Newbie Help

[andresr]

Hey guys!
I've been lurking on this board for a couple weeks now, taking information from here and there and I finally got an old 12 foot dish at my house 'functional'. I don't get any picture but I get feedback and the dish moves. I have a General Instruments 550i receiver. I've looked through all the sats programmed into the receiver and cant find any channels that work.

I've found the lyngsat website and ftalist.com. How do I get the information from those sites into my receiver to pick up those newer satellites and channels?? Help, I got minimal technical knowledge with satellites but some working experience.

Thanks

 

[andresr]

its connected via c band, this setup worked a couple (10?) years ago for subscription viewing, but i just wanna pick up anything free that i can get.

 

[phlatwound]

There's not a whole lot of analog C-band channels left that you will be able to pick up any more, but here is a list that Iceberg posted in another thread:

"analog channels
87W AMC3 TP 20 V Doc Scott
99W G4/G16 TP16 V Shepherd's Chapel
135W AMC10 TP 9 V QVC
135W AMC10 TP 10 H HSN
135W AMC10 TP 19 V CSPAN2
133W G15 TP 5 H Classic Arts
133W G15 TP 11 H EWTN
133W G15 TP 12 V ShopNBC
133W G15 TP 17 H Inspiration
131W AMC11 TP 7 V CSPAN

125W G14/G5 there is still some scrambled channels on TP 5,6,17 & 22....evens are V"

The satellite names that your receiver may have pre-programmed from back when it was in use before may be different than what is in the list above. For example you may have:

W3 (instead of AMC3)
F3 (instead of AMC11)
G1 (instead of G15)
F4 (instead of AMC10)

The satellite names are not that important, what is important is that you know what your dish is aiming at, and if your system is truly operational. Here is a great site that may give you some general info and setup tips:

Footprints by Dish Size - Adjusting the Polar Mount for Prime Focus Antenna - C/Ku-Band Satellite Systems - Tuning, Tracking, Azimuth, Elevation, Declination Angles, F/D Ratio, Focal Distance, Inclinometer, LNB/Feedhorn Assembly, Actuator Assembly, C

What little I know has come from just reading threads on this (and other sites), and just asking questions of the many knowledgable people that post here. If your dish was working before and hasn't been moved or damaged it's probably not that far off from working again, just need to jump in there and figure out what the problem is, good luck!

 

[Lak7]

The 550i is an Analog reciever, and as Phlatwound said, not much C Band Analog left.
What you need to do is add a digital FTA receiver and Slave Kit(google it) This will give you most of the Free stuff you see on Lyngsat.com and Feeds / Backhauls that are available. HD or SD, depends on what you want.