What's changed Astra 28.2

[Harry Bloomfield]

EDIT - sorry I meant 28.2

I bought the 'suitcase portable' system maybe 15+ years ago, it has always worked fine, a matter of minutes to set up, before it was working, but not this time....

I normally leave the receiver tuned to BBC London TV, as that seems the more reliable station, whereas others come and go. This time, I struggled, seemed a clear view of the bit of sky, sky clear, the inline signal meter, showed a signal, no BBC channels, but displayed one of the weird channels. Tried a full channel rescan, found lots of channels, but none receivable.The reciever, puts a tone on the TV, rising and louder, as you receive the sat, but that just sounded it's default tone. Tried the sat finder app, on my phone, that showed where the sat should be, up in the clear sky.

 

[cdbe]

Following. Having failed to find it on last holiday to Cornwall I'm back - with a "satfinder" LNB, a rough idea of the direction (found one on a nearby house - 3 different phone compasses show 3 different Norths). Don't know whether the LNB is fitted in the correct position or how to adjust the elevation.

The satfinder seems good - little led that goes from red to amber and green if you find the sat.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Following. Having failed to find it on last holiday to Cornwall I'm back - with a "satfinder" LNB, a rough idea of the direction (found one on a nearby house - 3 different phone compasses show 3 different Norths).

I'm completely baffled - as said, I've never struggled before, a couple of minutes, and it would be working. I've had a second go, moving the dish to another spot, with a similar result - a good, strong signal, did a rescan, found lots of German, French, Dutch etc. channels, a few English ones, but no BBC ones, apart from a couple of encrypted ones.

It would be easier, if the sat receiver, somehow identified the actual satellite the dish was receiving from.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

As said, the receiver is quite old, and SD - might they have switched the SD transmissions off, and replaced them with HD, since I last made use of it?

 

[Lucid]

As said, the receiver is quite old, and SD - might they have switched the SD transmissions off, and replaced them with HD, since I last made use of it?

^ This. You'll need a HD-capable receiver.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

^ This. You'll need a HD-capable receiver.

Thanks...

I'm way out of touch with sat reception, but I've agreed to buy one of these, used, for not a lot of money....

https://www.lobster.ee/sat/index.php?bm=webshop&subaction=view&nodeID=459

A Fortec Skytec JOBI HD - should that work with UK channels, using my portable dish? I used to have a Fortec seemed to be good kit.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Bump! -Anyone know? /!\

 

[Lucid]

It's a DVB-S2 receiver, so yes, it should pick up the HD channels.

 

[Colin Brenton]

Yes, 28.2E no longer carries BBC SD channels, as of early last year...

Updates and alerts

www.freesat.co.uk

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yes, 28.2E no longer carries BBC SD channels, as of early last year...

Updates and alerts

www.freesat.co.uk

Thanks, that explains it - I'd not needed to use it for a couple of years, and so spent quite a lot of wasted time, trying to work out, why I was suddenly unable to find any sat with the expected channels available on it. Where we are, in our usual spot, we normally get decent Freeview, but we are (in the caravan), just 20 yards from our usual spot, and Freeview reception is not now acceptable.

I got the dish out, and the SD receiver, but found that was equally useless. I had intended to upgrade to HD, but simply never got around to it. As said, I have an HD receiver to collect, as soon as we get home again.

 

[Rodders53]

£100 ?? https://www.argos.co.uk/product/7647019 is cheaper and has the Freesat EPG / LCN.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/2075679 is more expensive but the latest Freesat box.

Or go in to CEX for a second hand Freesat box?

IIRC the satfinder LNB needed a special receiver to feed back to the LEDs?? May be wrong. Waning powers.

Terrestrial reception: 20 metres - what is blocking the terrestrial signal there? What aerial? What amp box? Could something have failed/lost power?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

It's a DVB-S2 receiver, so yes, it should pick up the HD channels.

I collected the never used A Fortec Skytec JOBI HD receiver yesterday. Tried to set it up via the caravan's dish, but struggled to find the correct sat, lots of reception, just the wrong sat. I wasted hours, not realising the dc to the LNB, needed to be enabled in the menu. Today, I took it in the house, connected to my old house dish, and got the full complement of channels hoped for.

So, all basically working, except it is an extremely complicated system, and the software installed, and menus don't much match the large user manual I got with it, and so lots of trial and error....

I now have a permanent panel in the upper right of the screen, which says ClearMen, and on the line below Stopped. I've tried Factory Reset, Exit, etc., but nothing seems to clear the panel from the screen. It even hides options on the menu system. Ideas please?

Forget that, I eventually managed to clear the panel.. I have now worked out, that it is running and optional OS by the name of 'Enigma', rather than the default factory one. It certainly is an enigma!

 

[Rodders53]

Ideas please?

See my previous. Buy a freesat box.

Or sort out the terrestrial reception issue, somehow.

Free to air sat boxes are a pita.
1) They don't (cannot) sort the channels into a Logical Channel Numbering system. So you have to do that tedious job.
2) They only have now/next EPG data - so you can't see what's on later in the day/week.
3) They don't auto tune update channel changes. So you need to be aware and do that manually.

The one you have acquired seems faulty, perhaps. Or requires a firmware update via USB? But as you probably know the links from that web page you provided don't work. Other sites seem to date from 10+ years ago, so it's likely pretty old tech, to boot.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

1) They don't (cannot) sort the channels into a Logical Channel Numbering system. So you have to do that tedious job.

It does enable you to sort them into AtoZ order, but it also provides access to ALL the channels.

2) They only have now/next EPG data - so you can't see what's on later in the day/week.

Nope, this shows a weeks worth of each channel.

3) They don't auto tune update channel changes. So you need to be aware and do that manually.

It includes the option to autotune, when new channels appear.

Having got the sat and channel all tuned in, on my home dish, I left the receiver set for BBC1, set the volume to max., and took it out to the caravan, plugged it all in, turned it on, and set about tweaking the portable dish, whilst listening to the TV, and for BBC1 sound coming through. Two minutes, and all receivable channels, working just fine.

 

[Rodders53]

It does enable you to sort them into AtoZ order, but it also provides access to ALL the channels.

An awful lot of ITV1s and no way to know which is which?

Nope, this shows a weeks worth of each channel.

How? The $ky 7-day epg is behind their paywall and the freesat one is 'encrypted data' as far as I know.

Via the interweb is possible as per Enigma boxes with 'images' and web-scraping of listings sources.

It includes the option to autotune, when new channels appear.

That's interesting... how does it 'know' there are new channels to look for (via the web?, via $ky's epg data, via freesat's??)