Wireless Waffle - A whole spectrum of radio related rubbish
How Not To Install A Satellite Dish (Part II)signal strength
Saturday 16 May, 2015, 15:38 - Satellites, Much Ado About Nothing
In the last instalment of 'How Not To Install A Satellite Dish', we successfully installed and aligned a new satellite dish to point at 19.2 degrees East so as to be able to receive German language television (and a few French channels to boot). The next job was therefore to connect the new dish, and the old dish, to the satellite receiver so that the same receiver could be used to switch between the German channels and the English language channels received through the existing, and separate, dish pointing at 28.2 degrees East.

Thankfully this does not (should not!) require the fitting of an additional downlead from the dish to the receiver, oh no. A system called DiSEqC (apparently pronounced 'die-seck' though in reality it should be pronounced 'diss-equck') comes to the rescue. This allows the receiver to select from multiple dishes connected on the same cable by sending control signals along the cable. All that is required is that a suitable DiSEqC switch is installed at the satellite end, connected to both dishes, and to the cable from the receiver.

2 way sat switchA 2 way sat-switch was duly purchased and installed as per the instructions. Back at the receiver (a trusty Foxsat HDR - though the original model, not the new one being sold now on Amazon), the secret menu that allows access to funky multi-satellite functions was accessed (by going into the Setup menu, then pressing red, green, yellow, blue, green, yellow and then blue in that order - or 🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑). Selecting 'DiSEqC 1' from the pull-down menu duly yielded signals from the original 28.2E dish. However, none of the other four DiSEqC inputs yielded anything from the 19.2E dish. Swapping the feeds at the dish end meant that channels from the 19.2E dish could be found on 'DiSEqC 1' but no signals from the 28.2E dish could be found on any setting. Grrr...

4 way sat switchThe DiSEqC settings in the receiver had four channels (e.g. 1, 2, 3 and 4) but the switch only had two. Could this be the problem? Only one way to find out, and so a second switch, this time a 4 way sat-switch was bought (which oddly is cheaper than the 2 way switch at the time of writing!) The original (28.2E) dish was duly connected to input 1 on the switch and the new 19.2E dish was connected to input 2. And guess what - this time success. Now the receiver would find signals from both satellites on the appropriate DiSEqC settings on the receiver.

It is unclear whether this was due to the fact that the first switch was faulty, but as the 4-way switch is (currently) cheaper than the 2-way switch, then anyone attempting this exercise might like to consider just getting the 4-way device to start with and thereby circumventing the tedious hours of failure that might otherwise present themselves.

freesat foxsat menuAnd so now, by switching the Foxsat receiver out of 'Freesat' mode, it was possible to access a wide range of German channels (and the UK ones) but without the help of the Freesat programme guide. Switching back to Freesat mode returned the box to the standard Freesat channel line-up and the programme guide. But surely there must be a way to add the German channels to the Freesat channel menu so that there's no need to go faffing around with multicoloured buttons in the settings menu to switch between them? Actually, there is and at least that part of the job went relatively easily, so stay tuned to Wireless Waffle for Part III of 'How Not To Install A Satellite Dish'...

Mike 
Monday 18 May, 2015, 12:33
There are also 6 way and even 16 way DiSEQ switches on the market. Theyre a good solution if one doesnt want to go down the motorised route however the instructions that come with any ones Ive seen tend to be woeful.

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