A Freeview satellite update (January 2025)

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#3363573 13-Apr-2025 13:04

rb99:

Quickly googles F cable...oh, yes, one of those, yes that would help.

Apologies for turning this thread into a bit of a diary, but I found a cable, hooked it up, then spent far too long tracing cables, making sure everything was connected, etc. before finding out that I had to enable DiSEqC. With that done, signal strength pops up to 100, and it proceeds to find... zero channels.

Although the signal "strength" is at 100, the signal "level" is 41. Might that indicate I'm succumbing to the "wonky satellite" issues? Or is it more likely that my LNB's dying?

I haven't touched satellite stuff in ~15 years :)

RunningMan

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#3363577 13-Apr-2025 13:12

Behodar:[snip] I had to enable DiSEqC.

That's a pretty uncommon thing, unless you had a decent multi-switch and multiple LNBs set up previously.

rb99

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#3363578 13-Apr-2025 13:16

No idea. When mine stops working I call the local satellite guy and think the last few times its been the lnb and/or bit of cable that was old / cracked and letting water in.

Ours is working at the mo, but have yet to re-tune for the new satellite.

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Behodar

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#3363594 13-Apr-2025 13:28

I see from the Freeview site that the switchover is expected to happen this coming week, so at this stage I'll do nothing and see what happens afterwards.

RunningMan:

That's a pretty uncommon thing, unless you had a decent multi-switch and multiple LNBs set up previously.

I don't think I have multiple LNBs, but who knows? My brother is much more au fait with this sort of thing and it wouldn't surprise me if he did something "weird" when setting all this up. There are at least three "modules" between the receiver and the LNB, although none of them say DiSEqC on them.

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#3363647 13-Apr-2025 13:50

@Behodar, got any photos of the modules? Should be able to ID fairly easily. I'm just wondering if DiSEqC is a red herring, as turning it on by itself wouldnn't do anything - it would need to be configured for various switch ports to actually work.

Behodar

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#3363648 13-Apr-2025 14:06

Well, since you seem to be invested now 😀

The white cable at the top goes to the dish. It's plugged into the input of an Antsig AP142 2 Way Splitter. The right output goes to the Sat port of the bottom box, a "GC02-01". Its I/O port is connected to the input of the Antsig AP143, and the opposite output (i.e. top-left in this photo's orientation) goes to the receiver.

I haven't looked to see where all the other cables go!

As for DiSEqC, there are two separate submenus, DiSEqC1.0 and DiSEqC1.1. The options are "Off", and "LNB1" through "LNB4" (for 1.0) or through "LNB7" (for 1.1). If both are set to Off then the signal level and strength stay at 0. Setting seemingly any other configuration results in a level that varies between 41 and 45, and a strength of 100.

RunningMan

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#3363700 13-Apr-2025 14:38

Can't quite see the bottom one, but the other 2 look like standard splitters. However, as you can see on them, not all ports pass power in the opposite direction to the signal. This is because the LNB on the dish is powered by either 14VDC or 18VDC from the receiver. Having more than one receiver sending DC can sometimes cause problems, so spliters often only accept DC from one port only. This is the red line on the splitter.

I'd suggest your problem may be that you're connected to a port that can't send DC to the LNB, so follow the path through those splitters to the outlet you are connected to and make sure you can pass power all the way through. It may have been set up in the past where one specific room had a receiver that was always powered on and effectively powered the whole system.

Or if you have any F Female-Female barrel connectors, just connect the cable from the LNB straight to the room with the sat receiver and bypass all the splitters.

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Behodar

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#3363707 13-Apr-2025 14:48

The red "power pass" lines already match up.

The GC02-01 looks like this:

RunningMan

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#3363711 13-Apr-2025 15:04

Can you temporarily connect that black cable from the receiver to the right hand output of the top splitter? Just to bypass the rest and make sure power is getting there.

Also, what have you put for LNB settings in the receiver, and what LNB do you have?

As it stands, the top splitter is taking one feed to somewhere eise in the house, and a feed to the bottom diplexer which is combining the signal with UHF (presumably a terrestrial antenna) then taking it to the middle splitter and feeding 3 different outlets around the house.

Behodar

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#3363719 13-Apr-2025 15:47

Behodar:

I see from the Freeview site that the switchover is expected to happen this coming week, so at this stage I'll do nothing and see what happens afterwards.

I'm sticking to this: there's currently no outlet in the corner where I have the TV (the "receiver" I mentioned earlier is built into it), so I'd temporarily moved the TV for testing but have since moved it back again. Further testing will be a job for next weekend.

LNB is set to 10750. The TV defaulted to 11300, so that was the first thing I tried changing. The LNB was originally installed by Sky and I've found a few references to 10750 being the correct setting for them.

There used to be a UHF aerial but it was never reliable (120 km from the transmitter, with no direct line of sight). Pulled it down a while ago when redoing the roof.

Edit: With all that said, I've made this change since there's no reason not to:

Can you temporarily connect that black cable from the receiver to the right hand output of the top splitter?

RunningMan

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#3363722 13-Apr-2025 16:06

Depending on the age, Sky have installed 11300 and 10750 LNBs. There's the odd 10700 in the mix but not that common.

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#3363725 13-Apr-2025 16:31

Still can't see any changes over the weekend. Nothing is officially scheduled until tomorrow onwards

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

Behodar

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#3364244 15-Apr-2025 11:52

Freeview's website says it has officially moved over :)

rb99

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#3364273 15-Apr-2025 12:35

Is the new satellite renamed or still called Optus D1 ? Am looking at the list of satellites in NextPVR and the only 2 at 160 degrees are Optus D1 FTA and Optus D1.

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#3364277 15-Apr-2025 12:56

There is a separate thread about the new satellite

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=106&topicid=318699

Most software won't be updates to know about K6. In general a scan using Optus D1 should find the new TPs. You might want to manually add this new transponder 12530H SR 30000

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

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