Yet another Freeview for Sky swap question - think I have a setting issue

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Yet another Freeview for Sky swap question - think I have a setting issue

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Zapper

28 posts

Geek

#1802095 16-Jun-2017 12:39

Rikkitic - I tried it with 22KHz tone ON again with no change.

Something I did notice that each time I conducted scan it would pause at 37% which showed a freq of 12410MHz. As an idea I I tried setting that manually in the LNB settings and immediately saw a signal of about 77% and network as OPTUS as shown in the screenshot below.

I am starting to think that I have made an error in a very basic assumption and am about to feel very foolish indeed.

Do I have to realign the dish from the position used by SKY to a different satellite to receive the Freeview signals?

From the documentation on Freeview website I find the satellite for Freeview reception in Auckland can be found at 44.5 Elevation and 316.9 Azimuth. Is this the same as the satellite used for Sky?

What I am getting at is that I assumed both Freeview and the Sky signals were transmitted from the same satellite. Is this correct?

If not then I'll get on the roof and move the dish and I imagine I will find I have wasted your time. If so, you have my humble apologies.

Zap

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1802108 16-Jun-2017 13:16

No, do not mess with the dish. You will just create more problems. Both Sky and Freeview use the same satellite, which is D1. I do not have a lot of satellite knowledge but when I was playing with this some years ago, I started with the basic Sky set-up and built from there. Our installation was old and we had the old Sky single-throat LNB. I replaced this with a dual LNB so I could also get Freeview on a separate satellite receiver. I then added a second LNB for D2 and later, a third one for Intelsat19. These all still work well.

I can think of some more things to try in your case, but I have no idea if they make any sense. For example, you might try scanning with the polarization set to vertical. If the LNB was installed with the wrong skew for some reason, this might reverse the polarity settings. Does your TV do blind scans or do you have to feed it transponder frequencies? If it can do blind scans, just delete all transponders and let it find them again. Even better, set up a custom satellite and start from scratch. You don't have to use the satellite database, which is mainly just for movable dishes. You can make up anything you like. As long as the dish is pointing the right way and the LNB works, that is all you need.

An earlier STB I had displayed all the transponder frequencies incorrectly for some reason. I remember there was something that caused this, but I can't remember what it was. I don't think it was the LNB though I may be wrong about that. The result was that if I used a listed transponder frequency and entered it manually, it wouldn't work. I always had to add the amount by which the STB was off so I purposely had to enter an incorrect frequency in order to get it to work. When I did a blind scan it would work anyway, because the STB would tune into any signal it found, regardless of what it thought the transponder frequency was.

What I don't know anything about is these dual throat Sky LNBs that apparently point at two different satellites. From what you describe, it sounds like you are seeing the wrong satellite but I don't know why. There has to be a way to switch between the two throats and I would have thought the 28 khz tone might do it. If you put a new single LNB in the old bracket, it may or may not point the right way. It depends on how the Sky LNB is designed. Someone who knows more about this than I do can give you better advice. If you can easily get at the dish and see the TV at the same time, you might be able to work out the right configuration by hand. I was able to do this when setting up Intelsat19. I just held the LNB in my hand at the same distance as the other one, then moved it back and forth until I got the signal.

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B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#1802116 16-Jun-2017 13:36

Do I have to realign the dish from the position used by SKY to a different satellite to receive the Freeview signals?

From the documentation on Freeview website I find the satellite for Freeview reception in Auckland can be found at 44.5 Elevation and 316.9 Azimuth. Is this the same as the satellite used for Sky?

What I am getting at is that I assumed both Freeview and the Sky signals were transmitted from the same satellite. Is this correct?

If not then I'll get on the roof and move the dish and I imagine I will find I have wasted your time. If so, you have my humble apologies.

Zap

Don't ever move the dish if it was working OK on Sky. If it was working with Sky then it will work with Freeview with no re-alignment.

Yes, Sky and Freeview use the same Satellite. If you had Sky working fine before removing their box then all you need to do is connect the co-ax you disconnected from Sky and plug it into the TV. Any problems then are in the setup parameters in the TV. I know it was stupid question but in the setup under Aerial is it possible to change that parameter between Terrestrial and Satellite? Just doesn't seem right to me that it says Terrestrial given what it says to do in the text above it. Seems to me that that's the way the TV switches antenna inputs?

I bought myself an Android TV box with built in UHF/Sat tuners when I dumped Sky. All I had to do to get it working was connect the Sat Dish co-ax to the box, select Optus D1, make sure I got all parameters set correctly which left me with option of scan all channels or only free to air. Found all channels perfectly first time. There has to be a basic error somewhere in your settings. Make sure you have plugged in the co-ax that was connected to the Sky box and that it's still connected to the same output at the LNB as it was when Sky was working.

Zapper

28 posts

Geek

#1802119 16-Jun-2017 13:39

Hallelujah!

That was it. Dish was pointed at D3 not D1. I was fooled because the setting said D1.

I shifted the dish 6 degrees right and 1.7 degrees up and walked in.. turned TV on and got socked in the eye by Jeremy Kyle! Jesus H Christ ... maybe I was better off with nothing!

In a serious vein, I would like to seriously off my heartfelt thanks to all the generous folks here, in particular RunningMan and Rikkitic! Thank-you so much.

Cheers Gents and I owe you beer!

Thanks,
Zap!

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#1802120 16-Jun-2017 13:41

P.S. Screen shots from my Android Box Setup

B1GGLZ

1961 posts

Uber Geek

#1802121 16-Jun-2017 13:43

Zapper: Hallelujah!

That was it. Dish was pointed at D3 not D1. I was fooled because the setting said D1.

I shifted the dish 6 degrees right and 1.7 degrees up and walked in.. turned TV on and got socked in the eye by Jeremy Kyle! Jesus H Christ ... maybe I was better off with nothing!

In a serious vein, I would like to seriously off my heartfelt thanks to all the generous folks here, in particular RunningMan and Rikkitic! Thank-you so much.

Cheers Gents and I owe you beer!

Thanks,
Zap!

Well done but does make me wonder how come Sky was working OK if the Dish was pointing the wrong way.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1802122 16-Jun-2017 13:47

How about that? You had the right idea after all. D1, D2 and D3 are all close enough that they can be picked up by pointing the dish at one and offsetting LNBs to get the others. Your issue had something to do with the Sky dual-throat LNB that points two different ways, but it doesn't matter how you solve it as long as it works. Congratulations!

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Apsattv

2390 posts

Uber Geek

#1802469 17-Jun-2017 06:39

Seems to me your lnbf was stuck on D3/C1 and wasnt switching back it can happen if lnbf goes faulty or low voltage. Moving the dish was NOT a good idea.

The part of the lnbf that was seeing C1/D3 is now aimed at D1.

Ok result in the end but if you plug a Skybox in it will be mucked up on the default lnbf settings as one part of the lnbf will now be looking at 164E Optus 10..

RunningMan

8961 posts

Uber Geek

#1803055 18-Jun-2017 18:51

Apsattv:

Seems to me your lnbf was stuck on D3/C1 and wasnt switching back it can happen if lnbf goes faulty or low voltage. Moving the dish was NOT a good idea.

The part of the lnbf that was seeing C1/D3 is now aimed at D1.

Ok result in the end but if you plug a Skybox in it will be mucked up on the default lnbf settings as one part of the lnbf will now be looking at 164E Optus 10..

This.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that that the 22kHz tone on the Sky LNBs tells the LNB to select the second throat (which is aimed at D3), rather than the primary throat which is aimed at D1 (Freeview). If the dish was working fine on Sky, it shouldn't be moved at all. What's now happened is the secondary throat is lined up with D1, and the primary throat will be 164 degrees, where you won't get much at all.

Something is causing the LNB to select the wrong throat - it could be the LNB faulty but if it was working very recently with Sky it's pretty unlikely. My guess is something is still sending 22kHz up the cable - either the TV (despite telling it not to), or someone has plugged something into the dish (even a sat finder) that is outputting a 22k signal.

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1803144 18-Jun-2017 23:07

That sounds about right. I think a better solution in this case would have been to shift the LNB rather than the dish if he wanted to do it that way, but the bottom line for him is it works and if he only wants it for Freeview, I don't see anything wrong with that. Any hypothetical future problem with someone wanting Sky again will be someone else's issue. Maybe in a few years there will be a post on Geekzone from someone wondering why their dish works for Freeview but not Sky. Then we can all start over.

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Zapper

28 posts

Geek

#1803930 20-Jun-2017 11:35

Hey Guys,

All the info much appreciated.

A wry smile for the idea that someone in future will have the reverse of my probs.

Could it be LNB was installed 180 out in the first place?

Either way I have all those lovely Freeview channels .. ugh but it will do for the time being.

When time permits I intend to experiment some more.

Again, many thanks for your kind help.

Cheers,

Zap

Rikkitic

Awrrr
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#1804056 20-Jun-2017 14:45

See above. You have a dual-throated LNB designed to point at two different satellites. For some reason the switch between them isn't working so you are stuck on the wrong one. By moving your dish you have pointed the 'wrong' one to the satellite you want so it works, but it also means that if the switching problem is ever fixed (or comes right on its own), or the LNB is ever replaced, your dish will be pointing in the wrong place and nothing will work.

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