(Chris Ayers, High Wycombe (near London) , England)
I had always dreamed about getting satellite TV after first seeing analogue satellite TV at my grandparents when I was about 6.
Well, I finally managed to get "Freeview" in February 2003. This was not enough to satisfy my desires for channels though.
In October 2003 I managed to get my hands on a 60cm black mesh dish and 3 satellite receiver stb’s. The one which I used was the Grundig GSRMK11 because it was the newest and most user-friendly (the other 2 didn’t have a proper menu system).
At first I had the dish on the porch above my front door. Unfortunately, I could not have a dish permanently on the house, so, I had to take the dish down every night (and it was heavy.) Then one night, the worst happened, the dish fell down off the porch and got dented so badly it could pick up almost nothing. Me and my dad managed to get the dish parabolic again by hammering and chiselling the dish for an hour.
After this, I decided to find a more permanent home for the dish. Out of a window was out of the question because the signal was so weak. Then, one night surfing the net, I found pictures of a dish in a garden that could pick up Astra 19.2e perfectly. My Dad said it would never work, so I set out too prove him wrong.
I set out to town and replaced my satellite cable (the ends were coming off and the cable was splitting). I bought 20 meters of nice new cable from Argos for only £10. I got back home, it was about 4:00PM on a November night and I moved my TV and Grundig sat box outside the front door and set my dish up. At first it was useless because I had too many tree’s in the way so I had to trim them down. I also had to have 2 levels of bricks below the dish. My garden is particularly full of tree’s, bushes, shrubs and plants so all this was proving to be very difficult.
Eventually I managed to find Astra 19.2e using a compass I had found. I then spent about 30 mins adjusting to get reasonably sparklie free reception. I was getting very worried by now because it was dark and my breath was turning into steam, so, the cold would not be doing much could to my TV and sat box, I was afraid the insides would start condensing. Finally got it all aligned and set up.
Then, unfortunately, I tripped over the arm of the LNB and it went out of alignment (I can look back and laugh now, but it wasn’t so funny at the time.) Got the dish aligned for a second time. Finally got it into a satisfactory place and left it for the night. Enjoyed Eurosport, DSF and MTV that night. Although sparklies were proving to be a bit of a problem.
After a week, got so fed up with f***ng sparklies I decided to go outside and hack all the plants and bushes around and in front of the dish. Reception improved greatly :-) however garden looks a bit funny :) but I had proved my dad wrong (yay) and could watch sparklie free Osbournes late at night. Perfect, and all I paid was a tenner.
Find out how Chris is getting on with his quest for more tv channels. Check out Chris's own web site
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