Morning all. I'm trying to fit "Free Sat" up at my Nans house. I have run the cable under the floor and up the side of the house to the dish, which is positioned on a south facing wall. The dish is pointing east. I understand that the dish should be vertical, the problem i am having however is I can't work out which direction/angle etc the "LNB" (Receiver thingy bob) needs to be pointing.. HELP MEEEEE! I've downloaded at Satalite App on my Android, but i can't work out how to use the damn thing! Do i position this reader on the dish itself or on the receiver..?
If anybody can help, please please PM me as i'd like to give you a call.. Cheers Paul

Can't help myself but have you tried Googling DIY freesat? loads of help there

yes mate but i was at it late last night. all i know is it needs to find astra at 28. blabla and eurobird sat but no joy arrrrrrrr lol

You need one of them satfinder things to line the dish up. It has to be pointing exactly at the sat, not just in the general direction.

i put this on my phone but not sure where to put the phone on the dish http://www.dishpointer.com/2009/augmented-reality-satellite-finder/ o well off to me nans again for more pain

Shouldn't the dish be pointing south-ish, rather than east? Mine's just a few degrees to the east of due south.

Satcure is a good place to get info, signal strength meters, and so on. I believe that they also sell a downloadable book on setting up sat dishes.

[Edited on 3/1/11 by David Jenkins]

this is a great web site for setting up dishes etc. http://www.satelliteforcaravans.co.uk/freesatmain.htm#action

Aimed at caravanners but good for houses too!

Cheers

Mooky

I fitted mine using the dishpointer site. Find which satellite you want in their list and put your post code in and it will give you the azimuth angle, the elevation and the LNB skew. The elevation is marked on the bracket behind the dish, they are not set perfectly upright and I used a cheap map reading compass from the army stores taped to the LNB arm to get the azimuth angle. The LNB skew angle is marked on the ring that secures it and was what made the most improvement to the signal quality. You want to aim for 28.2 degrees to the East of South to start with. I did this first and got loads of foreign stations then start on the elevation by slackening the bolt behind the dish and lowering it a few millimetres at a time. Slacken the LNB screw and turn it in the clamp while someone watches the progress bars on the receiver menu and you will see when you are going in the right direction. Here's another useful site for setting up information. If you locate your property and put the pointer where you are fitting the dish by magnifying the satellite image it gives good detail. Ours found Astra 2A,B,D at 28.2E and Eurobird at 28.5E and receives signal well from both of them. All movements are made 2 or 3 mm a time and given 30 seconds to react as it does not work like terrestrial TV signal so take your time and you will get there, it took me an afternoon once I figures out what I needed to do. Here's the type of compass I used. The free satellite locator and strength meter I got with mine was as much use as a budgie, it made a similar noise whatever it was pointed at.

Any other dishes in the vincity to use as a guide?, Freesat uses the same sat (astra IIRC) as SKY.

thank you to all for your help. i did the best i could today but its not spot on but it does work cheers lads all the best paul