Aldi/Lidl satellite kit. don't waste your money.

St Senan

Silly season is upon us again.

http://www.aldi.ie/ie/html/offers/special_buys3_12796.htm
http://www.lidl.ie/ie/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20100429.p.Digital_Camping_Satellite_System

As Watty just said over in the Foreign satellite thread
These are for suitable for France/Germany, in good weather to pickup the local TV (not BBC/Sky).
Ireland needs bigger dish than London, even for Sky.
It's been said before, many times here by experts. Don't buy these.

There are better satellite systems available nowadays for around the same price like this one http://satellite.ie/acatalog/Freesat_DIY_satellite_systems.html
or this http://www.freesat.ie/index.php?cat=Free-to-air
or this http://www.powercity.ie/?par=10-23-28212R&pages=2&prod=28212R&brands=PHILEX

This one http://www.lidl.ie/ie/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20100503.p.Digital_Satellite_Receiver is not a HD box you wont receive BBC HD or ITV HD.

AstralTV

Yep and a lot of people who buy them, then have a bad experience with installing, tuning, & then poor reception, are put off satellite tv & tell their freinds how bad it is,
I have a neatly folded pile of Aldi / lidl dishes round the back, taken from customers who have failed to install the above rubbish,

SIX PACK

Just get in Sky+ you can get it for €20 PM now;)

Bob_Harris

SIX PACK wrote: »

Just get in Sky+ you can get it for €20 PM now;)

No thanks.

TheDriver

not worth buying cheap dishes at all, I had one and replaced with a triax and it hasn't moved in 4 years and not a spot of rust etc on it.

cjt156

SIX PACK wrote: »

Just get in Sky+ you can get it for €20 PM now;)

Or get FreeSat for nada, zip, zilch, nuthin...

mgadget

Went to that Lidl warehouse clearance in Mullingar last month and there were 4 pallets of these mini dish kits at €39.99. They were all stickered as tested returns. Definitely not suitable for this country at all.

Trevord

I've used these succesfully in both Cork and Galway. They seemed to work well in favourable weather. Can't comment about whether rain fade is an issue.

At one level they are fine for a newbie as all the bits are in the box. On the other hand I can imagine plenty of problems if you have no previous experience of aligning a dish.

St Senan

Trevord wrote: »

I've used these succesfully in both Cork and Galway. They seemed to work well in favourable weather. Can't comment about whether rain fade is an issue.

At one level they are fine for a newbie as all the bits are in the box. On the other hand I can imagine plenty of problems if you have no previous experience of aligning a dish.

Trevord was it the camping kit with the small plastic dish that you setup in Galway. Also did you receive all available transponders when you did a scan for Astra 2 and was their any pixelisation on any of the Vertical high or Horizontal highband channels. I find it strange I am based in county Wexford closer to Astra2 and i have came across these camping kits setup and not all the available channels are receivable which means the Dish is to Small.
Why are people are still buying these poorly made systems when there are better systems available for the same price.

TheDriver

I find its any bit of wind makes mince meat of them and continuous hassle aligning them compared to decent strong stuff. Also its hard to beat a freesat box vs fta box anymore with convenience of epg and more importantly not rescanning every month or two

Trevord

Yes it was one of those camping kits from either Lidl or Aldi.

It belonged to a friend of mine who called into me in Galway in a camper van (obviously) last summer. He had problems with it and I showed him how to use it.

He spent the next two weeks trying to get it to work in various parts of the country with no luck. In the end I had to call to his house in Cork to satisfy him that he had not broken it.

Not sure whether there were problems with some of the channels. The BBCs and ITVs worked OK. Maybe I was just lucky with the weather conditions.

Trevord

TheDriver wrote: »

I find its any bit of wind makes mince meat of them and continuous hassle aligning them compared to decent strong stuff. Also its hard to beat a freesat box vs fta box anymore with convenience of epg and more importantly not rescanning every month or two

Think the OP is on about the small portable camping kit dish rather than the big "permanent" dustbin lid dishes that give all the trouble you refer to.

Interesting fact: According to Alan Sugar the original Amstrad dishes were made by a company that made dustbin lids.

slegs

scaller wrote: »

Trevord was it the camping kit with the small plastic dish that you setup in Galway. Also did you receive all available transponders when you did a scan for Astra 2 and was their any pixelisation on any of the Vertical high or Horizontal highband channels. I find it strange I am based in county Wexford closer to Astra2 and i have came across these camping kits setup and not all the available channels are receivable which means the Dish is to Small.
Why are people are still buying these poorly made systems when there are better systems available for the same price.

Because for some people cheaper always equates to good value. They dont even question that quality may be variable. In this case it isnt even cheaper which goes to prove that Lidl are very good at marketing.

St Senan

slegs wrote: »

Because for some people cheaper always equates to good value. They dont even question that quality may be variable. In this case it isnt even cheaper which goes to prove that Lidl are very good at marketing.

Buy cheap pay for it twice.

MBSnr

TBH my buying of the Lidl kit (SL65/12) a few years back was the 1st step into the world of non 28E satellites! Sure the dish is too small but the SL65 receiver isn't that bad really. But then I'm a techie and persisted until I figured out what was going on. I can see why others take it back saying it's rubbish.

I have since moved on to a larger dish and a HD receiver, but even so the dish and receiver is great for the father in law to watch France 2 from 5W for the rugby this weekend. Luckily that sat is pretty strong so rain fade "shouldn't" be an issue.... He said looking at the lashing rain on the window....

Tony

I remember standing behind a lady in Lidl who was returning one of these kits. Reason she gave was "It did not pick up sky sports":)

I agree with Slegs , Lidl are very good at marketing and do offer great value on most items so a lot of people perceive that anything they sell is good value/quality. On the positive side though Lidl selling satellite gear made me think of different ways to compete with them.

St Senan

Tony wrote: »

I remember standing behind a lady in Lidl who was returning one of these kits. Reason she gave was "It did not pick up sky sports":)

I agree with Slegs , Lidl are very good at marketing and do offer great value on most items so a lot of people perceive that anything they sell is good value/quality. On the positive side though Lidl selling satellite gear made me think of different ways to compete with them.

Very clever sales ploy by Lidl/Aldi they always sell this kit around the Bank holidays when people are heading to there Holiday homes. The amount of houses and mobile homes i see in my travels with these Crap dishes stuck up on them pointing to ground.

Tony

Sometimes its an oppurtunity. If I see a dish thats hanging down I sometimes knock on the door and ask if the householder would like a good quality replacement.

scaller wrote: »

Very clever sales ploy by Lidl/Aldi they always sell this kit around the Bank holidays when people are heading to there Holiday homes. The amount of houses and mobile homes i see in my travels with these Crap dishes stuck up on them pointing to ground.

RubyXI

http://www.lidl.ie/IE/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20100503.p.DVB-T_Indoor_Aerial

What about this?
Any good for anything?

goat2

AstralTV wrote: »

Yep and a lot of people who buy them, then have a bad experience with installing, tuning, & then poor reception, are put off satellite tv & tell their freinds how bad it is,
I have a neatly folded pile of Aldi / lidl dishes round the back, taken from customers who have failed to install the above rubbish,

yet in the store near me they are bought up in the first hour
i was tempted
thanks for the info

Tony

Yep for a tenner its ok

phi3 wrote: »

http://www.lidl.ie/IE/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20100503.p.DVB-T_Indoor_Aerial

What about this?
Any good for anything?

Harry.c

scaller wrote: »

Buy cheap pay for it twice.

Now there is a line I have heard somewhere before!!!:):pac::)

true indeed, stay away from this rubbish and get someone that knows what they are doing, and has the expertise, not these Bob the Builder types, chancing their arms,

adm

Well I'll admit to being a sucker. I bought one today - spur of the moment.
already have FTA working off our old sky dish and thought i could get this for my uncle.
Receiver works ok as i plugged it to current dish. No luck at all getting a signal with the new dish. The manual is funny e.g - problem: dish is too small solution: buy bigger dish

St Senan

adm wrote: »

Well I'll admit to being a sucker. I bought one today - spur of the moment.
already have FTA working off our old sky dish and thought i could get this for my uncle.
Receiver works ok as i plugged it to current dish. No luck at all getting a signal with the new dish. The manual is funny e.g - problem: dish is too small solution: buy bigger dish

A complete Waste of Money. I would advise you to keep the receipt and Bring it back to the Store and explain it to the manager that this so called bargain is no good to receive all the available UK channels in Ireland. As i said before their is plenty of Better cheap budget kits available nowadays for the same money.

xTanyax

Actually I bought one of these boxs myself on Sunday & I am literally going round the bend! I cant pick up anything! I've spent days on end with it and all I get is signal intensity 80% and quality 14%! I've tried replacing the cables etc.. slowly moving the dish vertically and horizontly in small slight movements, Nothing!! I'm thinking of bringing it back but Im just wondering what to say is actually wrong with it because it actually says in the manual that you have to be experienced with this kind of stuff? Might just say I had a guy over and he says it was faulty..something along those lines.. Anyone else have similiar problems with this product? Anyone taken it back after opening it and getting a full refund?? I would be So thankful for any help please!

Finne1993

xTanyax wrote: »

Actually I bought one of these boxs myself on Sunday & I am literally going round the bend! I cant pick up anything! I've spent days on end with it and all I get is signal intensity 80% and quality 14%! I've tried replacing the cables etc.. slowly moving the dish vertically and horizontly in small slight movements, Nothing!! I'm thinking of bringing it back but Im just wondering what to say is actually wrong with it because it actually says in the manual that you have to be experienced with this kind of stuff? Might just say I had a guy over and he says it was faulty..something along those lines.. Anyone else have similiar problems with this product? Anyone taken it back after opening it and getting a full refund?? I would be So thankful for any help please!

Eh, did you read any of the above posts???
DO NOT BUY THESE, THEY WILL NOT WORK!!!

xTanyax

Unfortunetly I did on Sunday, only found these posts tonight. I am definitley going to take it back!

St Senan

xTanyax wrote: »

Unfortunetly I did on Sunday, only found these posts tonight. I am definitley going to take it back!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65704819&postcount=24

MenloPete

I agree that they are not the greatest, but I have to say that I bought mine from Lidl several years ago and have had great fun with it.
Sure its only 60cm, but it brings in everything I want, despite the crows picking the cover off the LNB! I even motorised it a couple of years ago and now enjoy several satellites.
At the time I paid €99 when it was impossible to buy a complete kit for anything like that elsewhere.
So before you bring it back, have some patience, read about dish alignment and enjoy!

Tony

Thats fair enough but the system you bough had a 60 cm dish, the one mentioned by the OP is 45 cm.

MenloPete wrote: »

I agree that they are not the greatest, but I have to say that I bought mine from Lidl several years ago and have had great fun with it.
Sure its only 60cm, but it brings in everything I want, despite the crows picking the cover off the LNB! I even motorised it a couple of years ago and now enjoy several satellites.
At the time I paid €99 when it was impossible to buy a complete kit for anything like that elsewhere.
So before you bring it back, have some patience, read about dish alignment and enjoy!

meercat

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055857636&page=2
xtanyax try the last few posts on this link.might help.have these exact systems in motorhomes and can get free sat from achill dublin coleraine donegal and cork.its a cheap system but it works ideal for me.make sure you search for astra2.have a look at my last posts there.patience and once you get it up and running you will be able to get it again and again .cheers