Freesat dish advice needed
 

Erm not sure if this should be in freesat or sky so please move if needs be.

At the moment we have two sky digital dishes on our walls, one serving the freesat upstairs and one serving the free from sky downstairs.

Quite recently though we have had a branch fall on one of the dishes and knock it out of position so I was thinking of buying a quad lnb and wiring it upto the dish that works.....but what I want to know is this just a case of lifting off the old lnb and fitting the new one?

If not I asked the person who fitted one of the dishes how much he charges and he quoted me £70 for a new quad lnb and three rooms wired up (2 wires downstairs so we can a freesat pvr and one in each of the two spare rooms upstairs)....is this a good price?

Thanks for any advice.

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

The LNBs are not expensive but I guess setting them all up coax and tsting signals will take time . If parts costs what 30 quid he is only charging 40 for his time so it aint bad really

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

And to answer the first question, yes the LNB's are directly replacable, but if the dish is out of alignment it'll normally need a sat signal meter to determined correct alignment.

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Which dish has been knocked out, the Freesat one or the Sky one? Sky minidishes often have non-standard couplings to the LNB so if it's the Sky dish you're still using, and you want to put a non-Sky LNB on it, you may need an adaptor first. These are easy to come by - Maplins have them.

Other than that, a quad LNB from the remaining good dish to all the boxes in your house is a perfect solution. In fact I can't help wondering how you ended up with two dishes in the first place?

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Usually the installer saying "you don't wanna do it like that, you need another dish you do!!!" :(

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Ah they were both sky mini-dishes but I mentioned that when I enquired about the price so hopefully he would have taken that into consideration before quoting me a price.

As it is my neighbour has given me his old sky mini-dish today with a quad lnb on it, if I take a picture of that will someone be able to tell me if it's the right type I need?

Thanks for the help so far guys :)

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

The type (as in freq/tone) will be OK, all you have to do is see if it fits in the mount OK (if not as Chris has pointed out you just need a simple adaptor.

Please note that if you;re swapping round an LNB then please mark the centre line of the LNB (they can be rotated inside of the mount) and replace the new LNB witht he same rotaion... Just that as you go north/south from the equator the horizontal/vertical of the sat antenna is mismatched the more north/south you are ;)

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Would it be easier to take down the dishes from my wall and just replace them with the one my neighbour has given me?

Btw would something like this http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48667 do the job of finding the signal for me?

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

You could replace the two dishes with the one dish, that way you know that the LNB would definately fit ;)

Although it is possible to fit a dish without a sat finder (like what you linked to on the maplins site) it is very hard and very hit/miss.. I used to do it with someone watchign the TV with a handheld radio to give me a running commentary as I moved the dish about ;)

The sat finder though is great as you can fine tune the orientation as just a mm can make a hell of a difference.

Try eBay as that's where I got my last sat finder for less than half the price delivered than the unit you linked to.

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Thank you very much Kymmy I will give ebay a go and try and fit the dish myself.

Is there any special tape I need to put around the connection on the lnb?

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

I presume you're talking about self-almalgamating tape (it forms a watertight seal as it bonds to itself)

You can put that on if you wish to.. or there are barrier greases that you can buy (they're very common for motorcycle electronics) or some people just use a simple gasket/silicone sealant to prevent water ingress..

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

So what's better the tape or something like the grease (just there is a motorcycle shop across the road I could buy some from :D).

Kymmy btw thank you for all this help it's appreciated

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Grease is easier if it's gonna be messed with (i.e.. upgraded ona regular basis)

If it's an install and forget then the tape is more weatherproof

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

I actually contacted the person who was going to fit the lnb for me and he is that desperate for business he said he would take my old dishes down and put up the one I have with the quad lnb and then run the 4 wires to the various rooms from it for only £40......not too bad.

I plan on following your advice though because I want to add an additional dish to be able to pick up some German channels....any idea if a bog-standard digital setup from aldi or lidl will be able to do that?

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Yes if you want the digital german sats (but a lot of the decent channels are encrypted), but the old analogue 19.2 is also broadcasting a lot of german channels (including non-encrypted eurosport with german/english audio) so if you have an old sky system or get one cheap..

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Thank you Kymmy :)

We got the dish wired up for £40 in the end and i'm pretty pleased with that. I also found my old analogue box and dish from the loft so I am going to buy a sat finder tonight off ebay and hopefully I will be able to find more instructions on google as to where to point the dish for the German stations - thanks for that tip btw

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

19.2E for Astra 1 that's only 9 degrees west and ever so slightly up (probably half a degree) from where your current dish points..

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Thank you

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Ah I have been messing around with this for a while now and just want to say thank you to Kymmy as I get a fair few German channels now :D

Btw I have heard they are switching off the analogue in Germany this year so do you have any idea what I will need to get the free-to-air channels on digital satellite?

Thanks again

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Best thing is to find out who the large german sat providers are, then look up the lyngsat lists as to which sats they use. Point your dish towards the sat then do a scan.. You can check on lyngsat as to which channels have no encryption but probably easier to do the scan and then just work your way through them..

But as far as lnb/dish that should be OK, all you need is an FTA box

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Thanks again Kymmy. Would any FTA box from Maplins do the trick?

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Yep, should be OK..

Concerning the LNB I know I said that your analogue one should be OK, but just check it out and it should be a universal LNB, if not you can get them from £5 -£10

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Quick question seeing this thread is live:

With this dual/quad LNB stuff, I presume you need one coaxial feed per LNB? The reason I ask is that this would mean having to run new cables if I were to move from Freeview to Freesat and run a PVR, something which I'm not too keen on, as the current cable is buried underneath my newly installed hardwood floor...

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Thanks.

I was thinking of just getting a new dish to go with a new box and this one caught my eye so I was wondering what you though:- http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...24740&source=1 thanks again Kymmy

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Yes correct, each port of the LNB needs a seperate cable, for a freesatpvr a dual lnb will do and you can get dual cables (i.e two cables moudled together (looks a bit like giant speaker cable except each side is a seperate co-ax)

It's a nice little system and good to see HD, but you could probably get something cheaper online.. Also remmeber that if you;re looking at european stations then UK might not always be in the right footprint and if possible a 0.9m or a 1.2m dish might be better.

---------- Post added at 15:00 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

Also if looking at eurosats then go for a system with DISECQ, that way a disecq motor can easily be added and you have a multi-sat system :)

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

So a bigger dish and DISECQ is needed. Kymmy is there any chance you know of a decent online store to buy what I need? I'd go into my local satellite shop but im pretty sure they would fleece me.

You have me hooked on messing around with my satellite setup :D

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Personally for most of the stuff I'd look on ebay..

One question?? What are you like with linux? Just that what I personally have is a FTA box with a firmware that is linux based on it. Means I have a choice of differnt firmwares which give me lots of different features (for example ethernet streaming (either way), hdd recording, webradio..etc...)

Dreambox, DGStation (relook) and other brands do these..

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Im actually ok with linux and I am pretty sure I have put software or an image on a drembox before for a member of my family. Might look into them as I know a shop that sells them.

Also might go price up a dish and a DISEqC motor :D Could I possibly get a setup for less than £200?

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

An SD FTA with DISEQC probably yes, but HD..No..

I'd get the HD FTA (linux based, with PVR) with a largish dish for now, find a good sat and point it there, then later on when you can afford it just install the DISEQC motor..

Re: Freesat dish advice needed
 

Now just to find a linux based box (as I don't think that one from maplins is any good) and then jump on lyngsat and find where to point my dish for the most German channels.

Thanks again Kymmy :)