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Freesat reception - all about dishes

Satellite reception has both advantages and disadvantages compared with terrestrial (aerial) reception.

Satellite reception has both advantages and disadvantages compa
Published on by on UK Free TV

Satellite reception has both advantages and disadvantages compare with terrestrial (aerial) reception.

By using much higher frequencies (gigahertz, compared to terrestrial televisions megahertz) more transmission channels called transponders (the satellite equivalent of multiplexes) can be provided. For example, there are only six Freeview multiplexes, but Sky or Freesat users can access two hundred satellite transponders.

Aside from exceptional weather conditions (very heavy rain for example) digital satellite provides stable pictures and audio. Where Freeview transmitters are no more than 732 metres above sea level, the geostationary satellites used for television are 35,800,000 metres above the equator so reception is possible even where buildings, trees and hills make terrestrial reception impossible.



The downside of the transmitters being 22,300 miles up in the air is that the signals are very, very weak - so standard TV aerial is of little use. When the signals are sent to the satellites, huge dish transmitters are used to uplink the signal to the satellite. These are tens of metres from side to side, and feature an emitter that generates the signal, which is first bounced of a mirror (called a reflector) and then off the surface of the parabolic dish.



There are many satellites in the sky over the equator. Often these are in clusters over a particular position, for example there are four used for UK television are at 28.2 degrees east. There is another cluster over the 19.2 degrees east positions that are used for German television.

To receive these very weak signals from the satellite, it is necessary to use a dish for reception too. By using a reflective dish, this concentrates the signals onto a small device called a LNB. This is held in front of the dish by a metal arm.



The size of dish for reception is typically much smaller; often 60cm to 100cm in diameter, but the exact size depends upon the transmitting satellite transponder. To keep the transmission power levels down to levels that can be powered by the satellite's solar panels, each beam is focused on a particular area of the Earth's surface. If you are trying to receive the signal at the centre of this zone, a small dish is required. At the outer edges, you may need a 5 metre dish. Maps of these zones are provided by the satellite companies, and are called satellite footprints.

When the dish is installed it must be aligned carefully as the signal is very weak. The installer needs to know the inclination and the azimuth from the ground location to the satellite. If you install yourself you will find that there are markings on the dish that are used to point the dish in the correct position. It is important that the view of the satellite will not be blocked, so must take into account leaves growing on trees and potential building works.

For many people the LNB will have a single cable connected to it, however if you have Sky+ or a multi-room installation the LNB package will actually contain four receivers a quad-LNB. Unlike terrestrial television where you can split the aerial cable to feed more than one Freeview box or television set, with satelite reception you cannot. So, a Sky+ box with two receivers (so you can watch one thing and record another) has two cables connecting the box to the dish.

The cable that connects the dish to the receiver must be satellite grade cable. Whilst this looks superficially like the cable used to connect and aerial to a television, a higher grade cable is required for satellite reception.

Here is an image of a co-axial cable. This sort of cable is used to connect any type of receiving aerial to the reception equipment.



RG6, PF100 and PH100 are all types of coax cable that are suitable for the very weak signals that are received by a satellite dish. (The power is the same as you would receive from a one-bar electric heater on the moon).

The conductor in the centre passes the signals received from the dish to the set-top box. This is made from steel in RG6 cable, and from copper in the RF100 and PH100 types. This makes RG6 less suitable in the UK where rain can damage the cable.

The shielding is responsible for keeping unwanted external interference from damaging the signal. In the cheaper cable this will be a foil wrap, in better specified cables this is a braid (or mesh) of copper wires. The sheild in the RF100 covers 58% of the cable.

The non-conducting layer between the shield and the conductor is called the dielectric. This can be either a solid (RG6), foam (RF100) or air-spaced (PH100) dielectric. This makes the cables progressively more flexible (ie bendy without damage).







Your comments: most recent posts are at the bottom

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Your comments are always welcome. Please use the form below to add your thoughts or questions to this page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Briantist
Wednesday 29 December 2010 8:13PM
k fagan: You are normally asked about this when you first set the box up. Which Sagem box do you have?
k fagan
Wednesday 29 December 2010 8:17PM
i have a dtr94 hd
Briantist
Wednesday 29 December 2010 8:19PM
k fagan: Is it connected to your TV using an HDMI lead?
k fagan
Wednesday 29 December 2010 8:28PM
yes it is it was fine with sky
Briantist
Wednesday 29 December 2010 8:30PM
k fagan: Actually the box is doing the right thing, 4:3 programmes are supposed to be in 4:3 and 16:9 in 16:9.

Normally the TV set can be made to strech 4:3 out, it is not the receiver (Sky or Sagem) that does this.

Check your TV remote for a "wide" button whilst watching a 4:3 programme.
Paul
Friday 31 December 2010 6:38PM
I have 2 separate single HD receivers indoors, different parts of the house. Will one dish and one twin LNB be ok? If I wire in twin cable outside and take one cable to each unit inside would the LNB work correctly?
Mark Aberfan Aerials
Friday 31 December 2010 7:22PM
Hi Paul,

No this will not work & could cause damage. You need a quad lnb.

Mark Aberfan Aerials
Mark Aberfan Aerials
Friday 31 December 2010 7:27PM
Hi Paul,


Sorry mate, I missread your question.

Yes it will work fine however twin lnbs especially for sky dishes are quite rare & you may find a quad cheaper !

Sorry about my confusion.

Mark Aberfan Aerials
Tim
Monday 3 January 2011 7:37AM
I have a sony HD tv which is already fitted with digital freeview, however I now want to have fitted freesat plus what do I need to do ( I don't have a satellite dish fitted yet)and will my tv be compatible?
Hadleigh
Monday 3 January 2011 10:01AM
Hi,
I have just changed to a free sat recorder however my sat dish has only one cable coming in.
Can i change this to a twin or have i got to change the whole dish aswell ???.
hopefully not as im renting.
Thanks in advance.
ian
Tuesday 4 January 2011 8:44PM
hey Hadleigh
1st its silly but sky use a twin core cable for there installs it may look like one cable coming in but maybe 2.
(its worth a look)
2nd take a look at the sky dish has it only got one port on it.

if you do only have one port just call a local company, and tell them you need a quad lnb fitted and a twin cable run.
tell them the rough distance of the cable run and you should be able to get an exact price over the phone not an estimate. (important)

3rd i would suggest when you consider getting it done having the original cable run replaced at the same time.
it only has a limited life span and will cost you an extra call out should there be a problem with it in the future.
i.e
water in cable
animal bite
or any other number of reasons

best of luck
ian 123 aerials oxford
Zena
Wednesday 5 January 2011 11:01AM
Hi - we have just purchased Humax Fox Sat box to replace sky+ - we used to be able to run 3 other tv's with the same channels but now we can't with freesat - can anyone advise what we can do to get the channels back on the other tv's with limited cost? or is it just bnot possible to run more than 1 tele from freesat box?
Les Nicol
Wednesday 5 January 2011 12:10PM
Zena - The most cost effective way is to purchase ab RF modulator kit from Amazon Maplins etc. You connect this to the scart connection on the Humax and the RF outs as per how you had with you SKY system. These kits are relatively inexpensive with several manufacturers.
John
Saturday 22 January 2011 10:53AM
I have a satellite dish would it work with freesat
would I need different conecter to fit the freesat box
Les Nicol
Saturday 22 January 2011 11:32AM
John - If the dish is serviceable and is presently aligned to the cluster of satellites at 28degrees South East, then yes. Assuming the wiring is into your property and the LNB (that's it on the end of the dish boom arm)is working Ok, Then it's simply a case of connecting to a "Feeesat" receiver and tunimg in.
paul cooper
Saturday 22 January 2011 4:54PM
i live i norfolk & am looking to buy my own freesat dish/cable & install what type/make should i buy? also can freesat be used in southern crete?
Mark Aberfan Aerials
Saturday 22 January 2011 5:30PM
Hi les & zena,

I triax tri link box will provide a modulator & tv link function to any freesat / freeview / dvd player etc that it is connected to, here is a link to some info.

www.hypex.co.uk link icon http://www.hypex.co.uk/fi….pdf

Mark Aberfan Aerials
Ken Swan
Sunday 23 January 2011 7:03PM
I have a Ross Freesat box and Satellite that I have installed myself.
I can pick up the majority of programs but some programs, e.g. DAVE, BBC3 are not listed.
Could you suggest a possible cause for this?
ian
Monday 24 January 2011 3:06AM
hey ken swan
as far as i am aware dave is not on freesat.
bbc3 should be check signal strength and rescan.
ian 123 aerials oxford
Les Nicol
Monday 24 January 2011 8:32AM
Ken Swan - The Ross receiver you have is an FTA - Free to Air box These channels - Dave 5 US are not on "Freesat" either due to contractual agreements with SKY. They are however on "Terrestrial Freeview" transmission - SKY being a partner in that platform.
dan
Tuesday 25 January 2011 4:42PM Ruislip
I've recently bought a new Sony TV with Freesat built in. The flat I rent has a dish from a previous tenant outside it.

On plugging in the cable, I get a "No Signal" message. I've used Dishpointer to try to align it properly, but still can't get a signal. I'm assuming that the elevation is correct. How precise does the alignment need to be? Surely I should get some signal if I'm close to lined up? Could it just be that the cable connections need cleaning?

I have no idea when the dish was last used or how old it is. Freeview works fine.
Briantist
Wednesday 26 January 2011 8:51AM
dan: The aliment must be 100% perfect. A millimetre off will result in no signal at all.
Keith Thacker
Thursday 27 January 2011 5:36PM Burnham-on-crouch
Hi Brian, I'm having great trouble aligning my ex-Sky dish. It has elevation marks on the back in 10 degree gradations and is fixed to a true vertical surface. From where I live, I need an elevation of 25.6 degrees to see the satellite. Is it as simple as selecting that figure on the elevation scale or do I have to worry about subtracting any built-in off-set angle? If so, do you know what it is for Sky dishes? Secondly, my Humax receiver cannot recognise any postcodes. I have conducted a manual tune selecting the transponder recommended by the manufacturer. This yielded only 14 TV and 3 radio channels. The TV channels are 5001 to 5014, virtually all devoted to freesat (but blank) except 5014 which was showing “Men and Movies”. Can you tell from this if I am looking at the wrong transponder or satellite? Am I even close? Best wishes.
Les Nicol
Thursday 27 January 2011 9:47PM
Keith Thacker - See Brian's previous post to dan. Installers configure the dish with a Professional meter where the required Satellites are pre-programmed and where the selected Satellite or Satellite cluster as far as the UK is concerned,can be peaked for signal strength and quality. These meters are an expensive item. It is possible to achieve an acceptable outcome with a fairly cheap basic meter that has a visible scale reading and audible output as the dish is peaked for maximum scale reading audible output(usually referred to as the "Sweet spot"). These range in price from about £8.00 to around £15.00 and can be had at Maplins or Amazon, The alternative is to have an installer peak the dish for you which will cost more, but going for a local installer to do this shouldn't see this as overly costly.
Keith Thacker
Friday 28 January 2011 3:16PM Burnham-on-crouch
Hello Les, thanks for your comments. I can find the required satellite using a Konig signal strength meter such as you have described. Auto tuning my Humax FOXSAT-HDR fails as I'm repeatedly told that my postcode is invalid. When I try manual tuning, the TV screen shows that I am on the Freesat satellite at 28.2 and by making tiny adjustments to the azimuth I can easily get a signal Strength of 85% and a Quality reading of 70% (one spot gave 100% for both). This suggests that at least I have got the correct elevation but I can only get the 14 (useless)TV channels mentioned in my previous post. Humax have told me that I should use "Astra2D(28.2°E) but for the system to work fully on the Freesat Network it requires a connection to Eurobird1(28.5°E) for ITVHD, EPG, Software Updates etc, this also controls the postcode checking system" and have suggested getting my dish checked for alignment. Does that make sense to you?? I'm a keen DIYer and I'm wondering whether I should invest in a new Zone 2 dish rather than pay an installer to re-align/peak the second-hand Sky dish for me. What do you think please?
Keith Thacker
Friday 28 January 2011 3:37PM Burnham-on-crouch
Sorry Les, I should have said that the transponder recommended by Humax and on which I found the 14(useless)TV channels is 11428 H 27500 A. Am I correct in thinking that as the Strength and Quality readings are so high, there should not be any problem with the existing skew on my dish? Keith
Les Nicol
Saturday 29 January 2011 12:01PM
Keith Thatcher - There's a cluster of Satellites at 28.2 to 28.5 degrees south east the EPG's for "Freesat" and SKY with some SKY channels coming from. Eurobird 1 at 28.5 Most of the "Freesat" channels are beamed from Astra 2d but not all.It does seem that your current dish is the problem. To be homest I personally don't rate the SKY mesh type dishes I myself have a 64cm solid Triax TD series dish with a Technomate LNB the dish and LNB matching to a stadard 40mm collar. If your thinking of a new dish then I would recommend a 54cm slightly smaller which will be fine for your location in Essex. These are very well made and a doddle to confiqure with clearly marked scaling - note there are North and South scaling readings - You set on the South right hand side of the assembly looking from behind the dish frontwise. They are a little more price wise (not grossly) than SKY type but well worth it.
Les Nicol
Saturday 29 January 2011 12:16PM
P.S It may be that your currnt dish assembly is not locking up and has slight movement. I would also check all your wirng and connections. My signal strength reading 90% and PQ reading 100% but with the readings you have then I would have thought your receiver should heve been giving you better results than you have.
Keith Thacker
Saturday 29 January 2011 1:14PM Burnham-on-crouch
Thank you very much for all that advice, Les. I have checked all my wiring and connections as well as my elevation and azimuth several times but can do so again ... and the dish seems quite stable. If I go for a new dish, I don't really want to buy a new LNB if I can avoid it. I have a Thomson quad-LNB that is gripped by an angled plastic collar which looks like it is 40cm - it would have been a standard Sky-supplied product. That in turn slots into the dish arm, bayonet-like. Would I be able to fit that LNB easily to a new Triax 54 cm dish? Also,is there any way I can determine whether it is actually a dish or a receiver problem before I (inevitably) spend money on the wrong one? Early in my correspondence with Humax, they raised the question of whether the receiver might be faulty but it is receiving the 14 TV channels mentioned above. Keith.
Les Nicol
Saturday 29 January 2011 1:45PM
Keith - You can check the receiver out if you can connect to a friend or relatives dish. If the receiver tunes OK in that scenario then your receiver is OK. Assuming your receiver is OK then that leaves the dish or a faulty LNB. You hace connected the dish inputs to the receiver left and right inputs and not connected to the centre I assume? You've emtered the menu and checked diagnosticts to determine signal and PQ on both tuners as it appwars on the TV screen?
Keith Thacker
Saturday 29 January 2011 6:02PM Burnham-on-crouch
Hi Les, I'm most grateful for your advice. I shall take the receiver round to a friends house as suggested, tomorrow. Yes, both the dish inputs to the receiver are correct; I've avoided the central LNB1 OUT connection. As regards the menu diagnostics, although I have two inputs from the dish, the HUMAX diagnostics page only shows a single set of signal strength and quality readings. I assumed that these readings applied to both channels and I can't see a way of bringing up a second set. If you are familiar with the HUMAX FOXSAT-HDR could you please tell me how I can view the second set. Keith.
jb38
Sunday 30 January 2011 11:14AM
Keith Thacker: Purely on the Humax HDR issue, are you sure that when you were going through the original set up procedure you selected "two dish input", as although it might not apply in your case but anyone who updated to a dual or quad input who had originally stated off with a single input looped to LNB2 will not get correct operation until a complete reset is carried out, as the Humax box is unable to recognise a change to a proper twin input.

Another point is, you should test each of the Humax's LNB inputs individually by carrying out a "freesat" scan (this chosen at installation menu) on LNB1, note what you receive including the signal strength / quality, then using the same input lead swap it over to LNB2 and scan again noting if anything has changed, as that's the only way to verify if both inputs are performing properly.

As far as postcodes are concerned, pick a few from your local phone book as the Humax wont always recognise every one, and once your problem is rectified should you find that the BBC/ITV news service isn't correct for where you reside just enter a postcode chosen from the phone book applicable to an area closer to the district you require, the reason I say this is that numerous people put up with viewing what's supposed to be their local news but isn't! simply because they don't realise they can quite easily rectify the problem this way.
Les Nicol
Sunday 30 January 2011 12:30PM
Keith - The last post from jb28 seems to ibclude further info I might have given you. Let's know how you get on in testing the receiver in another locus.
Les Nicol
Sunday 30 January 2011 1:02PM
Keith - One other thing you can try is check both cables at the reciver end with you meter - This should give you a reading on the scal and an audible signal on both. If not then your back to dish LNB or cabling.
Keith Thacker
Sunday 30 January 2011 6:26PM Burnham-on-crouch
Les's comments yesterday lunchtime got me thinking about the fact that my HUMAX seemed to recognizing only one of two channels. I went through the "manual tune" procedure again and saw a blued-out message reading "Tuner 1 (Fixed)" but there was no sign of the other tuner. I then did a factory reset and was able to tune both channels (the HUMAX screen calls it "two cable") successfully; I then downloaded a software update and was able to get the HUMAX to accept my postcode.
The problem was exactly as jb28 described it. When I first bought the receiver I decided to try to acquire the satellite by using just a single (newly-laid)cable in order not to disrupt the existing cable that was carrying terrestrial TV. I had no idea that the HUMAX would store away this early attempt and fail to recognise that I was now using two cables(no plug-and-play for HUMAX!). I believe that there should be a reference to this pecularity in the HUMAX documentation and/or on their website. The "invalid postcode" message should also be clarified. Although some people may not know their postcode, a more likely cause of the problem is that their dish is not also acquiring Eurobird1(at 28.5°E) which is essential for ITVHD, EPG, Software Updates etc, and also controls the postcode checking system.
I'm now receiving a load of good quality channels and the HUMAX seems a very nice piece of kit, with the major exception of the user instructions. I shall pass on some feedback to them. I would like to thank Les and jb28 for their help and patience. Great site! Best wishes, Keith.
jb38
Sunday 30 January 2011 8:49PM
Keith Thacker: Thanks for the update Keith and pleased to hear that you have sorted your problem out, of course basically caused by the shortcomings in the user instructions making problems such as you experienced difficult to figure out, although having two of these "excellent" boxes myself does help! - Regards jb38.

Les Nicol: Apologies for jumping in on the thread as I do I realise you were advising Keith, and your advice re; trying the box out elsewhere is something I would possibly have advised myself, but its just that I know people get caught out by certain peculiarities on these boxes and likewise felt obliged to pass my knowledge on regarding possible reasons of the problem, plus a little bit of additional info regarding postcodes which may be of assistance to anyone else experiencing difficulties with incorrect "local" news on their freesat devices, this irrespective of brand or whether or not its a PVR.
Les Nicol
Sunday 30 January 2011 10:03PM
Keith - Happy that jb38's input also helped you sort out this problem. The Humax manual does have shortcomings but it is a very capable product. This receiver has onboard diseqc dish motor control including USALS - universal satellite automatic location software. This isn't set out in the manual either. One needs to go to the Humax forums to get the info on this and how to get the code that allows one to enter the hidden menu structure via the boxes remote control in order to configure satellites other than at 28degrees South East. Granted not everyone would want to make use of this but never the less it would have been helpful to have also set this out in the instruction manual as is set out in the Technisat "Freesat" single tuner PVR.
Steve
Wednesday 2 February 2011 6:39PM Sheffield
On my SKY box I can watch all BBC variants and with a bit of manual tuning can get any ITV region. Does this facility apply to freesat - I imagine it would.
Briantist
Wednesday 2 February 2011 7:22PM
Steve: Yes, www.ukfree.tv link icon Which BBC regions are on satellite? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice lists the channel numbers.
Elizabeth
Friday 4 February 2011 12:07PM
I have a sat. dish installed already with freesat on the main TV.
I would like to get freesat on other TVs in the house(it is already built in the TVs)but how can this be done ?
Sky suggested I buy another dish from them and pay for a sub. with multiroom for a year , then I can cancel and keep using it ? This will cost over £350.
I just want a good picture through the dish and to get the free channels !!
Please can you advise me ?Thank you.
Briantist
Friday 4 February 2011 12:21PM
Elizabeth: Yes, that sounds just like Sky.

A local installer will happily fit a quad-LNB to your dish and cables to each of your rooms for perhaps £100 or so.

All you need then is a Freesat box for each room, and they start at £30 each, www.argos.co.uk link icon Buy Bush BFSAT02SD Freesat SD Digital Box - Black at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for Freesat digital set top boxes.
 for example.
Elizabeth
Friday 4 February 2011 12:27PM
Thank you !
If I have a tv with freeview preinstalled,would I need a box ?
Briantist
Friday 4 February 2011 1:48PM
Elizabeth: Yes, you need a Freesat box to use Freesat, they are not compatible with Freeview (which uses an aerial).
Elizabeth
Friday 4 February 2011 3:41PM
Oh, right !
I thought they were the same thing?
Thank you so much for your help....just need to find a local installer!
Briantist
Friday 4 February 2011 4:04PM
Elizabeth: It's always best to ask friends and neighbours for recommendations for installers.
clive
Saturday 5 February 2011 6:10PM
i have a panasonic with both freesat and freeview built in when i go to watch bbc iplayer it some times plays all the programe or cut it short, i have to go back into iplayer and find the place it cut off at cannot work it out.so any help would be welcome
Briantist
Saturday 5 February 2011 6:44PM
clive: Does it always happen at the same point? What is your broadband? How is it connected?
Trev
Saturday 5 February 2011 7:59PM
I am thinking of leaving virgin to go on to freesat what is it i need and could i install it my self
Briantist
Saturday 5 February 2011 8:09PM
Trev: You need a Freesat, Freesat+ or Freesat+HD box, a satellite dish and a few cables.

Whilst a dish install is not complicated, the alignment is quite tricky and if you don't have the correct equipment it can be a frustrating thing to do.

You can get a Freesat installation done by shops like Argos for quite reasonable amounts.
Trev
Saturday 5 February 2011 8:41PM
Thank you very much
ian
Sunday 6 February 2011 10:46PM
trev
if you do have a go your self get a little signal meter off ebay (around ten quid), they are not the best but mate they do make life a lot more easy.
elinor
Monday 7 February 2011 1:28PM
Hi there please can you tell me if i can view
a second tv from the lnb out on my Humax
foxsat-hdr recorder box freesat+.And can
you use a magic eye to control the second tv
in the bedroom.

Thank you.
Elinor.



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