Picking Up Nothing

Edg3

Hey guys, Im probably another one of those who is missing one thing but Im stumped.
Im living out in Slane, Meath, and Im trying to hook up our Freesat.
Ive used Satellite Director on my Android to get the direction, though it tends towander at times but according to Dishfinder.com I'm pointed in the right direction.
I have the satellite tilted to 25degrees and the LNB set to 2 for Ireland.
We got one of the Walkers Combi Boxes from Power City but nothing showing up on it yet, the satellite is from Power City to.
We're receiving Soarview off the aerial so least we're not without TV.
I just get the feeling I'm missing something but I cant figure it out.

Any help would be great.

Peter Rhea

It will be a big help if you have some indication of signal quality within view of the dish. Maybe you can move the tv near a window or take it outside.

Did the receiver come with channels preloaded or are you just running a scan?

Liameter

Edg3 wrote: »

I have the satellite tilted to 25 degrees

You would need arms 24,000 miles long to do that. :rolleyes:
We refer to it as a "dish". How do you know it's tilted to 25°?

Edg3 wrote: »

I just get the feeling I'm missing something

You are missing a satfinder meter.
Without it you may struggle to align the dish unless you are very lucky indeed.

Edg3

Peter Rhea wrote: »

It will be a big help if you have some indication of signal quality within view of the dish. Maybe you can move the tv near a window or take it outside.

Did the receiver come with channels preloaded or are you just running a scan?

Have to run the scan its not preloaded, was the first thing I checked. Yeah it would be handy if we could move the tv closer but no such luck Plus with the weather today last thing I wanna be doing is sitting on the roof while trying to tune the tv
We have Soarview on it already but cant get Satellite to pick up anything at all.

Edg3

Liameter wrote: »

You would need arms 24,000 miles long to do that. :rolleyes:
We refer to it as a "dish". How do you know it's tilted to 25°?


You are missing a satfinder meter.
Without it you may struggle to align the dish unless you are very lucky indeed.

Well I go by what the box says

I wanted a satfinder but no one would fork out for one! Theres a gauge on the back with degrees on it so we've it set to 25 as the guy in Power City told us.

Liameter

That scale is accurate* only if the dish is mounted absolutely vertically. If it's one degree out, you'll miss the satellite by 400 miles!

*Actually, it probably isn't accurate to better than 1 degree in any case. I wouldn't rely on it.

Edg3

So we're probably missing it by about 800 miles
Ive no experience with this stuff at all. Im a computer engineer, never touched tv stuff, I barely use it at that so Im just going from printouts and online message boards for my info.

mickdw

Hopefully your box has a built in signal display which will show up on the TV.
If so, you need to get a view of the TV from the dish or a good helper who can shout for you.
You generally need to move the dish a tiny amount, leave a few second for the signal to show or not and continue. YOu will get it eventually. If you keep moving without letting it rest for a few seconds, you will never get it.

Ger Roe

Trying to align a dish for the first time can be a tricky operation.

Best bet is to try position the dish at ground level with the TV located beside it - until you get a feel for the level of accuracy required. Anything more than 3mm out on elevation, or direction or LNB skew and you will get no signal.

Your best bet is to set the dish up on the ground (with clear line of sight to the satellite position) tune the receiver to a known working channel on Astra 28.2 (suggest BBC 1 London), read your installation instructions very carefully (several times) and then move the dish in and about the suggested position until you see a picture on the screen. If the box has a receiver signal tone facility (beeper) turn that on too.

The critically important points are - dish elevation, satellite position (vertical and horizontal alignment in laymans terms) and LNB skew (central position of the LNB relative to the top of the dish)

Dish alignment is a skill that can be developed, but until you do it once, you don't fully appreciate how accurate it has to be.

I wouldn't rate your chances of trying to align a roof mounted dish without a sat finder or view of a TV - as a first install.

Take your time and experiment at ground level first (or safe and easily accessible height - a dish doesn't have to be mounted on the roof, but it does have to be solidly mounted and very accurately aligned. Positioning a dish is like water divining - until you actually get a result, it seems to be impossible.

Liameter

If you think a Sky minidish is tricky, try aligning a 1.2m dish, then a 2.4m dish!

Peter Rhea

Edg3 wrote: »

Have to run the scan its not preloaded, was the first thing I checked.

You'll need to have the receiver set to one of the 28 degrees east transponder (tp) frequencies to give a signal reading. Either enter the tp parameters for a manual scan or tune the channels on a working dish.

Edg3 wrote: »

Theres a gauge on the back with degrees on it so we've it set to 25 as the guy in Power City told us.

The dish elevation figure for your part of the country is 21 degrees.

I presume you were referring to http://www.dishpointer.com/ in your OP, rather than dishfinder?

dowtchaboy

Edg3:you say you know nothing about Satellite so I wonder -is it possible the receiver has got the LNB power turned off?
I don't have the Walker box, but LNB power on/off is buried in the installation settings of my Ariva. Have a look - it could be one of those "Doh!" moments! If LNB Power is off you will receive nothing, no matter where it's pointed.

Edg3

dowtchaboy wrote: »

Edg3:you say you know nothing about Satellite so I wonder -is it possible the receiver has got the LNB power turned off?
I don't have the Walker box, but LNB power on/off is buried in the installation settings of my Ariva. Have a look - it could be one of those "Doh!" moments! If LNB Power is off you will receive nothing, no matter where it's pointed.

Im not that clueless No there was power, long as the box is on and not on standby the power is going to it, but we were a couple degrees off. I sat behind it today with the app on the phone and tweaked it side to side and got the elevation right on the spot. Was awkward and I nearly fell off the roof but we got it pointed the right way.

My neighbor popped up as I was climbing down and said he'd an old dial gauge satellite finder, hooked it up and boom, hit 10 on horizontal and vertical nearly straight away. Unhooking it I knocked it off a little and had to start again but we have it sorted now. Getting fairly decent signal and quality strength, picture is crystal though. Now I just have to sort through the 800ish channels and root out all the duplicates and ones we dont want on it. Thats fun!

Thanks for all the help guys.

Ronnie Raygun

You might be lucky & get away with that on a Sky dish, as alignment isn't all that critical. Don't be surprised though, if the 1st bit of dirty weather has you back up on the roof again (daft place to put a dish anyway, IMO).

Edg3

Ronnie Raygun wrote: »

You might be lucky & get away with that on a Sky dish, as alignment isn't all that critical. Don't be surprised though, if the 1st bit of dirty weather has you back up on the roof again (daft place to put a dish anyway, IMO).

Well its pretty much protected from 2 sides and it should be ok, but yeah with the weather we've been having will probably end up in the garden. We marked off lines on it so we can realign it. Its fairly sturdy so shouldnt be to bad.

Peter Rhea

I think it's the effects of rain fade on the signal he has in mind, not the vulnerability of the dish.

Edg3

Peter Rhea wrote: »

I think it's the effects of rain fade on the signal he has in mind, not the vulnerability of the dish.

Its pretty sheltered under the eave of the house, it'll get a bit of rain but most will be deflected off the roof of the house. Its basically sitting under the eave and on top of the garage (lower roof so we have access to it).
I did want to put it lower but theres no where else we could get clear signal to it.

dowtchaboy

Edg3 wrote: »

Im not that clueless

No offence meant!

Peter Rhea

Edg3 wrote: »

Its pretty sheltered under the eave of the house, it'll get a bit of rain but most will be deflected off the roof of the house.

Nothing to do with rain on the dish. I'm talking about the actual radio waves themselves being absorbed by moisture in the atmosphere & weakening the available signal. Your dish needs to be perfectly aligned to allow a margin for this.

Edg3

Peter Rhea wrote: »

Nothing to do with rain on the dish. I'm talking about the actual radio waves themselves being absorbed by moisture in the atmosphere & weakening the available signal. Your dish needs to be perfectly aligned to allow a margin for this.

Well it can be no more perfectly aligned then it is now. We did the horizontal and vertical to the highest point on the scale til just before it dropped off again. What I meant by sheltered was that we can get back up to it without major issues if it does need fixing again. I picked up a digital sat finder on ebay at the weekend so hopefully we'll find some use for it. I really appreciate all the hints and help it made actually setting it up less frustrating and I learned something new

dowtchaboy wrote: »

No offence meant!

None taken trouble shooting pc problems first thing was always, is it plugged in or is it powered on