Satellites and the fitting of

[Squiffy]

Morning all, after our trip down to the South of France recently we lost our satellite signal about half way down, not the end of the world but really annoying as we lost not only Sky, freesat but also the radio stations, luckily we had arranged Smarty sims for our phones before we left so could use our data quota for navigation and news etc unlike EE our contract provider who wanted to charge us £2 per day for EU usage, however the fact is that since they changed the footprint of Astra N/S our maxiview sat dome ceased to pick up a signal when further than about 200 miles down. So on our return I contacted Jackson liesure and bought their 85cm self seeking dish, nice bit of kit which was delivered by one of their guys to my door as they had a job on in Bristol which is about 3/4 of an hour away from us.
Anyway the whole point of this post is to say that removing the old dome sat was comparatively easy and quick but removing the feet that I had glued down 8 years ago was an absolute nightmare, I had to remove them as they sat exactly where the new base was going to sit. I had to in the end resort to the multi tool with a toothless blade and even then had to use two hardwood wedges to drive between the plate feet and van roof and this gave me the definitive answer to the glue and screw brigade and those of us that just glue, just glueing has proved to me to be completely exonerated as there was no way on this earth even in hurricane Ian would that dome have come off it would have destroyed the dome before the feet would have parted from the van roof.
One other thing as well Jackson liesure said the new dish mounting was to be glued down with Sikaflex 212 as this was the industry standard, I however now disagree and say that the much cheaper Evo stick "Sticks like shit" is just as good and totally adequate for the job. When I've finished putting the kit in I'll post some photos, have to say that the dish is enormous so when it gets too expensive to buy diesel I'll be putting my sailing skills into practice. . Phil

 

[Squiffy]

Morning all, it's a typical late autumn day here at Tregegar House Caravan park, raining and not so warm so I thought I'd continue with my post on satellite fitting.
Well I've finished the set up and have used it on multiple occasions since I first posted. Below are a few photos as promised.
There are four coaxial cables that come down from the dish three of which are sky + cables that go through one gland these were produced by splitting one of the twin cables, the fourth cable was standard coaxial cable which carries not only the signal but also the power to enable the dish to manoeuvre. Because the LMB is a standard narrow beam quad the sky Q box will not work with a narrow beam LMB so a further piece of equipment had to be fitted to allow the Sky Q functions to work on a single cable rather than the usual twin affair as fitted at home to a widebeam LMB.
So now we have everything that's available on Sky Q at home away from home. I've fitted quick release connectors to the Sky box and on cable ends in the van and at home so that it's a 10 second removal at home and a 30 second fitting in the van, which includes the velcro fitting clips to hold the box in place.
The only other thing that has to be done is entering the engineer code on the box once turned on and changing the LMB settings from Wideband to SCR ( Single Cable Recieving ).
So all in all I'm really pleased with the result as we can pause, replay, record or watch pre recorded programs at will, even if most of the recorded programs are produced by the grandchildren, Octonaughts, Paw patrol and what I've found as really interesting Horrible histories plus Operation ouch, I would highly recommend watching them .

P.s. If anyone would like to know anything more about the How's and why's then please ask.

 

[Millie Master]

Phil; we used to split our sides when touring through France, stopping on Aires when at approx. 17.30 hrs every single French van there would turn on their TV' s and the dishes (like your new one) went up, with them all swivelling this way and that, just like a set from Strictly Come Dancing!

Phil

 

[Squiffy]

Phil; we used to split our sides when touring through France, stopping on Aires when at approx. 17.30 hrs every single French van there would turn on their TV' s and the dishes (like your new one) went up, with them all swivelling this way and that, just like a set from Strictly Come Dancing!

Phil

As I said in my original post Phil, I can always use it as a sail. Phil.