Oh the big dish threads begin again!! I would do a search as this has been discussed many times before. There is talk about Sky dishes, LIDL jobs and everything else.
I had a LIDL portable kit and it's ok - it works fine and does the job. However I see this more of a 12V system you would use for tent camping or remote camping to use jsut for the night. I actually had mine set up in my car once with the case opened on the roof connected to a 5" B&W TV. Sad I know but it worked well.
The drawbacks of this system are thus :
The dish is small so can only be used here, fine if you are only wandering around in the UK.
The dish though, has no holes (unlike the Sky dishes you have on the roof at home) it is useless in any type of wind. A dish only needs to be knocked off a couple of CMs to lose the signal.
The sucker mount isn't all that good. It may stick for a while to the van (some van skins dont like it) but its no good for bad weather. You can get a tripod but the rest of this post will show you why this aint a good idea and a waste of money. The best way is to mount it on some type of pole - perhaps an aerial pole if you are using some type of external aerial. The mount it comes with isnt bad but again isnt too great for bad weather but is the best mount without a tripod.
Another drawback is it only gets free to air channels - the box it comes with (which actually is very good) has no card slot so you cant bring your sky TV with you. At the moment, although its due to change you cant get C4 or C5 either. More of this later..
There is actually about the same channels as freeview with some variation.
SO - what did I graduate too when I realised for proper 1/2 week site touring the mobile kit wasnt all that up to it?
Well, for half the price I paid for the LIDL kit I got a Standard TRIAX SKY Dish and a second hand sky box.
I mounted it on a pole, and there are some pictures of the full installation I did on my old van. I was quite proud of this set up and got some great feedback, even helping someone to do the 'secret box' and magic eye set up by email.
I got fed up of poles, it wobbled a bit in the wind, so I bought a cheap(ish) tripod, and wished I had never bothered with all the other stuff - the tripod is the best set up without a doubt and is almost storm proof. The pic above shows the new van with the tripod set up - solid.
For the sky box I bought a FREESAT card for £20 which gives you 4 & 5 and allows other channels to be viewed. Im not bothered about all the packages at home. You can take you box with you, but this is against Sky's rules and some people have been blocked when the signal checks the box is at home.
So yes, the LIDL job works but as I say you can get a better set up for a few quid more. The dishes go for around £14, the boxes around £30 and tripods around £50.
Sean P, a good post plus even thou I have the magic eye at home in the bedroom I would not have put two and two together for the secret box idea thanks for that, Im off to look on e-bay for a dish I still have my old box from when we upgraded to S+.
Wagonlad, you have to mess around with the van aerial wiring, particularly when you have a status booster gadget, but its worth the messing around. I had to buy two new cables but the bliss of having it all set up when we arrived was great. Stuck the box down with self adhesive velcro.
On that van I fitted an external dual aerial/sat input socket. I just plugged in the dish outside and that was it. I put in the 'circuit' an antenna switch (the ones you get on games consoles are cheap) - this was a selection from external or internal ant in case I was in a bad signal area. Do it right (which takes a pad and pencil) and copy your home set up and you wont need to change cables whether you have the dish on or not - the aerial/ext ant goes into the ant in on your sky box, whether you have the dish on or not, this feeds the TV. You will work it out..
No changing aerials, no feeding to the TV. The problem with new vans and warranties is I cant get my drill out anymore... sniff...
Personally, I would buy a Zone 1 dish with brackets and a dual LNB from ebay, the dish will normally come with cable and fittings. You are looking at £25 for them both.
Get a pole from B&Q and your done.
If you need a receiver maplins do them for about £25-£40.
You dont need anything specific for caravanning IMO. The only benefit you get from buying a kit is a case.
Quote: Originally posted by The Welder10 on 04/4/2009
Hi all,
Anyone tried the sat dish set up from Lidl, and are they any good.
Thanks
Yes they are, I took mine to Brittany last year and it worked well. You may need to improvise (weld up?) a support bracket as the supplied items are a bit pp.
The smaller the dish the less demanding they are to align, I can usually set mine up in 5 mins or so.
Remember however, you have to have line of sight to the south east, any trees, hedges, bushes etc in the way and you are scuppered.
Very interesting but not being as familiar with the set-up of a satellite I'm still a little lost. We did try once taking a normal standard dish that sky supplied fitted it on a pole, took our sky receiver and card from home and tried to set it up on site. Kept moving the dish but couldn't receive anything. Any tips?
Tips? The link on my first post is very good about setting up.
1. There must be a line of sight, undisturbed by trees or anything. 2. Get a good satellite compass 3. First off get the pole mounted well 4. Look at the signal meter on the sky menu, under signal test 5. Now, get the dish 45 deg but able to sweep left or right 6. Sweep left and right quite slowly and watch out for the signal meter - it doesnt matter if you see a signal increase, but look for the lock code - if you don't see anything, then increase the height angle by about 1cm - then sweep left and right again
7. The network ID and transport stream should show as above link and say locked - anything else isnt the right satellite, although most boxes dont allow you to see any others (on the LIDL kit you can) 8. Once you see these codes, you are in the right area and can 'get' the satellite, now tilt the dish upwards a little, just half a CM at a time and at the same time slowly move left and right a tiny bit until you get the strongest signal - you may have to drop it down if you go to far but keep watching the meter on screen 9. Keep doing this until the signal increases - the diagram above is a good quality signal - and usually about the best you will get, even 50% on both will be fine 10. NOW - my advise is once you have got the angle right, screw the bolts down so the dish mount has this angle. Now when i get on site, all I do is plop the mount on the tripod and do the sweep - the angle is set and fixed. If you cant do that, mark the position on the bracket with tippex or a perm marker
Sean is absolutely right - check the link - http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/it's all you'll ever need. Print off all the pages and take it with you - you'll solve all problems you may encounter. NB Sky installers will sell you everything you need - dish, LNB cables, connectors,old sky box etc for very little money - probably under £50 - just wait by their van when you see one parked and chat them up. You'll need to buy a tripod from Maplin unless you use a scaffold pole in the jockey wheel socket but the tripod is much more flexible - get heaps of cable in case you need to move the dish around for line of sight away from trees etc. Nothing really to stop you taking the sky box from the house if you want the subscribed channels (Not supposed to but I won't tell) but the free to view stuff is all you need to watch the news and free to view channels (and of course your local TV news as well)
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Topic: Satalite TV
