Neighbour has been fiddling again ......

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Neighbour has been fiddling again ......

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rogermunns

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About 2 years ago I bought a s/h Foxsat HDR for our elderly neighbour, here in The Dordogne, SW France.

I don't think the box has ever been working properly, but that might be down to Chris being confused. This time he really screwed it up and I have had a go at rescuing the situation. But I have only been partly successful. Here is the situation as best as I can remember.

Note that I call Chris our elderly neighbour; but that doesn't mean that I'm a youngster. To be specific, Chris is 81, I am 75. So a lot of the technical side of modern life is a bit of a mystery, to put it mildly.

I found his box working like this: Could receive about 8 TV channels, one or two radio channels; not recognising postcode; total inability to auto retune.

After some hunting on here (thanks, guys) and a couple of visits he now has all the TV and Radio channels (at least, I think he has all of them). BUT every channel has a '5000' type number. Not at all in sequence.
I went to manual tune, got up the transponder list. I did find ..426H but that showed zero strength/zero quality. After trial and error I did hit upon a VERTICAL transponder with good strength/quality and that did download all TV and radio channels OK, but all with 5000 numbers. Not in any sequence.

Chris has always turned his box off at night. We never do - and I guess this is why our box 'did it's own thing' when some change or other happened (earlier this year?).

I just had a thought - Since we are only about 300metres apart, I could check which transponder we are on here and then try the same transponder on his?

| Sat 19 Dec 2020 17:50:06 #1 |
grahamlthompson

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You or he has carried out a non freesat tune. You should find a menu option settop mode.

If you change this back to freesat mode hopefully epg and everything else will return to normal.

The box needs to be in sby overnight to keep up with transponder changes.

However the symptoms would seem to indicate a failed lnb or possibly water in the coax cabling.

Have you got both vertical and horizontal channels in the non freesat list ?

| Sat 19 Dec 2020 18:17:39 #2 |
Martin Liddle

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grahamlthompson - 2 mins ago »
If you change this back to freesat mode hopefully epg and everything else will return to normal.

Graham, he said that the postcode wasn't recognised; wouldn't that suggest a dish alignment problem?

| Sat 19 Dec 2020 18:21:22 #3 |
grahamlthompson

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Martin Liddle - 14 mins ago »

grahamlthompson - 2 mins ago »
If you change this back to freesat mode hopefully epg and everything else will return to normal.

Graham, he said that the postcode wasn't recognised; wouldn't that suggest a dish alignment problem?

Or the lnb can't get horizontal channels. That's why I wanted to know if the non freesat list had horizontal variants especially if they were from UK spot beam transponders.

If the op can say that the list includes channels like BBC1-HD.

Like these for example (all on 10964 H)

Channel 5 HD
Channel 5 +1
5 USA
5 USA +1
Paramount
5STAR
My5
5Spike

A rough location would help. In northern France the home transponder now on a UK spot should be fine. Repassac can help here if told the locatiob.

| Sat 19 Dec 2020 18:43:25 #4 |
grahamlthompson

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Afterthought. Do both of them have the same Size dish ?

| Sat 19 Dec 2020 19:08:28 #5 |
grahamlthompson

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Thinking about this the first low band horizontal transponder found on a UK spot beam so will have the lowest numbers is this one.

If the op has any of these should be no reason that the home transponder is not usable, other than the ones in brown which are encrypted.
Attachments
1. First_low_band_transponder.jpg (210.2 KB, 6 downloads) 3 years old
| Sun 20 Dec 2020 9:23:51 #6 |
rogermunns

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Hi again and thanks for your help. I'm no expert - by any means. I seem to recall from yesterday's tries that yes, H and V transponders are visible. I can't recall whether 'sitting' on a given transponder gave signal strength/quality. It certainly did on the one we are now using (it's a V) and which is giving the '5000' numbers.

I've again looked at which transponder we are on here in my house. I go MENU - setup - manual tune - right - right and I see 'All'.. I daren't go any further. When I did this a couple of hours ago I saw 10714 I think, H or V I don't know - but I then scrolled right......many times until it stopped. I had been expecting to see a green tick against one of the numbers but didn't. By doing what I did, have I inadvertently selected 'All'? Things seem ok.

Graham, you say : ""You or he has carried out a non freesat tune. You should find a menu option settop mode."" ..... How do I do that, please?

We are at the Southern extremity of the Dordogne, 15miles (25km) S of Bergerac.

| Sun 20 Dec 2020 13:45:14 #7 |
rogermunns

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Graham -- I just found this that you posted 3 yrs ago:

You have switched your Foxsat into non-freesat (Free To Air) mode.

Menu - Settings - STB Mode. Change non-freesat back to freesat

So I'll have a look at that. I'll take my phone, so I can photograph the screen if I get something unfathomable.

| Sun 20 Dec 2020 13:50:04 #8 |
REPASSAC

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Please also post a postcode and dish size. I am south of you in 32460 Perchede with a 100cm dish.
Please also confirm connected with two feeds to outer connections.

| Sun 20 Dec 2020 15:56:15 #9 |
grahamlthompson

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rogermunns - 4 hours ago »
Hi again and thanks for your help. I'm no expert - by any means. I seem to recall from yesterday's tries that yes, H and V transponders are visible. I can't recall whether 'sitting' on a given transponder gave signal strength/quality. It certainly did on the one we are now using (it's a V) and which is giving the '5000' numbers.
I've again looked at which transponder we are on here in my house. I go MENU - setup - manual tune - right - right and I see 'All'.. I daren't go any further. When I did this a couple of hours ago I saw 10714 I think, H or V I don't know - but I then scrolled right......many times until it stopped. I had been expecting to see a green tick against one of the numbers but didn't. By doing what I did, have I inadvertently selected 'All'? Things seem ok.
Graham, you say : ""You or he has carried out a non freesat tune. You should find a menu option settop mode."" ..... How do I do that, please?
We are at the Southern extremity of the Dordogne, 15miles (25km) S of Bergerac.

While viewing any channel press the opt+ button, It will give you the transponder details you should find the lowest numbers are the first transponder I posted a screen grab of. Tune to 5000 and pres opt+. Just tell us what the details are.

| Sun 20 Dec 2020 18:16:23 #10 |