help with meter readings please

[thevandestroyer]

Hi all.... I often help out friends and family with sky problems..... in s.w Scotland... got above mentioned meter...hdsm usb ( horizon) works ok....... Now.... When Im aligning dishes( 28.2) Ive got 2 low- h & v.... and 2 High- h & v....... the 2 lows always come in screaming and can get 100%..... when u hit the sat..... but when I go to the 2 highs.... they are always lower, and I struggle to get them to above 70-80's( if im lucky lol).... I would Imagine this has to do with size of dish ( as s*y putting up these ****ty wee zone 1 dishes... is this why I cant get the highs high or am I doing something wrong?.... wots more important... the lows or the highs??????? wot should I concentrate on????? are lows and highs more important for certain channels???????????.... and the 5 scew settings on the twist setting on the lnb, how important is it and wot should it b set at????.... Many thanks in advance.:respect-053:

[echelon]

lnb skew is normally 2 or 3 on a sly dish

scotland uses 60cm zone 2 dishes not the smaller zone 1 (approx 40cm)

cannot comment on your sat meter as I have never used one, and never been to bonnie scotland either

[thevandestroyer]

thanks...dnt bother... its wet cold.... and alot of ginger people who talk funny!!!! ( nothing wrong with gingers though)..... the high and low freq's though... u any idea on them?

[echelon]

all satellites have high and low horizontals and high and low verticals for digital channels like sly channels

they are not all at the same levels either, so you will find lists published on the web telling you the strongest ones, and many members of forums will tell you to line up dishes on weaker ones like cbs action or vintage tv or the vault or similar lower level channels or transponders

I believe your idea is flawed, the one where you think they should all be 100%, or all the same signal and quality level

these levels also vary depending on the tuner and software used, so different boxes give different readings and as I said I havent used a meter so I dont get to see the low or high settings either, just signal and quality on the transponder or channel I am tuned into

but there is no substitute for dish size, the bigger the better , and I am well south of you but have changed from a standard zone 1 dish to a zone 2 dish which works better in poor weather as I get better signal lock even when its raining. I am surprised you said they use zone 1 in scotland as my understanding was they are all zone 2

edit

this was taken from wikipedia



The Minidish is the tradename used for the small-sized satellite dish used by Freesat and S*y Digital. The term has entered the vocabulary in the UK and Ireland as a generic term for a satellite dish, particularly small ones.

The Minidish is an oval, mesh satellite dish capable of reflecting signals broadcast in the upper X band and Ku band. Two sizes exist:

"Zone 1" dishes are issued in southern England and were 43 cm vertically prior to 2009; newer mark 4 dishes are approximately 50 cm
"Zone 2" dishes are issued in elsewhere (Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and northern England), which are 57 cm vertically.

The Minidish uses a non-standard connector for the LNB, consisting of a peg about 4 cm (1.6 in) in width and 7.5 mm (0.30 in) in height prior to the mark 4 dishes introduced in 2009, as opposed to the 40 mm collar. This enforces the use of S*y-approved equipment, but also ensures that a suitable LNB is used. Due to the shape of the dish, an LNB with an oval feedhorn is required to get full signal.

[Detlef]

A bit off topic, but I think that Vintage has moved to a better transponder now. I find the most difficult channels are those on Eutelsat 28A that use both H and V on the same frequency

Sly move their channels fairly often on the pretext of load levelling but it is more likely that they do it to annoy users of "real" sat receivers.

The Sly Digibox sorts out the channels based on data sent to it via the EPG.

[thevandestroyer]

some usefull info guys thanks!