Can anyone please help? My huband bought sky dish for our caravan and he is unable to lock into ASTRA, he locks onto region 1 everytime. The dish is 60cm, I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas to help him.thanks Marie
Well having worked for 7 years with sky in the past and installed more systems than I care to rememeber, I may be able to help!, firstly can you tell me what the version software is, from the system details menue?, it maybe that you need to do a forced software download to update the Sky box, whilst you are doing that I will check what the latest version is, and we will compare notes, if you have got old software, I will explain how to perform the download, Sky engineer stylee!. also are you using a Sky card or Freesat card, or no card, also are you using a Sky Digi-Box or FTA satellite receiver, so many questions sorry about that.
Hi Francais
I am using a spare digibox which was in my mothers house,it has been idle for a number of months. I have now purchased a 60cm dish,and have set it up on tripod so that i can use when caravanning. The box I`m using is a panasonic model 2.1.r. The opperating system on it at presant is 1.2s4fh and the software version 3.5.3 I have checked the opperating system version on the house sky box which is 1.2s4fj and software version 3.7.6.When I connect my new dish to the spare sky box using a signal meter I get good signal strength, good signal quality , lock indicator equals ok, I have picked up a network Id 0001 , I have not been able to pick up network Id of 0002.
Could you tell me when I get lock indicator OK, does this mean that the box is recognising the LNB ? There are 4 positions on the LNB does this make any difference which position it`s in? sorry to carry on ,driving my husband mad, I think If he can`t sort it will be thrown away . Hope this makes sense
The Panasonic box's are about the best of the Sky box's, looks like you need to update the software in the box, so try this :- with the box disconected from the mains, press the backup button on the front pannel, keep it depressed, whilst doing this connect the box to the mains, is easiar if you can use a switched mains outlet to do this, you will see a message come up on the tv screen, large white text on a black background, says "Down Loading Software This will Take 10 Minutes", as soon as you see this message, you can stop pressing the backup button, wait untill the message goes of screen, then you should have the latest software, have you got a card for the box, if not geeting say channel 5, Ch4 and ITV may be a faff. the lnb operates in 4 modes Horizontal Hi Band, Vertical Hi Band, Horizontal Low Band and Vertical Low Band, the receiver select the the variations by introducing a 22kh tone to select High band, when the tone is not present you get Low band, when the receiver gives 14.6Volts or less Vertical signals are selected, when 15.4Volts or above are produced by the receiver Horizontal signals are selected, you don't need to know this info, but as you mentioned there are four positions on the lnb, I guess this is what you refer to?.
Hi Francais,
Thanks for the info, update was succesfull, only thing is box still said no signal, I think that the sky box must be faulty.I have managed to get a signal using home sky box.
Do you know when away in caravan in different regions will I still be able to pick up bbc and itv wales? thankyou very much for your help.
Whatever you are picking up now you will get where ever you go, there are no regional satellites as such, as the signal all comes from the same 28.2 Deg East spot up in the sky, some 22500 miles above the equator, the regions you get at the start of the EPG are based on your card details, in theory your card is for your postcode, you can find the other BBC regions at the end of the EPG, if you want other ITV regions, you can use the add channels feature, but for this you will need the frequency, FEC and polarity info, it's a bit of a faff, although easy to do, if you don't use a card, you will need to use the add channels feature to get the correct ITV, Ch4, Ch5, hope that makes sense, cards are £20 one of payment to Freesat (Sky version), as for your Panasonic box, some of the early models were not compatible with some makes of Lnb, the Panasonic box's are coveted by ex-pats in Spain etc, although the newer Panasonic box's are not as good as the old ones, when it comes to receiving at the fringe's of the footprint. have you tried the Panasonic on your home dish?.
I take my sky plus box and card i fitted push on plugs on the cables and on the back of the box I did the same the on the cables in the van I use a tripod and the small dish you have on your house it is easier to tune in than the big dish you have I also have compass and signal tuner it takes me about 15 to 20 mins to do it aslong there is no tall trees and hedges u can still record programmes with it set up in the van
To bad about the Panasonic, most common fault is the power supply, the capsitors dry out, which makes the unit perform in odd ways, Satcure do service kits, definatley worth trying to bring back to life, anyway to be honest, if you are not into the Sky subscription channels, then you will be better of getting a none Sky FTA satellite box, these can be very handy if you can't get a signal from Astra 28.2, as you can just move the dish to Hotbird at 13 East and pick up BBC World most usefull if in Southern France or Spain/Portugal etc, you can't do that with a Sky Box, also I use a Comag DVB-S SL65/12 tiny little unit and cost about £30, no bigger than a VHS tape (remember those!), and works of 12volt.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: help with sky dish signal
