Setting up the Lidl Satellite System: For Beginners

jayo2004

Anyone know where i can buy one of these recievers. Tried Lidl in Athy and Portlaoise. Also rang Lidl and they said they were all out. They must be somewhere on the net i can buy one. Thanks

Tony

deadl0ck wrote:

Tony - Thanks for the answer - I wasn't 100% sure due to the conflicting reports/problems people were having.

No problem

Tony

Are u sure your dish is aligned on hotbird?

Paulobrien wrote:

Hi,


Having survived the "fall of Saigon" at 8am in Moore St the other morning, I now have a problem with the system.

I have found both Astras (it seems u will get one stronger the other (so I read here) I get CNN and mostly englsih stuff... others get the Gereman stuff.

However I really only got it for Hotbird, which Ii can not recieve?
I have defenitly scanned properly... so has any one got any ideas.
Some one mentioned something about problems and updating something (not the software)

Incidentally... not that it matters, but for anyone interested. I used the Sat finder in the Accesories Software on the box (not the finder)... and whilst I get no signal at all For "Sirus" when I scan it in EPG as Im flicking throgh stations a strong signal comes up in the EPG (but no video or audio) and a friend says he gets audio and video off Sirus, with the same system.

But it's the hotbird problem please,
Thanks

Zaphod

boardy wrote:

By the way Zaphod, the pages on my manual (new lidl system) does not correspond with what you have, but you led me in the right direction. Cheers.

As I don't have one of those receivers, I'm just going by the downloadable pdf manual from Comag:
http://www.comag-ag.de/software/silvercrest/cmg_SL65_man_EN.pdf

How closely does it correspond with the printed manual?

novarock

my father is setting his up in balbriggan and he needs some help. hes pointed at astra e28.2. 90% quality on the signal. Has 300+ channels or something, but cannot view any british terrestrial(or irish if you can even get it). he gets the channel list no probs, but when selecting channel(bbc1 digital), says no audio, no video.
has all american channels, european channels, has no terrestrial channels, bbc, utv, etc.

Any help appreciated!!

boardy

Zaphod: The PDF looks identical but the page numbering is different.

Novarock: Your father will not get any Irish channels using the Lidl system. He will only get FTA channels (check www.lyngsat.com for complete listings) , so no UTV, Channel 5 etc. However, he will get a whole bunch of BBC's, Sky News Ireland, ITV News, S4C, etc. His signal quality is very good.

novarock

is he supposed to get any of the sky channels??

boardy

The Sky News Channels, I believe .......
Check out the web site that I listed on the previous post for the complete list of channels.

Lush

duck1 wrote:

I got one of the lidl digital satellite systems on Thursday and only put it up today. I put the bracket up vertical on a east facing wall and connected all cables up. I got two coaxial connectors 4 d satellite beeper and wired it up. I dont knoe if its working right. I moved the dish around in several positions and cant seem to any signal on any of the satellites (no compass). The beeper is loudest with the dish facing almost into the wall (s)/(N) or the ground - it doesnt seem right. Im not sure what to do - there are no other sky dishes around within a mile

OK, heres what you need to do:

1. Attatch the sat finder to the dish, either port will do, and turn the knob to the right(clockwise)until you hear a tone and 2 of the lights on the meter light up, then back it off a tad until the tone is just about silent.
2. Set the dish angle to between 22-25 degrees (look at the back of the dish you will see the degrees marked into the bracket. Use the one on the right if you're looking at the back of the dish)
3. Switch on your Receiver and TV.
4. Point the dish due East.
5. Move the dish a fraction at a time to the South. (Important to allow at least a second or so before continuing moving the dish) Do NOT just move the dish continually to the South as you WILL miss the signal, move it a fraction at a time.
6. At approx SSE (which is between 20 and 25 past the hour if you look at a watch) you will pick up a satellite. You will have to move the dish back and forth a few times to get the strongest signal, the tone on the sat finder will be howling and the leds will all be lit up.
7. Tilt the dish up slightly does the signal get stronger if not tilt it down slightly. Do this until you get the strongest signal. (It is handy to have some one looking at the TV, press the Info button on the remote to show the signal strength, and letting you know the levels too)
8. Check your channels on the TV. All in German then you are looking at Astra1B. Move the dish to the East a tad (2mm approx), and tilt slightly down. You should now be pointing at Astra28East.
9. Go to the fridge and reach inside for a can of beer and take a great big gulp of the amber nectar, you deserve it!!! Enjoy.

Lush

duck1 wrote:

I got one of the lidl digital satellite systems on Thursday and only put it up today. I put the bracket up vertical on a east facing wall and connected all cables up. I got two coaxial connectors 4 d satellite beeper and wired it up. I dont knoe if its working right. I moved the dish around in several positions and cant seem to any signal on any of the satellites (no compass). The beeper is loudest with the dish facing almost into the wall (s)/(N) or the ground - it doesnt seem right. Im not sure what to do - there are no other sky dishes around within a mile

OK, heres what you need to do:

1. Attatch the sat finder to the dish, either port will do, and turn the knob to the right(clockwise)until you hear a tone and 2 of the lights on the meter light up, then back it off a tad until the tone is just about silent.
2. Set the dish angle to between 22-25 degrees (look at the back of the dish you will see the degrees marked into the bracket. Use the one on the right if you're looking at the back of the dish)
3. Switch on your Receiver and TV.
4. Point the dish due East.
5. Move the dish a fraction at a time to the South. (Important to allow at least a second or so before continuing moving the dish) Do NOT just move the dish continually to the South as you WILL miss the signal, move it a fraction at a time.
6. At approx SSE (which is between 20 and 25 past the hour if you look at a watch) you will pick up a satellite. You will have to move the dish back and forth a few times to get the strongest signal, the tone on the sat finder will be howling and the leds will all be lit up.
7. Tilt the dish up slightly does the signal get stronger if not tilt it down slightly. Do this until you get the strongest signal. (It is handy to have some one looking at the TV, press the Info button on the remote to show the signal strength, and letting you know the levels too)
8. Check your channels on the TV. All in German then you are looking at Astra1B. Move the dish to the East a tad (2mm approx), and tilt slightly down. You should now be pointing at Astra28East.
9. Go to the fridge and reach inside for a can of beer and take a great big gulp of the amber nectar, you deserve it!!! Enjoy. :cool:

Tony

Nice post especially the beer at the end

blinks

I have set up receiver and dish. Signal strength is 98%. Have tuned in BBC channels, CNN, etc. Am trying to get German and French channels, but message is "Audio and Video not available", in spite of the fact that the signal quality is ok.
Do I need to do some further tuning to get these channels? Many of the channels I can receive are on Astra 1B 19.2, others on 28 east. Is the dish receiving both??

All help gratefully received!!

boardy

It sounds like you are pointed at Astra 28.2E. Even though you may be getting signal strengths with channels on Astra 19.2E, you need to be pointed at that satellite to pick them up.

Tony

are you moving the dish each time you try to access a different satellite position?

blinks wrote:

I have set up receiver and dish. Signal strength is 98%. Have tuned in BBC channels, CNN, etc. Am trying to get German and French channels, but message is "Audio and Video not available", in spite of the fact that the signal quality is ok.
Do I need to do some further tuning to get these channels? Many of the channels I can receive are on Astra 1B 19.2, others on 28 east. Is the dish receiving both??

All help gratefully received!!

duck1

I got all the fta's from astra28 today. I used the delete option for the tv channels (alot of them weren't preprogrammed right anyway) Then i used the edit transponder option and went through each of them until all were stored. Maybe it was the long way round it, but I got all the channels I want now that were not in the presets.

Sysmod

Well, I installed it after
1) One nut was the wrong size, found a match in my spares box
2) No extra cable supplied for sat beeper, bought two F plugs in a shop, owner giving out about people buying in Lidl and then coming to him for the bits and bobs, made up cable.

I found Astra 28E easily, 83% signal, 66% quality.
Only BBC1 channels on it at first glance.
I'd like to find Hotbird for the Italian channels.

I can move the dish around and the beeper rises pitch in a more southerly direction which is where I presume Hotbird is, but nothing appearing on screen. The display just shows the last picture got on channel 617, BBC, on Astra 28E.

Should the receiver automatically detect and tune in to a new satellite when it is pointed there, or do I have to change channels?

There are some trees in that direction, it may be that I need to be higher up above their level. I was hoping to avoid having to look down to a TV on the ground from the roof :-)

When I do change channels, the sound of the beeper changes. Why does it do that? What's the connection?

I saw some advice "Try a network search on a couple of transponders and it should download everything available". What do I actually do with this receiver to search? Will that upset all the channels already in there? The channel number does not matter to be anyway, but just asking in case it matters.

People keep referring to Lyngsat.com but making sense of that data is not clear to me, in terms of relating it to what one sees on the info screen from this receiver.

we'll have collected quite a FAQ in this thread!

Lush

Sysmod wrote:

I found Astra 28E easily, 83% signal, 66% quality.
Only BBC1 channels on it at first glance.
I'd like to find Hotbird for the Italian channels.

Go into your menu options screen/then system configuration/automatic tune (I think from memory)/choose the Astra28East press OK, then it will go off and pick up all the available channel data. Press OK once its stopped that process, press OK and it will then go and tune in the available channels, this will take 10 mins or so, Press OK to save changes, press exit bitton on remote until you're back to the channel. You will now have the latest channels on Astra28East.

I can move the dish around and the beeper rises pitch in a more southerly direction which is where I presume Hotbird is, but nothing appearing on screen. The display just shows the last picture got on channel 617, BBC, on Astra 28E.

Should the receiver automatically detect and tune in to a new satellite when it is pointed there, or do I have to change channels?

The reason you are seeing the channel 617 is because it remembers its last channel that you were viewing. You need to choose a channel that is looking at Hotbird, press the Info button on the remote to get up the signal stats and then tune it to Hotbird. You will NOT be able to view Astra28East channels then as you will be poionting at the Hotbirt sat...

There are some trees in that direction, it may be that I need to be higher up above their level. I was hoping to avoid having to look down to a TV on the ground from the roof :-)

If you are going to do this from the roof you will need some assistance, or else it will drive you mad... First find out the position of Hotbird, I think its 13 degrees East, then point the sat in that direction, until you are getting strong signals from your sat finder, ask your assistant how its going down below on the TV etc...

When I do change channels, the sound of the beeper changes. Why does it do that? What's the connection?

This happens when you are recieving a stronger signal from the sat than the previous channel.

People keep referring to Lyngsat.com but making sense of that data is not clear to me, in terms of relating it to what one sees on the info screen from this receiver.

The lyngsat site is helpfull to find the position and frequencies of the various satellites. It will all make sense to you soon, as you will be an expert once you've tuned it in...

:cool:

Tony

Sysmod wrote:

2) No extra cable supplied for sat beeper, bought two F plugs in a shop, owner giving out about people buying in Lidl and then coming to him for the bits and bobs, made up cable.

aaahhhh the poor guy, being made to sell small things

Zaphod

Sysmod wrote:

People keep referring to Lyngsat.com but making sense of that data is not clear to me, in terms of relating it to what one sees on the info screen from
this receiver.

I find the layout of satcodx to be clearer than lyngsat

http://www.satcodx1.com/0130/uke/
The important columns are: first column contain the Frequency in GHz, and the polarity (H or V); the fourth column channel name; the sixth column contains the symbol rate (eg 27500) and the FEC (eg 5/6 - although most receivers will find this automatically if set to AUTO).

Colour coding is explained here:
http://www.satcodx.com/explanation/type.shtml
and the rest:
http://www.satcodx.com/explanation/

The remaining columns and colour coding refer to the type of channel (eg TV or radio or data), footprint, the encryption system if any, the transmission mode (eg mpeg2) and the PIDs for audio, video, PCR etc and language.

Twolf

Have got system, but may have problem with Trees in the Area, Can somebody explain what are the rules when it come to obstacles ?

Thanks

yvry

you can calculate the obstacles with a program that it can be found on the web http://www.al-soft.com/saa/satinfo.shtml

Tony

basically if you have any obstacle in the way you will not get a reliable signal.

boardy

There were a lot of helpful posts on this thread so I would like to thank all the experts for dropping by and giving us a hand.

blinks

I agree - without these posts I wouldn't still be connected. Boards.ie is now on my favourites!

zilog_jones

My friend's dad was having problems with his FTA receiver (I think it was one of those Lidl ones too). A lot of channels were just black or said "weak signal!" - BBC1 would work, but not a lot else. After comparing the transponder list to that on Lyngsat it seemed to be missing a lot of the ones which had FTA channels on them - I don't know if these were the defaults or what.

Anyway, I just added the 28.2 satellites onto the list myself and added all the transponders manually (taken from Lyngsat; only the ones with FTA channels of course!), and made it scan those, and now it works fine! All 20-odd BBC variations, and about 100 channels of utter crap!

Also, he has two LNBs on the dish, and it's a pretty big dish (not the Lidl one) - about 100 or 120cm I think - but one of the LNBs isn't pointed at anything right now. Would it be possible to get the Astra 1 stuff with that second LNB on the same dish, or would the angle difference be too great?

Zaphod

He shouldn't have any problems with his 1M+ dish, a suitable bracket and a Diseqc switch.
http://www.satcure.com/tech/page9.htm

He should probably point the dish more towards 19E, with the 28E
LNBF offset, as 19E has a weaker signal than 28E.

Pal

zilog_jones wrote:

Would it be possible to get the Astra 1 stuff with that second LNB on the same dish, or would the angle difference be too great?

You can get these sats simultaneously on 1 fixed dish

Astra2 @ 28e
Astra1 @ 19e
Eutelsat @16e (squeezed in )
Hotbird @ 13e

also here's a really good list of the FTA (Lidl) channels without the encrypted stuff that you won't get.
http://www.flysat.com/fta.php

mightyboosh

blinks wrote:

I have set up receiver and dish. Signal strength is 98%. Have tuned in BBC channels, CNN, etc. Am trying to get German and French channels, but message is "Audio and Video not available", in spite of the fact that the signal quality is ok.
Do I need to do some further tuning to get these channels? Many of the channels I can receive are on Astra 1B 19.2, others on 28 east. Is the dish receiving both??

All help gratefully received!!

HI,
I'm having exactly the same problem.

The previous owners of my house left a sky mini dish (installed), so rather than take it down I thought I could put it to some use. I bought the £40 box from Lidl and it's picking up Astra 1b 19.2 @ 93% signal.

The problem is that as I'm browsing through the pre-installed channels it's showing good signal and telling me what channel it is eg: RTL etc, but instead of getting a picture all I get is : Audio and Video not available.

I've done an auto tune and sure enough this puts all the free to view channels in, but doesn't do a thing to help the euro channels :mad: .

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Tony

mightyboosh wrote:

HI,
Iit's picking up Astra 1b 19.2 @ 93% signal.

Not if its a sky minidish that you have not re directed, read through the thread, this has been covered earlier

marclt

i don't think this has been covered before ;-)

If I wanted to take my sky dish down and replace it with the lidl dish... how easy would that be... and could i attach two lnbs onto the dish for both services? I'd keep the two boxes seperate as i pay sky a sub.

I just don't want two dishes on the front of the house!

Marc