[ThePrisoner]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to look at this problem i really appreciate it! I live in a newly built (circa 2007) block of flats consisting of 24 flats in total. I know a fellow resident with whom i also work with can get Sky Digital using her Sky Digital box fine in her flat. Looking on this forum and elsewhere it seems that if a dish can get Sky Digital then its pointing to the correct bit of space where a fleet of Astra satellites broadcast Sky and Freesat from. I'm interested in getting Freesat mainly for CNN 24hrs a day and BBC HD but nothing seems to work.

I want to access Freesat channels using Windows Media Center on a new Acer desktop PC running Windows 7. The Card I'm using is a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-4000 (PCI). This card can do Analogue TV, Freeview TV and Freesat DVBS and DVB-S2. I can pickup Analogue and all the Freeview stations no problem . If i screw the special cable i bought from maplin with F connectors each end from the card's f connector to either of the wall sockets f connectors media center finds no satellite services when scanning. If i use WinTV's software which allows you to import the freesat channel lineup using an access database file into it without needing to scan channels it imports but when clicking on a channel i cannot get any of them says no signal but works fine for freeview.

The faceplate in my flat when unscrewed only has 2 coaxial cables going to it. One must be for conventional aerial (terrestrial, Freeview) and the other must be for satellite.

So i'm just posting here for advice on what to do next. I could take my desktop PC into the cubby hole where the communal system equipment is and plug my tv card directly into the numbered output on the equipment there to rule out cable fault from there to my flat but that's going to be a bit of a hassle. Is there anything else i can do? There are a numbe of controls on the communal system boxes what do these do? Do they increase gain?

Well i've took a number of pictures of it:- Really appreciate some advice.

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/501...nalsystem1.jpg
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5...nalsystem2.jpg
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/478...nalsystem3.jpg
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/104...nalsystem4.jpg
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/4...nalsystem5.jpg

Regards

Paul

[logiciel]

Hi Paul and welcome to AVF.
All the pics are fine - except the last one.
The experts here will have a good time sorting the first four out for you, but could you say what the wall-plate sockets are labelled as, and what the cable is that is in the plate?
Any chance of you borrowing a satellite receiver to try on those sockets?

[Geofbob]

Hi Paul - Csn't help on your basic problem, but I think you're wrong about the two coaxial cables going into your wall plate. Though the photo of your wall plate is blurred, you seem to have two satellite sockets. This is consistent with two coaxial cables, since most communal systems use "multiplexing" which bundles satellite, terrestrial & FM signals into one coaxial cable, which is then split into three separate signals at the wall plate. The other coasial presumably carries just a satellite signal to the second satellite socket.

Logiciel's suggestion of trying a Sky or other satellite box on one of the satellite sockets seems the most direct way of finding out whether the fault lies with the cabling to the wall plate or in your cards or PC - though to make absolutely sure you may have to borrow a TV as well.

[logiciel]

A closer look confirms that there are two satellite sockets, labelled Sat 1 and Sat 2, a TV socket which would be for aerial only, and a Radio socket which would be for FM and similar to the TV. We need to know which of those four the only two cables were connected to. Also what about the cable that runs into the plate, and about what looks like a phone socket - what's behind the plate for them? A satellite receiver - and indeed a TV to plug it into! - remains my suggestion for finding a quick answer.

[ThePrisoner]

Thanks logiciel and Geofbob. To clarify the faceplate i have in the flat is the exact one as shown here:-

http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/images...115_front4.jpg

I have unscrewed the faceplate and there is definetly 2 coax leads going to the back of it. One is white and the other is black. The black coax is slightly smaller diameter wire gauge than the white coax. Now this corresponds with the fact that in the equipment cubby hole on the 5th and top floor of the block of flats nearest where the satellite dish / aerial is contains only two types of cabling. If you look at picture3 in my first posting. The black smaller coax cabling is whats comming out of the 1st of 2 vision Multiswitches. The 2nd Vision multiswitch has the bigger coax which is mainly white but there are some brown coaxs but both the same size (they must have run out of white when doing the install).

Now Goeff said something interesting. Communal systems use multiplexing. I was wondering if that is what these Vision systems boxes are doing!? Basically the Green (H,Lo), Yellow (H,Hi), Black (V,Lo), Red (V,Hi) comes in i assume from the LNB of the satellite dish and the Grey (Terr TV) from the aerial on the roof. In this setup it gets routed 1st to a splitter which splits it so it can get routed into both vision Mutiswitches.

The 1st vision multiswitch has 24 outputs and all output sockets are occupied. The 2nd has 32 outputs but 8 are unused leaving 24. So there are basiclaly 2x 24 output vision multiswicthes being fed via splitter from the same satellite dish / aerial feeds. And each flat gets one feed from each multiswitch, one black, one white or brown. There are exactly 24 flats.

I have rung up these people who setup the system in our building:-

DAS - For Digital TV, Satellite, Sky, SMATV, MATV, IRS, Commercial and Domestic Aerial Installation

I asked them if i can get Freesat and they said if they fitted a commual system that can do Sky Digital then this should do Freesat as well. My work friend who lives in a flat here has sky digital which she mentioned requires 2 leads to work. There's nothing different about her flat number and mine in regards to the fact we are both receiving the same cables out of the same equipment just different output numbers and she has sky digital and it works and i have a freesat TV card and it doesn't.

I assume then these two vision multiswitches are multiplexing tv, radio and satellite onto there respective frequency slots on both coax cables? These multiswitches are Sky Homes approved when doing research on them on the manufacturers site does this mean they will multiplex correctly the freesat frequency range?

Regards

Paul

[Geofbob]

Hi Paul - Everything seems to indicate that the connections from the satellite dish (& TV/FM aerials) to your wall plate are in order - & certainly if the satellite sockets work for Sky, they should work for Freesat - same "birds", same signals, just different EPGs. (As it happens I'm in a flat with a communal system, & run both a Freesat box & a Fortec Star FTA box.)

I suppose it's possible that there's a fault in the actual connection to your wall plate - but you indicated that the terrestrial Freeview socket is OK - & the more likely explanation lies in the TV cards you have. But could you not borrow your friend's Freesat box, just for a few minutes to see it it gets a signal?

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by ThePrisoner

I assume then these two vision multiswitches are multiplexing tv, radio and satellite onto there respective frequency slots on both coax cables? These multiswitches are Sky Homes approved when doing research on them on the manufacturers site does this mean they will multiplex correctly the freesat frequency range?

Regards

Paul

Freesat is just an epg the channels you watch are the same as you get on a sky box or any other satellite tuner so there is no such thing as a Freesat frequency range. The only difference is that the freesat epg come from Eurobird 1 at 28.5E not the Astra 2 group at 28.2E but any setup should give access to both, There are many channels on the sky epg that come from 28.5E anyway.

This explains what the multiswitches do

Digital Spy Forums - View Single Post - Will the new Humax PVR work with 1 LNB feed?

[Habanos]

I presume that you're trying this from a cold boot, and not from sleep? The HVR-4000 has a driver bug whereby the DVB-S/S2 tuner will not work after sleep on some occasions.

(I think that they have fixed it in the latest beta driver, after over a year of it being broken, although I haven't tried the "fixed" driver personally.)

I'm using an IRS multi-switch, along with a 65mm dish, and I don't have any issues with the signal being too strong and overloading the front-end. Perhaps there is a short-circuit somewhere, and the card is shutting down to protect itself and your motherboard. Or perhaps you just have a dud card.