Advice Needed No TV reception.

[Berwick]

I have moved house 100km further north in Brittany. TV worked fine previously but now doesn't. New house has French TV with a large dish. All connections are good but, the TV, which previously picked up French via the internals of the TV won't receive any signal. I adjusted the aerial for Freesat. Good strong signal with the Satellite Tester but no signal reaching the TV. The box has been unplugged over night. Card taken out. All leads and connections tested and work fine.
The TV works with a HDMI link from the Laptop.
Any suggestions as to the likely problem will be very welcome. The wife is missing Strictly! Thanks.

 

[ozumo]

So at the new house there is a satellite dish for French TV, did you ever receive anything from this dish? Also is it the TV that has the satellite tuner or a separate box? Is it this dish you are adjusting to try to receive Freesat?

If you received anything from this dish at the new house then it sounds like the dish is not pointing at the correct satellite 28.2 east. If you never received anything at all then there's something else going on with the cabling. Are there multiple points around the house where satellite is supposed to be received?

Do you have a Freesat box, can you see the menus etc of this box on the TV?

 

[rodscha]

and you ll get French tv over a simple aerial("antenne rateau" )which most people have on the roof
there should be a dedicated socket on the wall near the tv place

 

[rodscha]

which will allow you to use the dish to pick up 28E ,the signal in Brittany must be HUGE!

 

[jeallen01]

So at the new house there is a satellite dish for French TV, did you ever receive anything from this dish? Also is it the TV that has the satellite tuner or a separate box? Is it this dish you are adjusting to try to receive Freesat?

If you received anything from this dish at the new house then it sounds like the dish is not pointing at the correct satellite 28.2 east. If you never received anything at all then there's something else going on with the cabling. Are there multiple points around the house where satellite is supposed to be received?

Do you have a Freesat box, can you see the menus etc of this box on the TV?

The dish might not be aimed at Astra 2 at 28E - could be Astra 1 at 19E or Hotbird at 13E, or even Eutelsat 5 at 5W, as there are lots of French channels on those

Therefore, to get UK channels on 28E, you would probably need to get a local satellite installer to realign the dish to receive 28E, unless, of course, you could do that yourself - but you would probably find that difficult if you have never done it before, and also you would need at least a "satellite beeper" (i.e. a basic satellite signal strength meter) and be able to get up to dish to rotate it (and also slightly change the "elevation") on the mast.

 

[Berwick]

The dish might not be aimed at Astra 2 at 28E - could be Astra 1 at 19E or Hotbird at 13E, or even Eutelsat 5 at 5W, as there are lots of French channels on those

Therefore, to get UK channels on 28E, you would probably need to get a local satellite installer to realign the dish to receive 28E, unless, of course, you could do that yourself - but you would probably find that difficult if you have never done it before, and also you would need at least a "satellite beeper" (i.e. a basic satellite signal strength meter) and be able to get up to dish to rotate it (and also slightly change the "elevation") on the mast.

Thanks so much for your reply. I have installed about four satellite dishes over the years in France but never had this problem. The dish worked for the previous French owner. I could receive nothing despite doing all the checks on the TV. Prior to moving house three weeks ago I received French TV straight into the TV, no problem. I am trying to get Freesat with the same dish. There is one TV socket. The cabling is obviously OK because the previous owner used it. I checked my lead between the Freesat box and the socket. All good.
I have a Freesat box and I can see all the menus, signal strength etc.
I have a satellite beeper which receives a good signal at 28E. No a glimmer on the signal strength.
I can only think that something happened to the TV during the move. Very unlikely as I carried it in our camper; no shocks at all.
I will have one more try with the beeper and failing that, take the TV to a dealer to see whether it works there.
Finger crossed!

 

[rolfw]

I have a Freesat box and I can see all the menus, signal strength etc.
I have a satellite beeper which receives a good signal at 28E. No a glimmer on the signal strength.
I can only think that something happened to the TV during the move. Very unlikely as I carried it in our camper; no shocks at all.
I will have one more try with the beeper and failing that, take the TV to a dealer to see whether it works there.
Finger crossed!

I'm a little confused here, you keep mentioning French TV, then switch across to Freesat, have you tried to realign the dish? If you're getting a signal on the beeper, but nothing on the Freesat box, it is likely to be that you are pointing at the wrong satellite, have you checked on dishpointer.com to see roughly where it needs to point? I've had the situation before where someone was assuming a French dish was pointing at 19.2 east and adjusted to where he though 28.2 would be, but the dish had actually been pointing at 5W, so he was way out.

 

[ozumo]

The TV has nothing to do with the signal strength/quality from the satellite. If the TV is showing images from the Freesat box then there is nothing wrong with the TV.

 

[Berwick]

I'm a little confused here, you keep mentioning French TV, then switch across to Freesat, have you tried to realign the dish? If you're getting a signal on the beeper, but nothing on the Freesat box, it is likely to be that you are pointing at the wrong satellite, have you checked on dishpointer.com to see roughly where it needs to point? I've had the situation before where someone was assuming a French dish was pointing at 19.2 east and adjusted to where he though 28.2 would be, but the dish had actually been pointing at 5W, so he was way out.

I can understand your confusion!
We arrived at our new home three weeks ago, about 100km north from our old apartment in southern Brittany.
We fancied watching some telly so I plugged our TV directly into the TV wall socket. This was for French satellite TV. Nothing adjusted and no signal. It worked perfectly the previous week for me in our apartment and the owner of our new house. This was odd.
I thought to try English TV. Plugged the Freebox into the TV wall socket and went outside to adjust the satellite dish. It was conveniently placed where I could easily reach it. I plugged the Satellite finder in, which proved the connection to the Freebox was working, adjusted the dish to 28 degrees East and asked my wife to look at the signal strength. No signal so I tried very small adjustments, including elevation, but to no avail. I have a good marine compass for the bearing and a smaller one for verification.
I hope that is a little more clear. It has me stumped!
There are small growths of moss, or suchlike, on the dish which I will remove but that didn't stop the dish working for the previous owner.

 

[Mickha]

Please post make/model of satellite finder, or do you mean a satellite finder App?

You will find it very difficult, but not impossible, to get a satellite using a freesat receiver, providing your dish is even large enough, for your location, to pick up 28.2E.
The best channels, to try, on Astra 2, 28.2E, are on the Europe beam, and not the UK spot beam, so try Box Hits 11264 H 27500.

Could you also please post the make/model of your television, and make/model of your receiver.

 

[ozumo]

How many outputs does the LNB have? Is there any information written on the LNB?

 

[rolfw]

This was odd.
I thought to try English TV. Plugged the Freebox into the TV wall socket and went outside to adjust the satellite dish. It was conveniently placed where I could easily reach it. I plugged the Satellite finder in, which proved the connection to the Freebox was working, adjusted the dish to 28 degrees East and asked my wife to look at the signal strength. No signal so I tried very small adjustments, including elevation, but to no avail. I have a good marine compass for the bearing and a smaller one for verification.
I hope that is a little more clear. It has me stumped!
There are small growths of moss, or suchlike, on the dish which I will remove but that didn't stop the dish working for the previous owner.

Thanks, got it now.

You may perhaps need to carry out more movement on the dish, roughly how many degrees did you need to move it from where it was originally? It's always difficult trying to think back to before I had a professional meter with a spectrum display and what I did then.

 

[rodscha]

I guess the previous owners had "canalsat" which is the French "sky" it requires a dedicated box,which the owners have kept... so you can t receive any French channel on the dish because they 're encrypted...
if you brought a TV from the UK it 'll need another box to get french TNT...
and maybe the French "tnt" (=UK's DTT or freeview) has another system than the UK tnt,
I remember in analogue days the UK sound required a special "crystal" and was different from the Belgian/German Pal sound
So UK DTT and French TNT may require different boxes!

 

[Mickha]

Canalsat? Do you mean Canal+ France, 19.2E, or Fransat, 5W, or other? Either way there are plenty of free channels, especially on 19.2E.

 

[mikesat two]

Please post make/model of satellite finder, or do you mean a satellite finder App?

You will find it very difficult, but not impossible, to get a satellite using a freesat receiver, providing your dish is even large enough, for your location, to pick up 28.2E.
The best channels, to try, on Astra 2, 28.2E, are on the Europe beam, and not the UK spot beam, so try Box Hits 11264 H 27500.

Could you also please post the make/model of your television, and make/model of your receiver.

 

[rodscha]

canal sat is on astra1,19°,it has all French DTT channels on top of it s own premium channels, & even the >French DTT channels it relays,are encrypted...So the previous owners must have used Canalsat even to watch DTT since they include it
to get DTT you either
-use the roof antenna,you ll get 26 channels of FTA tv ,or
- subscribe to a "box" supplied by an internet provider,Orange,Free,bouygues or sfr,you ll get DTT plus some premium(sometimes free) channels
-or subscribe to Canalsat over the dish(as you would for sky) that s on 19E,DTT plus loads of pemium channels
the 5°W is for people living on the edges of europe (Portugal Greece Spain Maghreb ,Uk) only DTT,not useful within France

 

[Mickha]

Tnank you for that information.
Lyngsat doesn't list CanalSat, as part of their main subscription packages, just Orange France, and Canal + France, on 19.2E.

If Berwick can post the make/model, of his television, and any other equipment, he might have, perhaps he might be able to enter the menu and check if he is currently on 19.2E.

 

[rodscha]

canal+ france and canalsat are the same,they just keep changing names every so often
canal+ is also available through internet "boxes" ,
so people usually call it canal+ when it s on the box and canalsat when it s over the dish...logical enough!
same company...
if you re in the sticks you choose canalsat ,
if you re in a big city,you take it over the "box",canal+ France

 

[rodscha]

and,yes ,orange has something competing with canalsat,same system a "sat" version and a "box" version
such a waste of sat transponders to repeat the DTT channels in encrypted versions....

 

[Berwick]

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions.
I have solved the problem by mounting the small receptor that I removed from our previous apartment building. Lined up the satellite quickly (the same direction as previously tried with the dish) and, Bingo! Excellent signal.
I will watch French TV via the new phone line we are having installed shortly.
Thank you all again. An excellent Forum.