Satellite from Kathrein Dish & Teleco AT36 box?

kelbal

Hiya,
I just bought a 2nd hand motorhome, which came with a Kathrein Bas 60/Bas 61 dish on the roof. The manual says this is for the "reception of analogue and digital TV/Radio signals and other satellite signals transmitted in the frequency range 10.70 - 12.75GHz. Terrestrial signals are not received". The cable comes down from the dish into the MH and disapears into ducting. Then it becomes a bit unclear. Further down the motorhome there's a small white box with "Teleco AT36" written on it. It has a red LED on it. There's 2 thin wires coming from the ducting and going into it, one red and one black. There's three F-Connector output ports, one of these has an aerial cable going back into the ducting. Then where the TV is theres a wall panel with an RF TV port, with a regular aerial cable going into TV.
My question is - what is this Teleco AT36 box supposed to do? Is it just for local analogue TV signals, or can it manage satellite signals too? It hardly does the satellite all by itself does it? Surely you'd need some sort of Freesat box. If I connect a freesat box to the 2nd F-Connector port will this work?, assuming I've positioned the dish correctly? I did an analogue tuner scan on the TV and it picked up the RTE's with a very poor signal.

Some guidance as to what I'm dealing with would be much appreciated!

thanks

Ronnie Raygun

I would think the Teleco box is part of the terrestrial reception system. There may have been a terrestrial aerial with a rotator on the motorhome as well as the sat. dish.

steveon

Most internally cabling Ive ever come across in Motorhomes was cheap cable and I always bypassed it, usually bringing in a new cable from under the motorhome...take a few photos and we can have a look for you.

zg3409

It seem as of you would need to manually point the dish for it to work. Then it will only get the UK channels.

So for Irish Channels you would need a normal TV aerial on the roof.

The Telco AT36 seems to be nothing to do with the dish.

They seem to be entirely different systems

See here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digisatitalia.com%2Fprodotto-142970%2Famplificatore-tv-per-camper-12--220-v-at36-.aspx

It appears to be a booster for a normal TV aerial. It can be powered by the car battery. It needs a TV aerial connected to it.

> It has a red LED on it. There's 2 thin wires coming from the ducting and going into it, one red and one black.

So the light tells you when it has power supplied to it. The red and black wires are probably going to a switch or fuse somewhere and then on to the battery. This unit would need to be turned off when not in use to stop draining the battery.

It looks as if ALL THREE ports are for TV only, none of them are proabably Sat. You need to find out/guess which is in/out. The "in" one may be the one with the cable already attached.

The dish may be actually fed to the TV outlet point, but you would need to check to be sure. Many of these camper vans were hacked over the years with things added and removed.

According to page 30 of this sales brochure:
http://www.support-telecogroup.com/telecogroup/teleco/pdf/teleco_camper_gb.pdf

Two of the connections are outputs for the TV and one is the connection up to the aerial on the roof (which you say is missing?) Is there anything like a dome, round plastic box etc. It may not look like a normal TV aerial. ?

kelbal

Thanks for your replies. Did a bit of digging today. zg3409, you're right, there is an antenna up there, exactly like one of the ones on page 30 on the manual you linked, like picture Sat2. I'll climb up and get exact model tomorrow. Thought it was an exhaust vent :rolleyes: The cable from the antenna goes to the Teleco AT36, and yes the black/red wires are power. See pictures Sat3 and Sat4. There's nothing on the output ports. The cable from the Kathrein Dish (Sat1 picture) feeds directly into the back of the wood paneling (Sat6 picture) and is presented on the other side as an RF tv port (Sat7) which is currently plugged into TV.
So whats the purpose of these 2 separate systems? I guess the Teleco antenna on the roof is for local analogue/digital signals - and if I connect the TV out port of the AT36 (F connector) to the Television's RF input, I'll get an OK signal for local TV.
How does the Kathrein dish work? My experience of satellite is that you need a decoder box - but the dish is wired straight to an RF port on the wall, should I connect in my Freesat box here? Or does the Kathrein do all the work - as in pick up the satellite channels and send them to the RF input of the TV?

thanks again for your time

kelbal

here's the last picture, showing how the cable from the kathrein dish is presented as an RF port

zg3409

> I guess the Teleco antenna on the roof is for local analogue/digital signals - and if I >connect the TV out port of the AT36 (F connector) to the Television's RF input, I'll get an >OK signal for local TV.

Yes. From october onwards you will need a saorview box. The red light on the booster will need to be on for the booster to work. The knob is for gain adjustment, depending on where you park for the night. You will need to re-scan your TV for each location.

>How does the Kathrein dish work? My experience of satellite is that you need a decoder >box - but the dish is wired straight to an RF port on the wall, should I connect in my >Freesat box here? Or does the Kathrein do all the work - as in pick up the satellite >channels and send them to the RF input of the TV?

No you will need a satellite box as you guessed

kelbal

Thanks zg3409. Will have to get some crossover cables. The AT36 presents an F connector and the Kathrein dish presents an RF connector, both the opposite way around compared to what you'd normally expect for aerial/satellite. Will test later on and update
thanks again

kelbal

Hi,
Connected up Teleco antenna & booster combination and I'm getting the RTE's - not brilliant reception, but perfectly watchable, probably good enough to do saorview after october. There wouldn't be brilliant reception in my driveway, so I'd say it would be alot better out in the wide open.
Connected my freesat box up to the cable from the Kathrein dish - no signal received at all. I extended the dish up as far as it would go and positioned it so that it looked like it was pointing the same way as my fixed dish on the front of my house - but this was a purely visual comparison, no measuring of angles etc. Not sure if its possible to guess the positioning like this - how sensitive is the positioning of a dish to get a signal from Aastra?

thanks

zg3409

kelbal wrote: »

Hi,
- how sensitive is the positioning of a dish to get a signal from Aastra?

thanks

Extremely sensitive. If using a Sky branded boxes they are more deaf than other boxes so more critical again. A cheapo beeper finder does not help much either as there are loads of satellites out there.

So it's not surprising no success. You would need a minimum of an audio beeper, idealy from the satellite box rather than in-line. The easiest time is to do this at dusk, with TV outside right beside dish.

There should be elevation marks on the dish, make sure the campervan is perfectly level (using a level on the mounting pole) and then adjust elevation to match your location. The move dish a milimeter at a time.

Use www.dishpointer.com and put in your address and 28.2 to find elevation and angle for your driveway