Fransat - Help!

[nubee]

I turned it quite a bit eastward to then bring it back slowly to capture the signal. I might be lucky and have a few more degrees. If not I'll bend the dish. Worse case I'll have to watch the Swiss French stuff on 9E. Will give it another go tomorrow. I'm fairly impressed to see any channels after messing with it and changing parts.

 

[ozumo]

Don't bend the dish! Have the dish point a tiny bit higher than it currently is and rotate the dish further west, even if the wall slightly blocks the signal should still be fairly strong in your location. Post a photo of the dish pointing at 9°E so we can see were it is pointing in relation to the wall.

 

[Analoguesat]

Mark the dish mounts up with a sharpie, tippex, paint or similar so you can quickly reset & start again if you get hopelessly lost. Howeever the minidishes are pretty forgiving for slight misalignments.

Then see if you can hop round the arc one satellite at a time. 5E European beam (the Ukranian stuff) is pretty strong and should be receivable on a minidish. That would give you an idea of the 4 degree gap on that dish. You can extrapolate from that where the lnb needs to be pointing for your desired 5W

 

[nubee]

Well it was worse than the worst case scenario. I bent the lip of the dish to make more angle, a new signal came in strong but wasn't 5w. So I thought I could probably get away with a bit more bend. After which, the satellite finder was churning out a 100% signal in every direction, so I thought I've obviously broken the dish, so I've got a new one on order!

It comes with a bracket arm so I'll try the trick mentioned above.

 

[nubee]

Update: bonjour

So last time I updated I had bent my old dish. I ordered a new zone 2 dish from Amazon for about 20 quid. And did the double bracket trick to extend the angle a few CMs. The signal on satellite finder was still coming in 100% every angle, so I bought an old analogue one, which was no better.

In the end I dropped the dish back slightly above a mark I made for 9E and then looked at the picture above, when the sun was at 5° west and did it by eye. I've been lucky. Got the main channels, there are some radio channels not coming through and some random channels but nothing I'd watch anyway. So a success. Thanks for all your help!!

 

[ozumo]

On your satellite finders there will be buttons or a knob to attenuate the signal and give a lower reading. If they have an audible tone or beep turn it down to the lowest setting where you can still hear it. Slight movement of the dish by pulling on the edges (don't bend it!) should indicate which way it needs to be adjusted.

 

[nubee]

Yeah I did this, I even covered the LNB and the signal was still coming in full blast on both of them. I think there must be a fault in the wiring somewhere between the dish and the receiver. Chuffed with what I've got though

 

[ozumo]

With the cable to the LNB disconnected does it still read 100%? It might be the short patch cable is dodgy, do you get pictures on the receiver when the meter is connected to the dish? Also check you are connecting the cables to the correct sockets on the finder.

 

[nubee]

Yes still 100% when LNB disconnected on both finders. I have tried two different cables (that came with the finder - and the same problem). No I haven't connected the meter to the dish when I have a picture on the TV. It was all a bit of a faf, the sat receivers didn't work with fransat box so had a cheap sat receiver attached to power up the finder, but bar one occasion (when I got 9E) this was giving me a permanent 100% signal in every direction. I think beyond my capabilities to get it any better. Just glad I didn't waste the money on the box, lnb and dish

 

[Channel Hopper]

A zone 2 dish should be fine in Dover for all 5W channels, there is an issue with the satellite having a different skew setting to most others. If you can be bothered then twist the LNB in its holder by 5 degrees anticlockwise though if it forms part of the asssembly this may not be possible.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Ah, just seen this from your earlier posts.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B7XG9G7L/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?_encoding=UTF8&ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image

You should try the attenuation buttons if you are peaking on all channels though I suspect the 'digital' part of the claim is that it has a digital readout and not a meter with pointer.