We have had a dish installed yesterday. We supplied the receiver courtesy of the Thai temple, Manchester. The installer left an old analog sky dish after being given specific instructions to remove it and we can get DMC but not TGN. looking at the instructions for TGN here:

Frequency 12207
Horizontal
S/R 27500
FEC 3/4.
Search the transponder only.

I get nothing from that transponder. The best strength I get on anything is 80%. Does this mean they have done a bad job or is it normal to not get signals on all transponders? It is an 80cm dish.

I have other complaints about the routing of the cable, they basically dropped it down then routed it around the outside of the building at shoulder level.

BigRed

BigRed,

80% signal strength is fine. If you can get one transponder, I can't see why not others.
Try erasing all channels and then rescanning. Also, try limiting the search to FTA (Free-to-Air) only. It's probably in there along with all the chaff (try seaching through the list of channels)

Pity you couldn't have discussed the cable run in advance and paid them after you'd inspected the work.
If the installer is a member of the CAI then mentioning those three letters (and the code of practice) should get them round sharpish to put it right.

Choke dee.

Packpao

Do you have a single - just pointing at Hotbird, or twin LNB on the dish?

Good quality cable is essential for good sat. reception.

I've just checked the link above and the "What's the best cable - Read the review" bit on their site is not working at the moment. It was a simple guide to the different cables available.

It is best to have the cable run from dish to receiver as short as possible. Draping it around the outside of the house is not good practise.

Thanks for the info folks. It would be nice to stay at home all day and supervise tradesmen, but I have to go to work to pay them, so I left instructions with the wife.

The dish has to go on the end of the house or the front because of the orientation and an 80cm dish would not look good on the front of a cottage in the Peak District.

I will have to check if the cable has any markings on it.


BigRed

BigRed - when we had Hotbird installed, the engineer explained to us that the big 'analogue' dishes were the only ones able to pick up the signal. Other members may disagree, but for our area, this is the case. Maybe this is why your engineer didn't give you a smaller dish.

quote:

the engineer explained to us that the big 'analogue' dishes were the only ones able to pick up the signal.

But Thai TV is not available in analouge only digital !

Lee

The signal from Hotbird is a little more diluted than the one from the Sky satellite, hence the need for a bigger dish.

Slightly off-topic - you can get a few Thai channels on the internet if you have broadband. TV7, UBC news, TGN are all watchable, not great quality, but good enough. Others such as TV11, Nation, TV5 etc are there but don't always work.

Lee - the big old style dishes are actually 'analogue'. As Paul & Ned say, many people need these dishes to receive TGN (ourselves included) despite the signal being 'digital'.

A satellite dish is no more than a shaped, (dish shaped - hence the name) piece of metal, used to reflect the signal from the satellite onto an electronic device (LNB).

The LNB's were originally analogue in older systems, but are now digital in modern systems.

You need digital LNB, with digital receiver, (the bit that sits near the TV) to watch Thai TV.

Its true, the farther you go north, the bigger the dish you will need to pick up from Hotbird for Thai, or Astra for Sky.

I only mentioned the dish size because I am aware that a larger dish is needed for Hotbird and that is why we got an 80cm one, so why can't we find TGN?

BigRed

BigRed - I assume that other channels are working fine and that you've scrolled throught the entire menu looking for TGN?

Hiya Big Red, if you,ve got an 80 cm dish pointing at 13 deg East then you're lined up to Hotbird 3.
Sounds like your receiver is the problem.
It has to be digital as opposed to analogue.
I Followed the instructions on this site and set up TGN using an 80cm dish and a sky digibox.
Maybe you just need another receiver, if so you can pick one up cheap enough on E-Bay and then just follow the instructions on the Thai TV link on this site, Good Luck...

quote:

Originally posted by BigRed:
so why can't we find TGN?
BigRed

Can you find :-
BBC World
Euro News
Al-Jazeera
Gay. TV (don't ask - its not in English )
Kuwait
Bloomberg


and about 300 other channels - some of which are encrypted, so you wont get a picture with them?

If you don't see any of these - the dish may be pointing at the wrong sat.

quote:

We supplied the receiver courtesy of the Thai temple, Manchester.

What is the make/model receiver. Was it new in the box?

quote:

Do you have a single - just pointing at Hotbird, or twin LNB on the dish?

If you look at the dish is there one or two black pointy things pointing at the dish.