All posts by Graham Lewendon
Below are all of Graham Lewendon's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
John
surgest you Find a specialist satellite outlet you'll know when you have found one as they should know all about horizon to horizon mounts and the releated equipment as well and how to install them, this task I did for my own use in the early 90's pre digital with a 1 mitre dish on a H to H mount to receive pan European KU band the system was a using a Swedish microwave LNB and a Drake indoor unit. If you go the H to H route search for a publication by Mr John Breeds he has written many books on this subject in the past he predates DVD recorder so in any circuit diagram be prepared to substitute today's tech in place of the VCR. I used a small guide he produced it may have been a chapter from one of his books even that explained how to align a H-H dish using almost no maths (Trig) Then the basic principle was to pre tune indoor unit to Ria Uno also with correct polarity settings then adjust the dish inclination angle to that of Eutelsat 1F2 at 10 degrees east feed O/P to a TV out of the rain if any that could be seen from dish. My mount let me swing dish by hand so once some sort of signal from Rai Uno was seen the various tweaks of the dish adjustment fine tune (mechanical placement i.e. where it is precisely pointing towards) has to be done. This had to be repeated many times for each satellite gradually making the dish track the Clark belt (the curved line on which the satellites are placed in geostationary obit as seen from the UK). This is why trig gets involved because on the equator it would be a straight line see its all about the earths shape and tilt on its axis and where you're aiming from. I managed to get discovery from Intelsat at 27 west pretty well back then. If this seem a lot of trouble it was a way to save £200 on installation in 1991 and you had to have patience and persistence but once done you knew how to re-tweak dish it being very useful after any gale. Just how well this method can be adapted to apply to digital tuners I do not know. Good luck and work safe with ladders
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Re Steve at Stansted Essex (All DVB Reception from Sandy heath)
You have not said which part of village you live in I:E- top (near Total petrol Station) or bottom of Chaple hill (In the dip near train station)close to Stansted Lower road.
If at top signal from Sandy heath might be better
Yesterday evening here in Saffron W was told upon arriving home from work that ITV+1 was acting up. Found set was tuned to preset that had been set up as ITV1 but in fact was displaying ITV 3 yet could not find the ITV1 channel any where. Checked other DVB tuners and they seemed fine affected set is a Sony 32" Bravia about 5 years old. Performed full resetup. Then sorted channels order to my liking also deleting less pleasant late night channels. Found many duplicate channels in the 800-999 section including a number of ITV1 entries. I tuned to one of these for a short time and a advert for company inside M25 zone is broadcast thus I concluded sig and the poor ITV3 sig was from Crystal Palace from near croydon London being recived on the side of the beam that points west for Sandy Heath. Having driven home from Cambridge within the hour through fog I put reception problems done to "Inversion effect" Had no complaints tonight so expect all was fine. My problem is that I have good line of sight to crystal palace and that was once used pre digtal days hence pulling the digital sig in on side of beam.
As Brain test has said elswhere on this sight you may loose some things but gain others trick is to know when and where to look to hear / see rare channels
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Re Micheal in Wrexam
You do not get the inversion effect via satelite because with satelite you don't have a second satelite located twenty five miles behind the satelite from which you wish to recieve your tv channel pumping out a signal that due to a odd effect is stronger than that signal you wish to watch now due to the way the tuners work the stronger signal if on the same frequency will win displacing what sould be the nearest and stronger signal. The same frequncy is never used more than once on any given satelite and because most satelite's are spaced 3 degrees apart the dish has to be moved slightly so as to see the other group of signals from other satelite, Hence reasion for moterised dishes on a horizion to horizion mount. Please see my other postings elswhere on this site about these types of systems. If the very small digibox dishes are pointed at some of the other satelite's because of the way a smaller dish has a wider acceptance angle that a bigger dish say 1 mtr in dia it is possible to see satelite's spaced 3 degrees apart and similar probs might occur so that is why the satelite used by sky / freesat only has carfully placed satelite's near it that work as if they are one big satelite with more channels sent from it than 1 satelite can manage and there must be no frequncy duplication else we go back to square 1 that was often called "co channel interferrance" in pre digital days. Oh the acceptance angle of the old 65 cm dia dishes first used to recieve sky tv with was 3 degrees and a 1 metre dish that could see even weaker satelite's than astra had an acceptance angle of less than 2 degrees so seporating out satelite's that might have been under 3 degrees apart. I used to have a 1 metre dish on H-H mount and by selecting UK gold on astra then by some manual nudging dish via remote control I could point dish at a very weak Eutesat satelite do a frequcy scan and see items that after editing and commentory additions might make the evening news later in day. Hope thats explained things for you.
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Dear BrainTest
Great site.
RE various folk asking question about various boxes they find left by last occupant of dwelling.
Thought I should say that my labgear eight output RF distribution unit (UHF-DAB-FM) in & diplexed out uses F connectors for OP lead termination from its front panel to other equipment. Just in case any of these folk have anything similar hidden and yet to be found in dwelling, The good thing about these F plugs is that they can not simply pull out from there socket (like the BNC connector used on lots of pro video kit is in a way)
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Amid all the chat over CH 5 not taking up slot on free view and some saying about the image quality being questionable these attributes will depend on the quality of the interconnects & display device used & so if there not up to scratch images may seem little better. Please remember to that the audio component plays a part in the overall presentation and is to often still a Cinderella area and I wonder how many of the critical comments authors are able to hear the HD audio channels in 5:1 or better with speakers that have cones performing as woffers in the encloses little bigger than many tweeters fitted within true Hi-fi speakers no I'm not taking about the 1 box products sold in super market I mean top end sized kit that when it has to be moved you have to be careful else pull a muscle or worse.
Because if as I do then you would realize the full benefit of any HD channel, With it all modern films just take of as they do in a cinema or as Ian Flemings Bond says "Shaken not stirred" Even at very low volume settings just above mute you feel it as well as hear it! Switching to the standard definition version of the same content the audio is gutless but seems fine on the lowest common dominator built into the TV. But TV speakers have never been much more than crude offerings have they.
Spell checked with MS word prior to posting
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Any Idears out there Hears what I whish to do
Since Mr Butterworh advises against amplifying the UHF then splitting it to feed many tuners how can a daisy chained signal be fed to a laptop that is able to record program whislt also still being fed to end of chain which is the main display device in house. If the chain passed through sky box with secound rf op active might that pass the freeview channels unalterd onto any other digital tuners IE :- Could I feed the uhf freeview into the sky box after it has looped through all recording device decks then take one sky box rf out to laptop and the other RF output to TV Or put it another way will the freeview encorded channel data still exist after have loopthrough and been multyplied X2 in the sky box in a transparant way like video signals used to be up and downlinked through satelite transponders regardless of the signal type modulated onto the RF (IE PAL-NTSC-DMac-D2MAC) as was it in the 90's. As It Stands I Get pretty much everything including HD via freeview extreamly well. Please understand this is related to freeview distrubution only. I do not want to end up with less.
Many Thanks
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Hi
Re Sky Freeview; Terrestial Freeview (The one that seems to be causeing many of you problems)and Free Sat.
Having all 3 is nice when a freeview retune comes along I simply change to Free Sat via a device that will record to removeable media but if I were not so lucky and was fed up as some of you good folks seem I would not go with Sky free view go with Free Sat easpecially if you already use the sky system and need to trim costs. It really is just 1 upfront cost the ie tuner or what ever device it comes with just make sure that if you opt for a dual tuner free Sat system that your aware of the need for a daul output LNB on the dish unless you had been already been subscribing to a sky plus package in one room if that is so cancle your arrangement with Sky keep the dish just as it is and swap over the two leads with F conectors from the Sky tuner to the Free sat tuner. Power done the sky tuner first - you might need it one day should your options alter in the future. For those moving from terrestial freeview to free Sat A good guide to check if you have a line of sight to satelitte is to compaire what you see standing under the dish of a close neighbour who is happy for you to do so. you should see just sky or clouds anything else will block signal Now stand where you expect to have or install own dish and do same line of sight check (a compass at neighbour's location is usefull to help you face in right direction back at your own location. Now check that there is only sky and or clouds visable as you move your head from looking staight up (not at the sun) down to as low as the horizion if possible the satelite sits on that arc and this is only a very rough way of checking line of sight but you will be better prepaired when installer arrives. Tv & radio channels exceed those of the terrestial option plus the 5 HD channels are free. No more retunes
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Re Mick
Tuesday 15 May 2012 7:29PM
Dear Sir
Sorry to be this late seeing your posting but have just cobled together a replacement windows XP pc to replace one that died (Mother board & PSU) IE:- salvaging bits from two machines so the last week all spare time went on that task. Whats sleep?
May I surgest an alternative option.
Its all in one box so nice and tidy!
If funds allow have a look at the range of DVD / Bluray recorders by Panasonic each comes with a hardrive and I suspect twin tuners (I don't know if they make a single tuner version) freeview / freesat depening on which tech you choose the DVD recorder versions should cheaper than the BD recoder option and you can edit out parts of programs on hard drive befor archiving to DVD / BD I have only used versions that include option to record to both DVD and BD so can not say if following is true for the DVD only decks but the decks I have used that support BD and DVD also had HD free to air tuners (Free view :- BBC 1- BBC HD- ITV HD-CH4 HD) (Free Sat :- BBC 1- BBC HD- ITV HD-CH4 HD NHK News HD) and Wedding TV HD if you view via the other channels tuner menu option but you'll have to trawl through lots of test and trial outputs to find it) Staiting the obvious now maybe but the BD recorders come with bonus of also playing bluray discs! some are even 3D ready if a 3D set is used plus will even record own 3D from 3D Camcorder to BD via HD
Good luck & happy bargin hunting
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Tony Hill
Sunday 22 April 2012 1:11PM Dorchester. Also Des Collier 09-07-2012
Only just seen your questions so sorry about delay. I have HD via both Free TX systems fed via high end Yamaha av amp with 5:1 audio.
Freeview is from Sandy Heath and Freesat from 28.2 east (of south) And video is displayed by a 32" Sony 1080 I product some 5 years old. The HD freesat signal is fed from a Panasonic BD recorder whilst the HD freeview is fed from either a second Pany BDR or if simply watching via a HD set top box (I-Can easy TV HD tuner) all via HDMI leads. I have yet to see a noticable difference in video quality from any of my tuners tuned to a HD signal provided each tuner is tuned to same program during test. The audio of the I-Can set top box is not as rich as either of the Pany's even if fed via the spdf optical cable. If at any time I find that there is degradation of video I'd expect to see it from the Freesat tuner due to a serious accumilation of snow on the dish preventing the signal entering the LNB's feed horn. (10 gig hz sigs will not pass through any matter) I have found that the best way to clear such amounts of snow are also safer than assending a ladder in freezing conditions and includes little risk of knocking the dish out of alinement but will only work if dish is about as high on wall as the bottem of a first story out side window ledge with a clear sight line to your position. Sprayer must be able to send water jet to dish. Fill small Hozlock plant sprayer thats never been used to spray garden chemicals (VERY IMPORTANT) with tepid water adjust to get jet of water from nozzle and direct jet of water at dish and with time snow will go. This is a very gentle way of clearing the snow from dish. This methord worked very well on my 1 metre H-H analogue dish used for most of the 90's and some of the 00's. Put simply the dish is taking a relativerly warm shower to thaw the snow. I would not use a hosepipe just in case the plastic cap over the feed horn on the LNB was disloged - remember the holes in the plastic caps caused by the UV light and letting in water and resulting in systems failing in the early days of the Amstrad fidelity sattlelite systems.
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Wednesday 29 February 2012 9:48PM
RE ronan o dwyer
Tuesday 28 February 2012 8:30PM
Manx radio via FM
Have you tried a google search?
I found many dealers online with a simple search.
I'm located in the NW corner of Essex and could get Capital FM from Crystal Palace on a 6 element antiferance yargi all through the 80's & 90's up till I upgraded two years back to an 8 element yargi pointing the 6 element sort of towards BBC oxford, Good luck
Don,t forget hight is important as is a low loss down lead with no joints in the run Re hight signal quadrouples each time hight doubles , but beware signal loss in feeder