Old Lidl/Aldi Sat box info

Jasin

I have got successfully located Astra 19E & Hotbird 13E without sat finder.. The signal quality is about 74%. Thanks Watty. need more patience...

With the lidl dish, I can able to get most of the channels from hotbird6,7A & 8.

The lnb skew adjust also required sometimes, (turn right/left) but this adjustment shows big difference in signal quality if you already locked to satellite.

My garden is on exact south side, I satarted from syrus 5E (easy one) and then move on to Astra19E, Hotbird.

I did few things this time, restore the default settings from the receiver. and thencheck for each satellite during dish alignment. First lock the dish to maximum & constant signal intensity. from that point, move slightly up/down or left/right and look for good signal quality.

If signal quality stays 14db, & higher/constant signal intensity received all the time, It looks like you are very close to the satellite.Fine adjustment required to get higher signal quality.

Thanks
Jasin

Doodah7

I see Lidl are running the satellite again next Monday: both the 80cm one and the camping one...

mike65

How much work is required to set up the system physically? I can imagine the dish being a bugger to mount single-handed and then the drilling for the cable through the roof and down into the tv room.

Mike.

lucernarian

I never really read the threads on the Lidl system. Very stupid of me. The box came without the cables and connectors. As the box described them as accessories, I took it that they were bought separately.

I learned from a friend last weekend that this is not the case:mad:

Seeing as it's about a month since it was bought, is there anything I can do to get this?? Would Lidl believe me when I say that the box came without the cable?:(

lucernarian

Thanks a lot Wil. That excuse will be helpful, as it's more believable than the truth!

nosmo-king

I have just one question about this....
Does this system do roughly the same job as the basic sky package which costs approx € 30 per month.

byte

nosmo-king wrote:

I have just one question about this....
Does this system do roughly the same job as the basic sky package which costs approx € 30 per month.

Thread merged with existing thread.

It doesn't do the same job as a Sky subscription. A Sky sub opens up RTE, TV3, Sky1-3, Discovery, NatGeo, etc. These sort of channels are not available FTA (free-to-air), and so not receiveable on a FTA receiver.

I'm gonna sticky this thread for now, as I'm sure there'll be more queries...

radiofoot

Hi All,

I need to buy a new receiver for FTA, and it looks to me that I may as well buy the dish and receiver from Lidl and install the extra dish for a different satellite (whenever I get over my fear of heights!) - I have a 60cm dish pointed at Astra right now.

Am I right in thinking that I'll be lucky to get a decent receiver for less than €79, and if so, is the Lidl receiver any good?

Thanks.

byte

radiofoot wrote:

Hi All,

I need to buy a new receiver for FTA, and it looks to me that I may as well buy the dish and receiver from Lidl and install the extra dish for a different satellite (whenever I get over my fear of heights!) - I have a 60cm dish pointed at Astra right now.

Am I right in thinking that I'll be lucky to get a decent receiver for less than €79, and if so, is the Lidl receiver any good?

Thanks.

Read the sticky thread dealing with the Lidl receivers...

Nevada

I bought the Lidl Silvercrest dish today. 80cm and looks a little different to the one shown from last year earlier in the thread.

I just mounted on the wall this afternoon and so far connected one end of cable to the LNB have not tried to tune it yet. Should be fun, I know nothing about satellite.

My first problem is I have two short cables with connectors at either end that i am not sure what to do with. One is marked WOER RSFR-H Tube 125 degrees C?

Anybody assembled the latest model yet. Also I wondered about securing the dish against lightning.

Lossy

Nevada wrote:

My first problem is I have two short cables with connectors at either end that i am not sure what to do with. One is marked WOER RSFR-H Tube 125 degrees C?

The short flat cable is for allowing you to pass the cable through a window rather than drilling a hole in your wall. Open the window, feed the cable through the gap in your window and then close the window. The flat cable allows the window to close properly.

The other short cable which isnt flat is for allowing you to connect the sat meter for tuning in while you are in near proximity to the dish. Connect one end of you short cable to the lnb on the dish and the other end to your sat meter.

Bozacke

radiofoot wrote:

Hi All,

I need to buy a new receiver for FTA, and it looks to me that I may as well buy the dish and receiver from Lidl and install the extra dish for a different satellite (whenever I get over my fear of heights!) - I have a 60cm dish pointed at Astra right now.

Am I right in thinking that I'll be lucky to get a decent receiver for less than €79, and if so, is the Lidl receiver any good?

Thanks.

Am I right in thinking that I'll be lucky to get a decent receiver for less than €79, and if so, is the Lidl receiver any good?


I've been wondering that myself, it seems the receivers in most of the Irish Satellite shops seem to be over €100, but there are some places on the web where you can get them for a cheap as €30, plus another $5-10 for shipping, they might be slightly lower spec. than the €100+ boxes, but if you just want a cheapo box for a 2nd set it seems to be the better deal. However if you need a LNB and wiring and any of the other bits the Lidl's kit might be worth it.

I've recently seen a Comag (the manufacturer of the Lidl's Silvercrest box) SL35 for about €35 - the current Lidl's box is a SL65 a newer version, I'm not too sure what the diffeences are. I've also seen a Comag SL65/2CI which is the extended version of the SL65 and also has a card reader for Pay cards and FTV cards? for about €55. There are better boxes out there with more functions, but you'll pay for them, some over €500 and even the remote controls are dearer than the SSL35.

homer911

Can anyone offer advice on combining a Lidl Satellite receiver with a DVD player and set-top aerial? It looks like I can only connect the receiver to the TV using SCART, which my DVD player uses at the moment

radiofoot

I went into Lidl today, and they only seem to have the camping set left. However, I would still be interested in this for the decoder if the small portable dish (I think it is 40cm) could be used for satellites such as Eurobird 3 or hotbird - just for interest's sake. Is this at all possible or is the portable dish just way too small?

byte

homer911 wrote:

Can anyone offer advice on combining a Lidl Satellite receiver with a DVD player and set-top aerial? It looks like I can only connect the receiver to the TV using SCART, which my DVD player uses at the moment

Are there 2 Scarts at the back of the Lidl box?

I think there is one for TV, one for VCR? If so, connect the DVD player to the VCR socket. Doing so shoudl allow the DVD player to work when powered on, and when put in standby again, the Scart control goes back to the Lidl box.

wil

Also had a look in Lidl today & didnt see any camping kits but plenty of 80cm kits.
Same dish as used to be with their analog systems fairly light and flimsy.
In my completely subjective test of bendability and putyourfistthroughability I would reckon the metal is half as thick as a Triax and maybe 2/3 as thick as a Fortec Star.
Or to use another grading system, it wouldnt take my little girl 2 mins to put a good dent in it whereas I reckon a Triax could last a good 10 minutes with my little boy jumping on it.
It has a thin circular pole lnb arm coming through a hole in the dish.
That aside, positioned where it wouldnt be under too much wind stress it should work fine.
The SL65 looks neat enough, not as small as the SL65/12 but smaller than most FTA receivers.
Doesnt have RF out as I suspected, despite what the ads say.
Seems to have both coax and optical out for surround sound systems I guess.
Manual is fairly rubbish, it lists all the menu commands and what they do, but very little step by step guides on how to use the receiver itself. Most is general stuff with only about a quarter specific to this receiver.
AFAIK the menu is identical to the SL65/12 so once you get over a few intuitive hurdles is actually easy to use. You pretty much have to figure out for yourself how to set up the categories and favorites etc.
BTW Comag only import them, they are mostly Chinese manufactured.
As for the camping dish, on the East coast and areas of good signal strength you should get most of Astra2 28e, and Astra1 19e, with some of Hotbird 10e but I doubt you will get much if anything from Eurobird3.(perhaps you meant Eurobird1 28e) Actually manual refers to Astra1 28e but a few typos wouldnt be surprising.
The small dish really is on the limit for reception so you wont have much leeway for bad weather.
In terms of price and dish size you would probably be much better off going for the 80cm system.

And yes there are 2 scarts so Bytes advice above is the way to go.

TM

radiofoot wrote:

I went into Lidl today, and they only seem to have the camping set left.

Thomas Street still had a few of the 80cm ones left this evening. I picked one up myself yesterday.

Puggy

Bought one of these yesterday in Sutton/Baldoyle. Have NTL(forgotten new name already) MMDS. Went through this thread and others before buying.;)

Did all the cables etc and stuck the disk outside the window (south facing) and got Siris 5 and Astra 19 at the same time, with good signal strength etc.

Thanks to all those who posted help on setup etc. Did not realise it was so simple to do this. Must say the reception is superb!

Got a few question, sorry in advance, I'm sure the forum admins and other experts hate when Lidl have offers like this as it brings people like me onto the forum!

1) I seem to be able to pick up more than 1 sattellite at a time, as I mentioned above. If I point to Astra 28 signal I also get Astra 19. Is this because they have channels duplicated on both and I'm not really picking up both at the same time? As I understand it although the Lidl blurb states the LNB is dual, this refers to two outputs rather then two skewed LNB's

Again thanks to the people who have posted information, as I dont think I'd have got the dish working just using the manual:)

TM

Puggy wrote:

1) I seem to be able to pick up more than 1 sattellite at a time, as I mentioned above. If I point to Astra 28 signal I also get Astra 19.

Can't see how this is possible without, say, two LNBs since Astra 28 is at 28 degrees (odd) and Astra 19 is at 19 degrees (odd) .

Is this because they have channels duplicated on both and I'm not really picking up both at the same time?

Maybe - check the broadcast lists on Lyngsat or one of the other similar sites.

http://www.lyngsat.com/europe.html

As I understand it although the Lidl blurb states the LNB is dual, this refers to two outputs rather then two skewed LNB's

Their dish arm can ostensibly cater for two LNBs but they only provide one.

TM

Zaphod wrote:

The satellite operators often reuse the same transponder frequencies for satellites in different orbital positions. If you overlay the graphic represenations of the transponders of 28E and 19E in the pic below, you can see the two coincide at various frequencies.

Sorry - confused and possibly dumb...... I thought that you could not simultaneously "point at" one satellite at 28E and and another at 19E without, say, a two LNB setup? While the frequencies may overlap surely the origin of the signals are at different points in the sky?

The LNB is dual -> 2 outputs to feed 2 receivers.

I do stand corrected here!

Puggy

Thanks for the replies TM and Zaphod. In my very limited understanding I thought dual LNB meant, as you say TM, that it can feed two set top boxes. I was really confused when I powered up and went to the TP screen, Siris was getting 90% and 75% and then scrolled to the Astra 19 screen and was getting 95% and 80% signal!

I figured that maybe the channels I could pick up were those for Siris plus those from Astra 19 that just happen to be also on Sirus. That's when I tried moving the dish to Astra 28, and could still get Astra 19!

Zaphod, I'm noob when it comes to this, so I'm sure others may understand your post, it's completely over my head (no pun intended;) ), but I'm sure some day I will learn more.:o

Edited:

Ok, silly me, Zaphod, re-read your post. Yes I understand now, different sattellites re-use channels or frequencies, so if I stupidily select a sattellite that I'm not pointing at, and select BBC1 , in your example I'm actually looking at CC Valencia. Again sorry for the noobness.

TM

Just getting back to availability in case it's of any use to anybody - was in Lidl, Moore Street this evening and they still have a few of the camping kits left.

jimmerz50

I have one of these (brand new) and now dont want it...any takes.. make an offer..
email me or 0851227025

TM

I haven't had a chance to play with mine (ooh, er Matron) yet but had a few questions already:

1. The manual mentions ASTRA 1 19.2E and ASTRA 2 19.2E so presumably the latter is a typo and should be ASTRA 2 28.2E?
2. From reading other material here and elsewhere it looks like it's possible to use a single dish and LNB (and no motorised setup) to receive from both the ASTRA 2 28.2E and Eurobird 1 28.5E - is this correct?
3. The manual does not list Eurobird 1 as one of the pre-programmed satellites so does this matter in relation to the previous point and, if not, will things just be picked up automatically once the dish is aligned (elevation, azimuth and skew etc.) correctly and some sort of scan process carried out?
4. The manual says that software updates can be done from ASTRA 1 19.2E or via RS232. Does this update the receiver firmware which controls the user interface etc. or something else (e.g. just channel details etc.)? Is it important to do such an update straight off or on a regular basis? If you never point at ASTRA 1 then how do you do it via RS232?

Apologies if any of these queries have been already answered elsewhere (I did read the forum threads first!) in which case feel free to just point me in the right direction with links.

Thanks!

TM

Thanks for the replies. There seems to be a little inconsistency on the simultaneous Astra2/Eurobird1 access above and I have read elsewhere that it should be possible even with a single LNB and a static dish. I don't understand wil's post saying that this is not possible but that the two satellites appear as one. I guess that I will just try locating and tuning and see how it goes.

Thanks for the tips about firmware upgrades. I am aware of the potential dangers and just wanted to know if such upgrades were necessary on an ongoing basis or what. The www.comag-ag.de website does not seem to have anything in the way of updates or utility software for applying same so I guess that I will leave well enough alone unless this changes.

biologikal

stevecrow74 wrote:

the only reason i have my stb hooked up to the computer is just for ease of programming and sorting channel lists (takes 2 minutes to do on the computer and 1 min to transfer to stb, whereas it takes up to 15 minutes to organise through the stb alone[/COLOR]

I'm kinda interested in this function - does the SL65 have software to do this, or is it possible to get 3rd party software to do the job? The SL65 alludes to software available on their web-site, but I can't find it. Anyone else doing this with an SL65?

wil

TM sorry, completely missread item 2 somehow in my sleepy state.:o
My eyes saw Eurobird1 but my brain interpreted Astra1
The correct answer should of course be yes, no problem, for the reason in item 3.
My previous answer applies to simultaneous reception of astra2 and 1 or hotbird.
Should have gone to bed instead.

TM

wil wrote:

TM sorry, completely missread item 2 somehow in my sleepy state.:o
My eyes saw Eurobird1 but my brain interpreted Astra1
The correct answer should of course be yes, no problem, for the reason in item 3.
My previous answer applies to simultaneous reception of astra2 and 1 or hotbird.
Should have gone to bed instead.

Ah - fair play - thanks for clarifying that!

BowWow

TM wrote:

Actually there does seem to be some SL65 utility and firmware upgrade stuff on the Comag and Silvercrest websites:

http://www.comag-ag.de/engl/com-download/receiver/com-dwl-cmg-sl65.html

http://www.mysilvercrest.de/en/artikel.php?a=105&av=2
http://www.mysilvercrest.de/en/artikel.php?a=51&av=2
http://www.mysilvercrest.de/en/artikel.php?a=82&av=2

These links appear to be copies of the manuals/instructions. I bought one of these receivers last week for the conservatory. The instructions refer to the availability of a channel editor on the Comag site, but I cant find it either.

tooler1

i just installed this system,and its really good
i can pick up hotbird at 13 deg,and astra at 19 deg wit the supplied dish,
i also have a sky box and can pick up astra at 28 deg wit a seperate dish
so i really recommend this system,wit all the features it leaves sky way behind