to sky.

Then move the dish side to side,once you get the best signal tighten the bolts.
Then move the dish elevation once again up and down until the signal improves but ignore the elevation marking on the dish because they are way off the mark.

The ideal angle should be just slightly upwards,very slightly.


From you pic the dish is angled to much towards the sky,as Mike 65 says you need to move it down towards the ground.So its just slightly pointing upwards.

lafors

Big thanks for the help lads
Goose you were right, that dish is brutal The angle ended up at about 11deg on the markings on the side of it!!

Just hadthe TV in the window and made the small adjustments to get the signal up. Its at 90% strength & 70-80% quality

I did run into a problem with the humax not liking any postcode I put in (yes I had the space in it ) I sorted it by doing a factory reset, then going through the wizard again. I'm using a central london postcode.

Thanks again lads for the help

kuro_man

lafors wrote: »

Big thanks for the help lads
Goose you were right, that dish is brutal The angle ended up at about 11deg on the markings on the side of it!!

Just hadthe TV in the window and made the small adjustments to get the signal up. Its at 90% strength & 70-80% quality

I did run into a problem with the humax not liking any postcode I put in (yes I had the space in it ) I sorted it by doing a factory reset, then going through the wizard again. I'm using a central london postcode.

Thanks again lads for the help

Glad it worked out. Nothing beats the receiver itself (and a flat roof) for finding satellites.