Satellite Location

[richwill]

Hi,

I've bought a really cheap "heath-robinson" setup of a portable satellite system complete with a dish and receiver. I've wired it up myself and managed to pick up some transmissions from the Astra satellite @ 19.2E

the question I have are..having roughly found the astra 19.2E satellite i'll obviously like to find the other satellites (particularly the one transmitting the BBC HD). any ideas how?

thanks in advance

[Chris Muriel]

www.lyngsat.com

Also http://www.lyngsat.com/hd/

But you need an HD box (Humax 2000 or Pace 810) to receive HD.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

[richwill]

Originally Posted by Chris Muriel

www.lyngsat.com

Also http://www.lyngsat.com/hd/

But you need an HD box (Humax 2000 or Pace 810) to receive HD.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

chris, thanks for the reply

1. humax is on order (delivery tomorrow)
2. i know of lyngsat but can't make head nor tail of how i should set it up.

the main crux of the request was just where should i point the dish. I gather the BBC HD transmission is on astra 2D? is that 28 East? and does 28 East refer to pointing the dish east and raising it to approx 28 deg above the horizon?

see? told you i was new to all this.

ta very much

rich

[Nick_UK]

All the satellites are orbiting above the equator at a fixed height, so from where you are standing they will appear as an arc across the sky (not a perfect arc, but that's another story). The satellites are referred to as degrees east or west of true south (not magnetic south !). The satellite elevation can be calculated, but you need to know what your latitude is, because a satellite will appear lower in the sky in scotland than it does in portsmouth. If you've already found one satellite, then it's easier to find the rest. To go from 19.2 E to 28.2 E, you need to swing the dish 9 degrees further east, and the elevation will be a little lower. Getting a motorised dish to track across the Sky is a delicate art, and can take hours to get right.

To recap - the satellite you need is at 28.2 degrees East of true South. This time of year the best way to find true south is to put a garden cane in the ground at exactly noon GMT (1 PM BST !) and the shadow of the Sun will point exactly north.

Dish Azimuth calculator

[Chris Muriel]

Lol. Although your interpretation of 28E made me chuckle we all had to start at some time (around 1982 in my case).

28E refers to 28 degrees east of due south in azimuth (not elevation).
Due south is 180 degrees on a compass so 28E is 152 degrees (+ or - magnetic deviation).
Look at a nearby sky dish to see the approximate elevation.
Although it should be something like 25 or 27 degrees in elevation, the dish is an offset type so visually/physically, depending on your latitude, it will appear to pointing nearer to horizontal.
I use some ex satellite offset dishes for terrestrial amateur TV transimssions on 10 GHz and these physically point downwards in order to electrically be pointing horizontally.
There is bound to be some further dish alignment info on the Satcure website.

Hope this helps.

Chris Muriel, Manchester

[SamRadford]

Originally Posted by Chris Muriel

There is bound to be some further dish alignment info on the Satcure website.

Yep, found it:
http://www.satcure.com/tech/satposition.htm
http://www.satcure.com/tech/compass.htm
http://www.satcure.com/tech/satmeter.htm

There's also a lot more in satcure's downloadable book.

[richwill]

Originally Posted by SamRadford

Yep, found it:
http://www.satcure.com/tech/satposition.htm
http://www.satcure.com/tech/compass.htm
http://www.satcure.com/tech/satmeter.htm

There's also a lot more in satcure's downloadable book.

Thanks guys, I looked in the satcure stuff and it was a mine of information. Additionally I found the following URL

http://www.hansa-electronic.com/satcalceng.asp

having used the lat/long info from multimap (plus the OS site for the nearest spot height) i opted for the hansa url and it gave me all the data i needed pretty quickly. I've since turned the dish in the approximate direction and then using some amazingly cheap (sub 10.00) wireless headphones attached to the audio signal meter within the receiver, turned the dish until I got a strong tone.

I've now got astra 28E and the majority of UK channels (some are still showing no signal, or have some breakup) but considering this is a complete stickybacked plastic affair I'm pretty pleased with it.

The Humax HDCI-2000 arrives tomorrow. I've got the BBC HD fix for it off the HUMAX website and will use the cheapo dish to see if i can pick up the hd signal and if not then i'll resort to getting the broken dish fixed (as per previous thread/s) and hopefully seeing what my HDTV is capable of.

Next steps:? Once I'm pretty satisfied I think i'll go for a motorised setup and see if i can get that to work too. It's an experience but all a positive one. Thanks to you all for the replies thus far, any advice still most welcome.

rgds

rich

[123macca66]

as a follow on from your success with setting up the dish. you say you'll consider a motorised setup, i was wondering what's the recommeneded kit from the more experienced users.

where's the best place to buy and can you buy as a total kit (not including the receiver).

what are the benefits - are there any other worthwhile channels on other satellites. are there more HD ones and do they have english speaking channels.

do you need to pay a subscription.

[richwill]

Originally Posted by 123macca66

as a follow on from your success with setting up the dish. you say you'll consider a motorised setup, i was wondering what's the recommeneded kit from the more experienced users.

where's the best place to buy and can you buy as a total kit (not including the receiver).

what are the benefits - are there any other worthwhile channels on other satellites. are there more HD ones and do they have english speaking channels.

do you need to pay a subscription.

i've not really asked for recommendations as yet. The receiver I've already got was in the portable solution I bought and is a Digital one. It's perfectly ok but I'm getting my Humax HDCI-2000 which will accept the HD signal for the BBC trials (specifically the world cup) tomorrow. So I'll be using that.

Once things have all bedded down a bit, I'll just ask around in here and see what's what. There's a few online sites where you can get some complete setups and so far everyone has been brilliant in the advisory capacity so there's no shortage of help available.

best of luck

[SamRadford]

Originally Posted by 123macca66

where's the best place to buy and can you buy as a total kit (not including the receiver).

Depends what you want. Not many places offer a kit and those that do may be offering something that's less than perfect to keep the price down. The problem is that everyone's needs are different. The dish size depends on your location and what you want to receive. It's better to decide what maximum dish size you can tolerate and/or afford. Then look up the various satellite lists to see what you'll be able to receive with it.

what are the benefits - are there any other worthwhile channels on other satellites. are there more HD ones and do they have english speaking channels.

There's a few HD channels. Not very many yet but it's bound to increase. There aren't many English language programmes that are worth watching.

do you need to pay a subscription.

Yes if the programme(s) you want to watch are encrypted. (Let's not get into illegal methods here).