B&Q Satellite - Ross freesat box and dish

[hhipwood23]

ok. so have got a sat finder, even when high reading on that have no joy - still 0% on Quality, 99% on level- getting to our wits end! Help!

[Turkey Machine]

Tilt it in the right place. I had the same issue indoors with a dish, and mine turned out to be a very slight tilt problem.

[Kymmy]

The LNB should be rotated dependant on your longitude and latitude.. Even with a sat finder you might still be on the wrong satellite as that will stil give you a strong signal but it won't scan any Astra2 channels..

[hhipwood23]

thanks, but with the LNB does it have to be pointing at the dish itself, cuz the sat finder says it has a better signal when its pointin 90degrees away from the dish?

[Kymmy]

Errr, yes, the LNB nornally points towards the centre of the dish

Think of the dish as a mirrir that gathers in the signal and concentrates the signal at the point of the LNB, the LNB has to point at the signal for the strongest signal

[coolstrutter]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

The LNB should be rotated dependant on your longitude and latitude.. Even with a sat finder you might still be on the wrong satellite as that will stil give you a strong signal but it won't scan any Astra2 channels..

I totally agree with Kymmy what we did was when we got a strong signal reading the hubby rotated the LNB everso slightly and slowly until we got the Q level over 50% we couldn't get 99% on the Q level but we have 99% L level and we have an extremely good crisp picture.I hope you have more success this time.

[Kymmy]

The best site is http://www.dishpointer.com/ you can put in your postcode and select the satellite and it'll show you the direction, elevation and also the LNB skew

[hhipwood23]

ok, so have tried dispointer.com, have a sat finder..... still no joy!! Awaiting to hear back from ROSS, reckon we've got a dud?!

[Kymmy]

You can try but I still think you may be pointing towards the wrong satellite..

Have you tried going either side of the strong signal you have to the next strong signals.. or even leave it on that strong signal and selecting to scan the adjacent hotbird, eutelsat, badr or arabsat frequencies to see if youre on one of them??

[gdr]

Agree with kymmy i had problems scanned other sattelights got astra channel list but wouldnt tune in. changed to channel 4 instead of itv scanned again and sudenly worked. sorry cant help further.
I still cant get cbeebies childrens channel any ideas anyone?

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by gdr

Agree with kymmy i had problems scanned other sattelights got astra channel list but wouldnt tune in. changed to channel 4 instead of itv scanned again and sudenly worked. sorry cant help further.
I still cant get cbeebies childrens channel any ideas anyone?

That's because the signal isn;t just of one antenna floating in space but multiple antenna's on multiple sats and also using differing polerizations.. These sats float around at different points but always trying to keep in a virtual 3d box. If you tune into one of the sats that's in one corner of the box then channels on that sat may be strong but channels on the other Astra2 sats will be very week.

Hence when you tune in you need to look at the full list and choose varying channels on far apart frequencies and varying H/V polerizations..

Also something else to look out for is the LNB setting.. Most common is Universal LNB's (9.75 and 10.60 GHz that uses a 22Khz switching signal) that's likely to be the one supplied with the system (also common on most Sky systems apart from some of the very old analogue ones) The reciever must be set-up to use that LNB otherwise the whole frequency listing will be out and major blocks (if not all) of the channels will be missing

[manxman01]

Originally Posted by daycartes

Just like to say that I bought this on impulse, however my version cost £79.99 not £40 (nevertheless 89.99 at homebase). I wasn't even convinced that it would work at all. Thought that it would be a good idea to set it up inside so pointed the satellite out of the bedroom window and looked for satellite but to no avail (I couldn't even see one with my binoculars and I have some really good binoculars), A quick visit to maplins was in order and I managed to pick up a satellite finder for around 20 quid. This worked really well especially as it has an audible output which allowed me to fine tune quite accurately. I must admit to a great deal of satisfaction when I first heard some intelligible sounds however there was no picture which was slightly frustrating then I realised that the set was on radio. Oh joy Oh joy, a picture then arrived when I selected TV. My wife asked me who this joy person was so that was a tricky moment. Having set it up indoors the next thing was to roughly note the direction and then to set it up outside. This went well and once erected meant that minimal time had to be spent on tuning it in. Overall am really pleased with it. I must admit though that the lack of Dave is a loss.Now I have an HD ready telly and I receive both BBC and ITV HD on this satellite but I cant see what all the fuss is about HD. Am I missing something here?
Hints for others who are having problems tuning in:
1 Buy a satellite finder and one which has an audible signal.
1 Set it up inside where you have satellite, receiver and telly all within arms reach.
2 Be patient and then be even patienter. if it doesn't work, stop and have a cup of tea or a smoke. The whole operation took me several hours.

I am so pleased with it.

Good luck
daycartes

I bought this Ross complete system at B&Q(Isle-Of-Man) yesterday(15%off day) for 56 quid,connected it to my existing dish,think its astra euro?,& its working fine,a bargain for the money,& I now have a spare dish etc for future use.

[gungaabayar]

Originally Posted by manxman01

I bought this Ross complete system at B&Q(Isle-Of-Man) yesterday(15%off day) for 56 quid,connected it to my existing dish,think its astra euro?,& its working fine,a bargain for the money,& I now have a spare dish etc for future use.

Hi

I bought it today as well. I upgraded its firmware from ross website. Evrithing is working fine. BUT, on this firmware, timeshift (pause live TV) is working. Also I can record a program while Im watching another one. But it sometimes stuck. No remote con button works. Need to switch the box off using power ON/OFF switch on the back of the box manually. There is something wrong with the recording and playing function. I used 8GB USB 2.0 flash disk as a USB HDD.

Anybody tried this functions and any problem yet,
Or I bought a faulty receiver or the new firmware has got problem,

Any help please?
DG

[gungaabayar]

Originally Posted by gungaabayar

Hi

I bought it today as well. I upgraded its firmware from ross website. Evrithing is working fine. BUT, on this firmware, timeshift (pause live TV) is working. Also I can record a program while Im watching another one. But it sometimes stuck. No remote con button works. Need to switch the box off using power ON/OFF switch on the back of the box manually. There is something wrong with the recording and playing function. I used 8GB USB 2.0 flash disk as a USB HDD.

Anybody tried this functions and any problem yet,
Or I bought a faulty receiver or the new firmware has got problem,
Any help please?
DG

AFTER 4 hours using this receiver:
So many errors on this HD Receiver's programming:
1. Remote con buttons desnt work when subtitles is on.
2. when I select a channel from the list of the channels, it wont go to the viewing mode straight away, instead I have to press exit button to do so.
3. The current subtitile's text remain on the screen even I choose different channel using numeric-pad.
4. When I press record button, few channels list pop up to be recorded, And I must choose one of them. At this stage I cant cancel recording.
5. sometimes remote con buttons completely stuck when I fiddling around of the rewind, play and pause... buttons while a program is bieng recorded. BLAH BLAH so many problem,
6.Menu system is very very complicated.

so need to release NEW firmware urgently before people starting to review this kit.

[JimW]

Fed up waiting for Freeview HD equipment to reach the shops, I thought I'd try this. As a complete satellite newbie, here are my experiences with installing it yesterday.
Dish took about an hour to assemble. Diagrams could be clearer.

The supplied mast is too short for me as I have no SE elevation on my house and the dish needs to be almost at 90 degrees to a SW-facing wall. Until I get a longer mast, it's sitting on the ground. The bracket's not much good for that either as the supports seem too short when the mast is level (diagram seems to show them longer than the mast). Eventually, I got everything screwed down, level and stable.

The signal level indicator shows 99% no matter what you point it at. Is it just measuring noise?
The satellites are exactly where Dishpointer said they were, so azimuth setting was easy enough, but I couldn't get the elevation right (should be 20.8 degrees). By accident, I let the dish slip while adjusting and the quality bars went green, up to 60%, so the only dish elevation that works seems to be slightly negative i.e. it's pointing at the ground! Reflections? Or have I cocked up the assembly?

The pre-programmed box seems to do all it should, except the manual says the audio output is optical and the connector is coax (RCA). Many of the pre-set channels are not present, so maybe a re-scan is needed (or would the upgrade have a more up-to-date list?) PVR function is a bonus - I'm not too worried about possible bugs, since all PVRs have these!

Although I'm pleased with the results so far, I can't help feeling my dish assembly has gone a bit wrong, even though it looks like the pictures. The dish instructions were OK, but I'm not completely sure about the LNB. Is it possible to get a satisfactory signal with a misaligned dish/LNB?