Ross B&Q Sat Dish - No Channels?

BlackWizard

I originally bought the Aldi Satellite but reading the opinions from a few people around here I went for the B&Q one. It's a big thing and easy to setup.

I've used http://www.dishpointer.com/ for getting the direction of the satelite I'm aiming at and a compass too.

I have a 60% signal but I don't have any channels. So I take it I'm pointing it at a wrong satellite?

Do I need a satalite finder to do this?

Apogee

60% signal means you're probably pointing at nothing - background heat noise. You usually need 80/90% plus to signify a lock, and it's the quality level meter which is important, not the signal level.

http://sites.google.com/site/freetoairinfo/home/how-to-align-a-satellite

djimi

I bought one of these at the weekend and tried to set it up myself. After wasting pretty much my entire Sunday Ive come to the conclusion its well worth the €100 to hire an engineer...!

At the very least you will need a satellite finder. Without one you are pretty much looking for a really small needle in a really big haystack and you could spend a year of trial and error and come up with nothing.

darth_maul

I get called out to install those Ross systems quite often, due to the prevalence of holiday homes in the area and us being located quite close to the North where these can be picked up quite cheaply.

Most try to install themselves, but give up after a while,
Ok problems I have found with these are.

- the fixings that are supplied are crap so the bracket is still loose on the wall, making it even harder to get a signal.
- have had 2 where the LNBs were faulty, showed a good signal strength even with your hand over the face of the LNB.
- then you get the usual of with any of the self installed systems where they have installed them facing the wrong direction, behind a large obstacle like a tree or a wall, or even the one I went to where the LNB was facing the wrong way.

So usually I find that it is worth your while to get a proper FTA system installed, where a decent dish is used and you get a good quality box,
the ross box is one of the worst I have see, if your trying to use the ross box to locte the signal it reacts very very slowly to the signal change.

BlackWizard

My dish is actually pointing through a tree. Is that really a big problem? I would of thought the signal would of went through all the branches and that.

Well I'm going to try and source a satellite finder then

I meant my quality level signal is 60% by the way. So I'm really thinking I'm pointing at the wrong satellite. My other signal bar is at 99% all of the time.

tmcw

Apogee wrote: »

60% signal means you're probably pointing at nothing - background heat noise. You usually need 80/90% plus to signify a lock, and it's the quality level meter which is important, not the signal level.

http://sites.google.com/site/freetoairinfo/home/how-to-align-a-satellite

60% sounds a bit high to be just background. The Lidl receiver is down at about 14% when pointing at nothing. Above about 40-45% and signals start coming in (but I know receivers are different, so maybe not a valid comparison).

Could be that the transponders on 19E are coming in, but the FECs or whatever are different, so no picture or audio. Would need to do a blind scan to see what comes in, don't just rely on any presets that might be on the box (if any).

And make sure the LNB is sufficiently skewed to max out the signal.

tmcw

BlackWizard wrote: »

My dish is actually pointing through a tree. Is that really a big problem? I would of thought the signal would of went through all the branches and that.

Well I'm going to try and source a satellite finder then

I meant my quality level signal is 60% by the way. So I'm really thinking I'm pointing at the wrong satellite. My other signal bar is at 99% all of the time.

Dishpointer has an extra pointer that shows you at what distance a particular object has to be from the dish to become an obstacle. And thats from ground level; factor in that your dish is 2 meters or more off the ground, and that value increases.

Signal will be severely attenuated going through branches.

BlackWizard

Thanks for all the replies guys. I picked up a satellite finder and went at finding the right satellite.

It's pretty helpful alright using the finder. But I discovered that my Ross receiver lets you choose the satellite you are looking at. So I have it on Astra / Euro 1. When I find a satellite at the reciever says I have 60% but I change the satellite to something else, I loose the 60%. Does that mean the receiver somehow knows that satellite I am pointing at?

Also I can re-tune the channels when I am pointing at a satellite. I done it once and I was picking up lots of Sky channels like movies and mtv. Does that mean I was pointing at a sky satellite?

steveon

Got called out to install one of these dishes last week, and found it impossible to install without making a slight modification to the bracket to hold the dish onto the wall, the screw holes were drilled in the wrong place, so we drilled new holes and was able to line up the dish perfectly...so I would suggest taking the dish off the wall and try lining it up in your hand..and then adjust the bracket..

BlackWizard

The only satellite I can pick up as channels like Disney channel and Canal+ HD

Anyone know what satellite I might be pointing at??

BlackWizard

Well I got it working fine. I had to attach the Satellite onto my chimney because the tree was in the way.

Basically i found the Astra 1 satellite very easily. Then just to the left of this satellite is the right satellite.

Fm88

hi all. I too just a ross sat from B&q. It is so frustrating:mad:. i have 99 and 65% signal and have my dish pointing at 28 degrees for astra 1 and eurobird, i to used a satellite finder and its telling me that im pointing at it but i cant get any of the channels that i want like BBC, UTV, channel 4 im only picking up forign channels. I also tried doing a blind scan but still only got the forign stations ahhh please help im out of ideas now. Any suggestions would be great cheers

Fm88

hi all. I too just a ross sat from B&q. It is so frustrating:mad:. i have 99 and 65% signal and have my dish pointing at 28 degrees for astra 1 and eurobird, i to used a satellite finder and its telling me that im pointing at it but i cant get any of the channels that i want like BBC, UTV, channel 4 im only picking up forign channels. I also tried doing a blind scan but still only got the forign stations ahhh please help im out of ideas now. Any suggestions would be great cheers

polyfusion

What channels are you getting? Give us a sample of 5-10 channels, or if you can, one channel with frequency details. If you're getting foreign channels, the dish isn't pointed at 28E Astra 2/Eurobird.

If we know the channels, we can tell you what direction the dish needs to go to get the BBC channels.

Or you can check yourself on kingofsat.net , there is a channel search in the top right corner.

Fm88

Thanks for the reply. Im not sure of the frequancy but some of the channels im getting are D AS vierte, sixx, 1.2.3. TV, ERF 1, e qui8 and HSE24. Im gettig these after i do a scan. Cheers

Peter Rhea

Looks like Astra 1 @19E. You need to look further east (left when viewed from behind the dish).

If you can tune your receiver to a transponder such as 10714 mHz, Horizontal polarity, SR 22,000, you can use the signal strength/quality bars (this is one of the Channel 4 locations).