Satellite in a suitcase - Advice please!

[TheTravelMan]

hi there folks,

We bought one of these satellite in a suitcase systems from Llidl's last year, however only used it the once at Easter where after 3 days of trying I managed to get a signal with the satellite unit being mounted to the roof of my car.

I have tryed at various other times including this weekend at home to try and get the hang of the system ready for our holidays this summer! but can not get a signal!!

I have read the instructions, looked at satelliteforcaravans.co.uk and followed their advice without success. I even tryed changing the digi box from the one supplied to my home sky box again without success.

Anyone got this type of system? if so how good are they? is yours reliable? what digi box do you use? and how long does it take to get set up? Also do you normaly take it out of the suitcase to set up or do you get reception with it inside?

lastly do you tend to position it up a height or at ground level?

Any comments and advice appreciated.

Many Thanks

 

[cooky1]

Andrew, I bought one of these systems a couple of months ago and it works great. I have used the receiver that came with the dish and I also use a Sky dish. I have used the dish on the ground and it is currently set up on my fence at about 6ft from the ground. The dish needs to be almost vertical and position the receiver at an angle so it looks like 7 Oclock when facing the dish.

Make sure all the connections are good. When you adjust the dish you need to wait a few seconds for the signal to change.

I bought a meter which indicates signal strength which fits in-line in the cable from the dish to the box. Using this I can set up the signal when I can't see the television screen. It cost

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

graeme did you but the one from aldi?.

jo-anne

 

[cooky1]

The one I got was from Lidl's and it it a Silvercrest. I am not sure what the Aldi make is, but I think they are similar.

Graeme.

 

[JeremyClarksson]

The Aldi, Lidl and Maplins systems are all virtually identical and it is definitely worth getting a separate sat finder if one is not included.

For setting it up search on this forum for satellites - there is loads of good advice already on here.

 

[Icemaker]

Our system was from maplins but is identical to the ones from aldie and lidle.

we use the sytem every time we go away which is around once every 3 weeks and i have had no problems what so ever with it, takes me round about 2 minuites to locate and lock on to the satelighte.

I use a compass to locate the aprox direction then use the built in signal strengh and tone to finnish off the setting up, works fine every time even in france last year the supplied dish at 39 cm was perfectly fine.

 

[paul_374304277]

I have a Lidl out of a box unit the only problem I find is lineing up the dish. Spoke to a friend who has his own satilite business and he looked at it and said that the dish does not have much of a concave shape to it, and this means that you need to be even more on the button when lining it up.

I have picked up an old sky dish with LMB and it is much easier as the mesh dish is much more concaved.

I still use the same box that I got with the Lidl unit.

Hope this helps.

 

[JeremyClarksson]

I have lined up Sky dishes and other makes/types as well as the Lidl/Aldi/Maplin one and have not found any one of them more difficult than the other, perhaps you had a dodgy LNB.

If you want hard try setting up a motor drive to get more than 2 satellites on a dish, now that is fun.

 

[Anthony_374247512]

I bought one of these earlier in the year from Ebay for a song.I could never pick up a signal until I noticed a rattling inside the LNB.

I acquired another LNB from an old Sky dish and it works everytime.

Once you have the rough direction it is only a matter of tweaking the dish until you have a decent signal strength.

It does help if you can see the TV screen when setting up though...

 

[Robert_374242026]

We have had our LIDL one since they first had them on sale.when they had the sat'finder gadget out i bought one ,i think they were about

 

[dominic]

i have the maplin version and mount onto jockey wheel using clamp provided. i use plastic compass provided and generally find signal in 5-10 minutes.have had to re-align only after strong winds and very hard rain.i have been on some sites and got a perfectly good signal when others with maxview outfits could not.

 

[Steve L]

We got ours from Lidle a couple of years ago.

Our first few attempts were lengthy ot get a signal. So I set it up at home suing the home satalite dish to prove the system worked. Then I set up the portable dish to the home system to prove that the dish worked.

Having got the dish working, I then marked with "tipex" direction and angle marks on the compass which was fitted to the dish.

Now it takes about 5 mins and the use of the built in signal strength meter to get a good picture.

Steve L

 

[Tony A.]

Andrew,

I notice you say "mounted on the roof of your car", by this do you mean free standing? your dish will need to be fixed to a pole or tripod, positioning is so sensitive that to try with a free standing dish is almost impossible.

When you do get it set up ,scribe a line on your lnb arm pointing North to South, this saves trying to find 19.8 degees east of south or whatever it is, also, always make sure the pole is vertical, so that in future you don`t have to mess about with the vertical position of your dish,(whilst in this country)then next time out you make sure the pole is vertical, line up your scribed line NORTH SOUTH and away you go. do you use the sky box/TV to check you have a signal? push the services button on your hand set,then system set up, then system test, you will see two grey stripes one each in signal strenghth and signal quality, these will appear almost immediatly when you find the signal, they are a great aid when setting up.

Hope I haven`t been teaching Gran to suck eggs.

good luck and let us know how you get on.

Tony A.

 

[VonRyan]

Hi Andrew,

I too have the lidl system which is the Silver crest. After much time in the first place of trying to set up I went and bought a Maxview Sattilite finder. If you are using the full lidl system the best sattlilite to tune into is Astra 2 at 29.2 east,this gives you all the free to air channels such as BBC, ITV etc etc.

Not being a brilliant boy scout I worked this out on the Maxview meter to being 172 degrees and hey presto there was astra 2. As said previously the dish has to have little or no tilt and very fine monement from side to side to lock on but this is done via the systems on board tuning which as soon as you hit 70% + you get a excellent stabilised picture.

In france two weeks ago at Le Brevedent in the Calvados region the sattalite was set to 168 degrees,a week later at La Haye du Puits in Manch region it was set to 161 degrees to get astra 2.

I just use a ground spike, pole approx 1 meter high and the G clamp included in the kit. I have tried using the 3 pad suction base on the caravan roof but it is not the greatest to set up.

Always make sure you have a clear line of site without trees, fences or any other obstruction for a least 30 yds or so other wise you will not get a signal.

Hope this is of help and if you need more info send a mail

Rob

 

[Peter_374225034]

The silvercrest/comag porty units are pretty good with the following exceptions.

the coax cable supplied is very brittle after a couple of uses the coax core normally breaks a few inches after the terminators. making the connection erratic or impossible.

replace the coax cable with some sky grade (CT100) cable , it isnt as flexible or as easy on the eye but it is far superior

the next item is the LNB the one supplied again is functional but has a noise level of 0.6DB when on the limit of reception (Pointing at tress, maybe wet connectors) the low spec LNB fails to perform. get a new LNB with ideally 0.3DB.

this should cost around

 

[thehoods]

Sorry if it's a daft question, but, what is an LNB?

 

[cooky1]

It's the toilet roll shaped bit that receives the signal and sticks out from the dish.

 

[thehoods]

Thanks for that Graeme but what does LNB stand for?

 

[cooky1]

I think it stands for Low Noise Block downconverter. In other words it's the receiver.

Graeme.

 

[thehoods]

Thanks Graeme. Now I know!

 

[Fourtrack]

What size is your dish please for those that have the system. i am contemplating one but most of the advice seems to vbe that the small 39cm dishes are not enough to receive a signal in France. I realise I need to do something before the UK analogue stuff gets turned off but am somewhat undecided

DavidC

 

[Tony A.]

What size is your dish please for those that have the system. i am contemplating one but most of the advice seems to vbe that the small 39cm dishes are not enough to receive a signal in France. I realise I need to do something before the UK analogue stuff gets turned off but am somewhat undecided

DavidC

david,

A domestic size dish is fine in northern france but if you are going further south or the med then you will prob need to step up to an eighty centimeter dish,

Tony A.

 

[VonRyan]

Hi David

See my posting on this thread on the 23rd July. The dish I use is the one that come with the set which is 39cm. But since that visit to France I have purchased a 3.0db LNB from lidle which was less than

 

[Robert_374242026]

We used the plastic Lidle dish as far as southern Brittany with good results ,however Lidle then had a sale of the 60cm metal dish with double connector LNB so i got one and now take our sky + box as well. Still use the Lidl sat finder but those Maxview ones at around