Old Lidl/Aldi Sat box info

liamtech

Just wanted to say thanks for all the advice and help wityh my setup. Iv tried moving the dish as requested but still same signal quality/reception. I think il just learn to live with it.
A great thanks to xocal for the pictures he posted. Seems as though im worrying over nothing. gonna continue to try adjusting the dish. Any improvement il let u guys know. ALso wondering if anyone could clear up the whole rain snow effect on signal. Still unclear as to this.

Lossy

TM wrote: »

As mentioned before here and in other threads, have you made sure to adjust the skew of the LNB (i.e. rotated it slightly as appropriate to ensure best reception)? This is another part of the "tuning" process along with getting the inclination and azimuth right.

Just to add to TM's post;

Try twisting the LNB between 10° and 20° and I'm nearly sure its a clockwise turn as you are looking at the face of the dish.

petronius

Twisting the lnb does the trick - I had issues with CNN and Russia Today being a bit garbled now and again - but a twist seems to help it. I must dig out a protractor to measure it but I just guessed 10 degrees.

I also affixed the wire which made the signal more stable a few plastic ties, and u-nails - I did have to slightly tweak the alignment after this. And I did a scan for all channels again and I am very happy with the result.

Question:
On the update software password - where is this set originally? since I didn't see it in any of the documentation? (not that I read it...)

TM

Not sure but I don't think that you need to measure the skew angle precisely but rather just experiment and see what skew works best for you to give the best reception/signal quality for all channels - i.e. trial and error!

xocal

Lossy wrote: »

Just to add to TM's post;

Try twisting the LNB between 10° and 20° and I'm nearly sure its a clockwise turn as you are looking at the face of the dish.

Thanks, but have tried that with no great improvement.
However I now have signal quality up to 75%, and achieved this by making adjustments in the TP search window settings! However I'm still no better off re the BBCs and ITVs, or channel4,!! the only BBC I can get is BBC World, yet I have fantastic crystal clear reception for Al Jazeera, Sky News, Euro news and sport, France 24, cnn, etc!
I have also tried both connections on my double LNB, but got no difference in reception on either one.
Am strongly thinking of bringing up the unit from Wexford to try it here!

BowWow

xocal wrote: »

Lucky you! I'm in the Carlow area and only getting at most 70% on both quality and reception on 28.2 Northeast! but cannot get the BBC's or the ITV's or the Golf channels! whereas I have a similar unit 65 at a mobile home in Wexford and with 70% reception am getting everything going, including 6 Stream channels which are brilliant.
I have checked direction with a compass and with a sat finder and am spot on 28.2 with 20 degree inclination.
See screen shots, and please comment if you can see anything wrong with the settings.

You're showing a symbol rate of 22003 in one of the images - think that should be 22000

Ger Roe

I have been trying for a few weekends now to operate the most recently sold Lidl SL65 on my motorised system and have found it to be very problematic. The user menu structure is a signifigant step backward from my previous SL55 and the lack of a dedicated stored satellite list means that the dish moves all over the place as you have to scroll through various other satellites while attempting to select which one you actually want to view. You also can't exit from a favourites menu and go direct to a general channel list for a specific satellite - again resulting in dish panning while you scroll through every other option until your required selection is available. To add insult to injury, you can not add satellites additional to the default list - you can add a new name, but the menu has no option to enter the orbital position, making USALS controlled movement impossible.

I have found other UK based sites where these issues have been raised with Comag, and while they now admit that there are problems, they do not seem inclined to correct them with a firmware update. This is the first time that I have been disappointed with a Comag box, the SL55 is a joy to use but the new SL65 is a big step backwards in terms of functionality. Apparently the previous SL65 version operated correctly with a menu structure more like the SL55.

If you are only going to point at one sat, the box will meet your needs, but if you are interested in foreign language services or feed hunting, avoid the latest SL65 - it's a waste of time for motorised operation.

Vroomfondel

Ger Roe wrote: »

To add insult to injury, you can not add satellites additional to the default list - you can add a new name, but the menu has no option to enter the orbital position, making USALS controlled movement impossible.

Have you tried adding new satellites on the PC editor (STBEditor) and then uploading into the receiver via RS232?

http://www.max-communication.de/software/chess/chess-sl35.html

TM

Is this thread of any use to you?

Lidl Silvercrest Satellite System: Next Steps

Puggy seems to have managed to get a motorized system working.

Ger Roe

Thanks for the replies guys.

Looks like an editor is the only way of adding satellites alright.
I will give it a try.

avantdi

liamtech

I have a similar problem with my lidl system. But as it turned out after changing LNB,coax and dish realignment it turned out to be the receiver itself. The problem with my box is that it is overheating and as a result tells me my signal is week and picture starts to tile. I have cured this temporarily by removing the cover(not recommended if you have kids). I could bring it back but it just isn't worth the hastle. I will change out the so called heat sink on the offending chip for something bigger and see how that goes. Will let you all know how this works out when I get the chance to do it.

By the way any one else having over heating problems??

petronius

I was just wondering for future reference for software updates (and default settings) where I find the password - since I didn't see it in any of the documentation(maybe due to my eyesight) is there any point emailing the makers Silvercrest? or shall i ring them on a work day!

I was doing various resetting of my dish and receiver(SL65) over the weekend - I had been manually adjusting the dish to get various different satellites - and then wind realigned it on saturday night since i had the screws a bit loose!! And hence I am contemplating a motor!

TM

I would call the Lidl (Silvercrest? Comag?) helpline since that's what it's there for.

Bozacke

I have the recent Lidl's comag SL65 box and after spending weeks of moving the channels around and blocking and deleting channels, when I turned it on this morning, all of my settings were gone and all the channels were rearranged. If you have kids I would recommend blocking the channels you don't want them to see rather than deleting, since it seems to have kept the blocked channels blocked, but the deleted channels have reappeared - but a few of the porn channels have reappeared a 2nd time and unblocked. But all my custom ordering - all the music channels and all the news channels together, etc. What caused this reshuffling of my channels and is there anyway to prevent this? If not, I need to get the PC editor so I can at least save my configuration and re-deploy it whenever it resets itself. Also what type of cable do I need to connect the box to a PC and where can I get it?

petronius

Its a PC Serial Cable rs232 - there maybe USB to rs232 conversion cables as well but I have never seen em. You(or a friend) may have an old pc serial cable from back in the day when they were used for printers - or for a external modem!
If not you will get one in maplins, peats, currys, pcworld I would guess for under a tenner.
I may actually do this myself

biologikal

Bozacke wrote: »

I have the recent Lidl's comag SL65 box and after spending weeks of moving the channels around and blocking and deleting channels, when I turned it on this morning, all of my settings were gone and all the channels were rearranged. If you have kids I would recommend blocking the channels you don't want them to see rather than deleting, since it seems to have kept the blocked channels blocked, but the deleted channels have reappeared - but a few of the porn channels have reappeared a 2nd time and unblocked. But all my custom ordering - all the music channels and all the news channels together, etc. What caused this reshuffling of my channels and is there anyway to prevent this? If not, I need to get the PC editor so I can at least save my configuration and re-deploy it whenever it resets itself. Also what type of cable do I need to connect the box to a PC and where can I get it?

Are you rearranging under the satellite or under favourites? Is it possible that if you do a scan of a satellite, that it will rearrange anything you've done? I do custom ordering too, but just under the favourites list, and haven't had any problems. Some of the channels you deleted may be broadcast on two different frequencies, or changed frequencies.

There is a channel lock and parental lock under system settings. Parental lock will block viewing if channels are set to be locked (on by default), and channel lock prevents any change to lists without the password (off by default, I think). Maybe you need to set the channel lock. Would be nice if you could lock channel surfing to just the favourites list.

I got the editor from the Silvercrest website, but it was in the SL65/12V area. It shouldn't make a difference. You can probably get the RS232 from eBay or an electronics store. I had parts, so downloaded a schematic and made my own.

Ger Roe

I have just taken some of my own advice and called the Irish support line for the latest SL65.

It seems that the severely reduced functionality on this box is deliberate. Comag have received complaints that the systems were being used to hack encrypted services and so some previously contained aspects of the user menu such as a separate satellite list and the ability to add new satellites, have been removed.

I think that in order to address the hacking issue, they have botched the user menu badly and they should have warned that this box would not perform as well as other versions. It really sucks for motor control use at the moment (even on the very limited default list), but it doesn't look like Comag are going to do anything about it.

Bozacke

Thanks for all of the replies. I don't know what caused my channels to magically rearrange on me? When I do a rescan (which I've done a few times), it doesn't change my original sorting, if it finds any new channels it just adds them at the end of the list. The first time I did a re-scan, I only had about 100 channels since I had deleted all of the stuff I didn't want, but after the rescan it left the first 100 in tact and then added all the new ones and all the ones I had deleted to the end, so now I just put the channels I don't want at the end of my list and I set them to skip and if they have porn I also lock them. So why this morning aftern no one doing a re-scan it reshuffled my channels, I don't know??

Also thanks for indicating that I just need an RS232 printer cable, I have several of these in the attic, so if anyone wants one, I should have a few to spare.

But now the question is, which PC editor do I use? I guess I'll get an old RS232 out and see what I can do.

byte

It's an RS232 Null-Modem cable you need. AFAIK, there are variations between RS232 cables in how they're wired between pins.

Bozacke

Thanks Byte, I should have know it wouldn't be so easy. I was wondering about that, because I also know from my printing days that some of the older/cheaper RS232 cables don't provide dual communication. I'll try it anyway and let you know how I get on.

mkelly89

Iam thinking of buying a sky+ box and as i have sky (full Package) can i use the old sky box to receive the free to air channels in another room ,rather than purchase a free to air system:eek::o

petronius

you'd still need a card for the skybox for their freesat offering with a one-off cost of about 29euro but you need to get it sent to a UK address (and get your auntie in the uk to post it back to you) While it does give you C4/E4/More4/C5 etc for now! their contract expires in 2008 so rumour has it may go with the BBC/ITV freeview format

I have a male-2-male serial rs232 cable myself at home somewhere from an old US Robotics external Modem 28kbps was it.... wonder if I can use it for the SilverCrest

Lossy

avantdi wrote: »

liamtech

I have a similar problem with my lidl system. But as it turned out after changing LNB,coax and dish realignment it turned out to be the receiver itself. The problem with my box is that it is overheating and as a result tells me my signal is week and picture starts to tile. I have cured this temporarily by removing the cover(not recommended if you have kids). I could bring it back but it just isn't worth the hastle. I will change out the so called heat sink on the offending chip for something bigger and see how that goes. Will let you all know how this works out when I get the chance to do it.

By the way any one else having over heating problems??

Mine overheated! :mad: Everything was garbled so I had to reset to default settings and re-scan. A right pain in the @&S£ considereing I had spent so long re-arranging my channels. To be fair though the unit was in a tight space and probably didnt have much air circulating around it. Working fine now after I moved it a bit.

christo82

Is it possible to buy a second brace(not sure if this is what it's called. The piece that connects the dish to the wall bracket that you have to tighten and loosen to move dish), for this system to make the unit more sturdy? I haven't seen them on any website or in any shop.

Thanks for any help.

Puggy

While hunting for satellites with my motorised sl65 I noticed lyngsat has the following information for a transponder on NSS 806 at 40.5°W 3758 L 20000.

I assume the L means left, this is not an option on my SL65 as it only does H and V. Can anyone help!

Vroomfondel

Puggy wrote: »

I assume the L means left, this is not an option on my SL65 as it only does H and V. Can anyone help!

http://www.satmancanada.com/circular_or_linear_polorization.htm

liamtech

Hi folks iv come to the conclusion that although its a good decoder, the sl65 has issues with heat. So iv ordered a Technisat SkyStar 2 card for use with my system. Just wondering if anyone has any info on use. Im a computer techy and iv used tv cards in the past but never for dvb-s. Any usefull tips!!!

TM

If the device is faulty (e.g. overheats) then use the warranty to get satisfaction - e.g. a replacement or a refund. Enforce your consumer rights if necessary!

Puggy

I do mountain biking more than I watch TV. Three years ago Lidl had a "mountain bike" for €129 but my local bike shop said "You usually get what you pay for, you wont get a real mountain bike for less than €500" Well I bought that Lidl bike and it was fine, but going out in mud and rain, it lasted exactly nine days. They gave me a complete refund, but I was hooked on mountain biking, so I bought a real one in the UK, slighty maybe 15% cheaper than I could here for €500. This year I spent the guts of €3,000 on a bike, and bought it in Ireland, cheaper than I could in the UK. Plus I get 100% customer satisifaction from the shop.

What's this got to do with satellite, you may ask, well quite a lot really. I bought the Lidl package in Ausust, installed in in September, added a motor in Oct. Its great value for money, and it got me into satellite. But if you want more, you gotta pay more. Dont get me wrong, the SL65 is excellent value, but its entry level. But Lidl do have excellent customer service policy, and if your not happy, be nice to them and you'll get your money back.

Bozacke

Puggy,

I think that's a fair summary. Although I'm still very happy with my Lidl's Satellite, I have had a lot of problems with other Lidl products and in the future I will think very carefully before buying anything at Lidl's or Aldi's other than fruits, vegetables and cheap consumables. There are some great things about Lidl's & Aldi, unfortunately high quality isn't one of them.