Old Lidl/Aldi Sat box info

BostonB

Is there a NTL box with HDMI ?

bing3

Hi, I just installed the silvercrest system and it's great except for the fact that I can't receive any Irish channels or lots of the ones that are on Sky. I was under the impression that I would pick up everything, movies, sports and all! Is there any way I can unscramble the ones with the $ sign or is there another box available that can do this. Otherwise I think I'll have to sign back up to Sky.

slegs

bing3 wrote: »

Hi, I just installed the silvercrest system and it's great except for the fact that I can't receive any Irish channels or lots of the ones that are on Sky. I was under the impression that I would pick up everything, movies, sports and all! Is there any way I can unscramble the ones with the $ sign or is there another box available that can do this. Otherwise I think I'll have to sign back up to Sky.

Who gave you that impression?

plodder

BostonB wrote: »

Is there a NTL box with HDMI ?

I don't know. But I'd like to find out. I guess sooner or later, all of these decoder boxes will come with HDMI.

BostonB

plodder wrote: »

I don't know. But I'd like to find out. I guess sooner or later, all of these decoder boxes will come with HDMI.

Looks like the way forward alright.

Cuchulain

These come with a dual LNB. Does anybody know where I could source a compatible quad lnb?

stooge

Hey everyone, think this may be my first post in the satellite forum so be nice

Looking at getting a satellite kit and noticed a Silvercrest sl65 with 80cm dish in Lidl up north for £50. Thing is, I have googled this system and have seen reviews from as far back as 2006!

I assume that as this is not a current offer, that Lidl are getting rid of old stock. SO, does anyone have any opinions on sl65 sets bought in the last 6 months from Lidl? Also, is the 80cm dish a little on the big side especially since I will not be mounting it permanently i.e. will probably set it up on the balcony and remove when not using it.

Are there any alternatives for the same or nearly the same price?

Thanks!

micratoyota

Hi I think its a Brilliant System for the money. Bought in last April and installed it with the help of boards. Only thing is that the dish that came with it was 60 cm which works fine now but at the start some of the channels would disappear in the wet weather but with the tinies bit of moving the dish I brought it up to about 79% and its working perfectly since. As I had read alot about (unfavourabl) the Lidl system but liked the free channels and I got hold of an old sky box and remote I decided to get it installed properly. This dish is now beginning to rust (whether this will affect reception later or not I dont know) But my son tweeked the Lidl system and both are working perfectly in different rooms. Three cheers for Lidl.:):):)

micratoyota

Trevord wrote: »

1.
The lidl set to box (Silvercrest SL65) is good, but the dish is poor as the arm that holds it is quite weak and the dish is prone to movement in high winds.

My lidl dish is attached to the garden wall and the end of the garden and is only three feet off the ground, so wind is not an issue. But not every one will get a signal is such a location due to buuildings, trees etc being in the way.

An installer may not agree to use the lidl dish because he knows you'll be calling back with complaints if/when it moves.

I think you'd be better off buying the so called sky (black oval mesh) type dish on ebay from the UK (search for sky dish or raven dish and make sure its zone 2 and that it has an lnb included). Some sellers include a complete dish kit with cables fixings etc. for about 50 to 70 euro (incl p&P) depending on the type of lnb (twin/quad).

A Freesat box would be good with this. That costs about 70 euro as well on line.

Alternatively, many electrical stores are now selling complete sat kits (dish plus set top box) for not much more than 100 euro, but I can't vouch for the quality of these.

If you have access to a ladder and the dish can go on the wall of the house, (look for a neighbours dish as a guide on height and direction) then try to install it yourself, you'll get help from people on boards.ie if you get stuck.

2.
Yes, the lidl dish has an lnb with two connections. BUT you need to run two cables into the house and you need a second set top box for the second TV.
If you buy a dish on line you could get a quad lnb which would allow you run up to 4 cables into the house (which would be useful if you get a PVR at some future point.

Got one of these Mesh dishes about 6 months ago as i acquired an old sky box and remote and answered an adv. on the paper and for €80 got the dish and wiring done. No problems. But now I notice that the dish is begining to show signs of rust. Will this effect the satellite reception if it gets worse.??? Can I paint it or would this also affect it.???

stooge

micratoyota wrote: »

Hi I think its a Brilliant System for the money. Bought in last April and installed it with the help of boards. Only thing is that the dish that came with it was 60 cm which works fine now but at the start some of the channels would disappear in the wet weather but with the tinies bit of moving the dish I brought it up to about 79% and its working perfectly since. As I had read alot about (unfavourabl) the Lidl system but liked the free channels and I got hold of an old sky box and remote I decided to get it installed properly. This dish is now beginning to rust (whether this will affect reception later or not I dont know) But my son tweeked the Lidl system and both are working perfectly in different rooms. Three cheers for Lidl.:):):)

thanks for the advice! think I'll go for it, not much of a risk at that money!

Cheers!

Blue850

I got one in Lidl a month ago, put it up during the xmas break, the plastic clamps holding on the lnb area bit weak, nut pulled thru mine, got a longer bolt and washer and fixed that, diameter of dish is wider than bracket, mine was fouling the wall of my house as I had to turn it nearly 90' to get signal but thats just cos of the way my house faces , little buzzing sat finder was great. I had found signal, and tightened the dish in position in about 15 minutes.

Mark#1

Noise from the chimney kept us awake last night. It was still there this morning, so I had a look from the ground up and could see my Lidl dish hanging pretty badly askew. Very windy last night and still is as I type, so I wasn't too keen to go up on the roof, but the consequences of me not could have been pretty bad.

This is what I found:





You can see I have the 80cm x 80cm dish. IMO, between the all-solid construction of the dish itself and its exposed position on my chimney, and the big (and not uncommonl) winds last night, the cheap-ass wall-mounting bracket couldn't cope.

I'm not going back with the product - I'm sure I'd be told I should have situated it in a less-exposed place.

But I'm posting this as a heads-up for the rest of you guys with this dish/bracket.

Personally, I'll be replacing the Lidl set with a Humax Foxsat HDR320 Freesat PVR & a perforated (like the Sky dishes) 65cm Raven dish & quad-LNB from Freesat.ie. I'll be situating the dish on the front of the house, rather than on the chimney.


Mark

petronius

I have a lidl kit myself for a year and 1/2 or so and it held out with last nites wind no problem I have it sheltered a bit on the gable wall. 80cm is a big sail if left in the wind.
It is a common mistake to try and put the dish as high as possible often it is just as good to have it on the garden wall if there is no obsticales
The problem with the sky and raven dishes are that they do rust quite quickly which does reduce quality.

homer911

celticfc wrote: »

Nope, only the Free-to-Air stuff is available on this kit. Any other equipment to unscramble any subscription-only channels is illegal.

If you want to get rid of all the scrambled channels with the $ symbol on them, you can delete your channel lists and do an auto-scan, just selecting free channels instead of all. None of the Irish channels are currently FTA.

However, more and more of the subscription channels are becoming FTA nowadays, especially since the emergence of the Freesat platform.

I found the best way to get rid of unwanted channels that come up on a rescan is:

• Before rescanning, move all the channels you want to keep to the top of the list and save
• Do a rescan
• All new channels get added to the end of the list
• Edit channels, flag all for deletion
• Undelete the ones you definitely want to keep, which will still be at the top of the list
• Undelete any additional channels you want to keep
• Save

CHW

homer911 wrote: »

I found the best way to get rid of unwanted channels that come up on a rescan is:

• Before rescanning, move all the channels you want to keep to the top of the list and save
• Do a rescan
• All new channels get added to the end of the list
• Edit channels, flag all for deletion
• Undelete the ones you definitely want to keep, which will still be at the top of the list
• Undelete any additional channels you want to keep
• Save

I do this too, there are a lot more channels to delete than to keep.

One problem with this though is that if the audio and/or video PIDs have changed, the rescan will add another channel, so technically you need to delete the old one, and then move the new one to wherever you had the old one. Now, this wouldn't be a problem if you didn't care about the order of channels, but adds a bit of time if you're anal like me. One way around this is to move through the channels in "List" mode (before a rescan), and observe the channel details under the small TV screen. If the PIDs have changed (and channel hasn't moved TP), you'll see the details briefly show the old PIDs, then quickly update to the new ones. However, the new PIDs aren't automatically saved - you need to get into edit mode, and then edit again (from list mode, I think it's "5" "0000" "5"), where you'll get a small dialog with the PIDs, and if you "Save" from here, the updated PIDs will be saved. Sounds a bit complicated, but when you actually do it, it's not.

Mark#1

Sam Russell wrote: »

The dish should not be attached to a chimney - it is too dangerous. The 80cm Lidle dish is too big with ttoo high a wind load to be mounted like that. Mount it nearer the ground and use a stronger mount - the Lidl one is too flimsy for the 80cm dish.

TBH, even before the bracket failed, I'd planned to move it off the chimney to the front of the house: the wind moved the dish so many times, I stopped re-aligning it, so I had free satellite for maybe 3-4 weeks. After that it was just an ugly chimney ornament.

I've already run coax cable to the new dish position.


Mark

Buffer

Hi Mark ...

Mark#1 wrote: »

You can see I have the 80cm x 80cm dish. IMO, between the all-solid construction of the dish itself and its exposed position on my chimney, and the big (and not uncommonl) winds last night, the cheap-ass wall-mounting bracket couldn't cope. (SNIP)

But I'm posting this as a heads-up for the rest of you guys with this dish/bracket.

Do you think the bracket failed first, or did abolt fail first? From your photo, it looks to me like one of the four bolts came right out of its sleeve due to the wind-load on the bracket, causing the bracket to bend and break at one of the other bolts.

While it's definitely a good idea to mount the dish low in a sheltered spot, to reduce wind loading, IMHO it's also important to use good quality bolts -- I think the the wall connectors are even more important than the mounting bracket. Were they supplied with the kit?

Buffer.

Mark#1

Buffer wrote: »

Do you think the bracket failed first, or did abolt fail first? From your photo, it looks to me like one of the four bolts came right out of its sleeve due to the wind-load on the bracket, causing the bracket to bend and break at one of the other bolts.

Like I said on a thread I posted separately about this, it could have been the bolt.

IMO, the main reason was that it's a big dish and it was very exposed: an even stronger bracket or bolt (or better bolt placement) may also have failed. But I've done enough jobs with bolts like this, and was well aware of how much of a sail this dish was, so I made 100% sure that all 4 of those bolts were damn solid before I walked away from the job. I mentioned on that other thread that that top left anchor is still rock solid in its position.

Obviously the bracket was at least stronger than the top left bolt (or its placement or the integrity of the hole drilled for it), but weaker than the other three bolts.

I believe it's worth noting that the tubular section of the bracket was also breaking away from the flat backing plate:



To me, this suggests that this was failing at least at the same time, or possibly before, the failure of the bolt, and I'm no engineer, but I don't see how this specific break could be related to a faulty bolt.

I didn't post to say, "Hey! Lidl's bracket is crap so don't buy it!" I posted to show what happened to my bracket on my dish on my chimney. Maybe from that, someone else with the Lidl system will think twice about doing the same, and put it in a less exposed location, where it'll probably last years.

Like I said, I'm not going back to Lidl about it. There are too many factors involved that are possible causes.

Again, I reckon it was a result of a combination of factors: the dish was too exposed up on my chimney + it's a big dish + the bracket wasn't particularly strong + the bolt itself may have been faulty + the material the bolt was placed into may have been iffy (though, regarding these last two points: as I said, the anchor is still rock solid in there) + the winds of the last few weeks have been pretty strong (though by no means unprecedented) = failure.


Mark

Sam Russell

I had very much the same happen to me, the bracket need support at the other end near the centre of the dish. It needs to be held so that there is no lateral movement - a A shaped bracket would increase the stregnth enormously. You cannot expect that bracket as supplied to hold more than a Yagi. In a blustery wind, the dish acts as a sail, and the bracket bends a few inches. Hold it at the top and it does not move.

shadow007

I have a problem with a SL65 bought recently from Lidl and the Antenna set up menu is not very clear. Using USALsI have only entered my local lat and LOng and assume that the receiver and motor recognise that I have selected the satellite name. After I have found a satellite I am unable to save it when I press ok and then exit several times to get back to the channel view.

I have been able to find and save using Disecq 1.2 Turksat 42E. Atlantic Bird, Siruius 5 E and Atlantic Bird 5w which is just 0.7 degrees east from my long of 5.66w and 54.6N. However when I try to find Astra 2 I get the Astra 1 channels from Germany and when I try to find the German channels I get the Astra 2 english channels. How can this be.

Could there be a problem with receiver stored positions or some conflict with Maplin HH90 motor stored postions. I have sued another receiver to test motor and using Disecq 1.2 have found the Astra 1 and 2 as per appropraite channels.

Grateful for any advice as the Sl65 manaul contains little or no detail on antenna setup and particularly using USALS vs Diesecq 1.2

Regards

Shadow007

CHW

shadow007 wrote: »

I have a problem with a SL65 bought recently from Lidl and the Antenna set up menu is not very clear. Using USALsI have only entered my local lat and LOng and assume that the receiver and motor recognise that I have selected the satellite name. After I have found a satellite I am unable to save it when I press ok and then exit several times to get back to the channel view.

Are you trying to save a new satellite here? If you are finding a satellite not listed by default, and then proceeding to give this position/satellite a new name, you may need to select "OK" on the virtual keyboard, and then press "OK" on the remote for it to be saved. Been a while since I had to do something like this, so a bit rusty off the top of my head.

shadow007

Thanks for your reply. Howvere I ma seraching for a preprogrammed satellite position such as Astra 28.2E and Astra 1 19.2 e. The receiver menus seems unreliable when saving searched position. Alos when I searched for Astra 2 I got AStyra 1 channels and vice versa.

When I used another receiver a Humax which was already in use by a friend I was aable to find the satellites with the preprogrammed channels each time. I was successful in using Disecq to find and save the SL65's preset Turksat 42E and Atlantic Bird 5W although after many tries.

Which makes me think that the Sl65 preset saytellites for Astrra 1 and Astra 2 are somehow out of sync. Or maybe it has to do with resetting USALs to show h/V to ensure auto matic serach.

Anyone else have this problem or has someone done a screen grab of the Usals and/or Disecq menu showing steps to search and save as the manual is very light on detail in this area.

Regards

Shaow007

muincav

Sorry to barge in on this thread lads, but if anyone out there has a remote for the Silvercrest sl65 going spare I would gladly take it as mine seems to have died....thanks all..:o

blackbox

I have just installed a Lidl system that I bought before Christmas.

I had no trouble finding the satellites - I suspect that the harderst part is getting your head around the fact that the dish has to be almost vertical rather than pointing up at the sky. I set up a portable TV outside so that could monitor signal strength from the ladder. I had it all set up before I found the satellite finder beeper in the pack!

It was only when I went to connect it to the old TV in our bedroom that I realised there is no RF output from the receiver. I had to run the signal to an old VCR via scart and then on to the TV by coax.

I found that getting all the channels into manageable lists was a bit of a pain, but in general am very pleased with the system.

Dish is on east facing wall so hopefully sheltered from worst wind.

Sam Russell

The simplest way to find the 28.2 satelite is by pointing the dish towards the sun at 10am (GMT) as the sun is 30 degrees east at that time. The bar holding the LNB is almost horizontal. I found the beeper gets you to a good signal. The next step is to use the 'INFO' button on the station tuned in , and adjust everything - the exact location of the dish, the LNB position in the holder, rotation of LNB, etc. I had someone watching the set and relaying the result using a DECT phone. The signal strength is about 95% with quality at 75%. Without tweaking, it was 65% and 60%. Well worth doing.

Mark#1

Sam Russell wrote: »

The simplest way to find the 28.2 satelite is by pointing the dish towards the sun at 10am (GMT) as the sun is 30 degrees east at that time. The bar holding the LNB is almost horizontal. I found the beeper gets you to a good signal. The next step is to use the 'INFO' button on the station tuned in , and adjust everything - the exact location of the dish, the LNB position in the holder, rotation of LNB, etc. I had someone watching the set and relaying the result using a DECT phone. The signal strength is about 95% with quality at 75%. Without tweaking, it was 65% and 60%. Well worth doing.

You mention this thing called "the sun" - is this a technical term? Did you get yours in Lidl too?


Mark

Sam Russell

Mark#1 wrote: »

You mention this thing called "the sun" - is this a technical term? Did you get yours in Lidl too?


Mark

I am afraid 'Sun' is not one of Lidl's brand names. It is quite unusual at this time of year, but sometimes when you can not see clouds, you can see a bright disk in the sky. That is the object I was talking about. It gets up about 7am and goes down at about 5pm at the moment. It is generally in the southern sky. ( Unless you are in Autralia - or somewhere like that.)


Sam

Mark#1

Joey the lips

Hi All, Been checking in with this forum. Lost a little in some of the jargon. What I simply want to know is. I live in meath and have a sky system

I am getting UTV BBC3&4(+1) CBBIES AND

Is there any other channels I can get and what is their code details.

stevethesatguy

My advice, unplug the sky box,,,throw it in the wheelie bin,,,,go out and buy yourself any other brand of Satellite TV receiver and plug it into Your TV and the cable from the sky dish and scan Astra2/ Eurobird and you will get approx 350 channels ,,some repeats I admit but all free to air channels will be viewable ,,,,easy to set up and no need for codes etc etc