If you do not have a Sky digibox the tuning parameters for Caroline
at 28.5° East are:-

Frequency 11390 Ghz

Polarity 'V' or 'Vertical'

Symbol Rate 27500

FEC 2/3

 

This should be the coverage pattern for Caroline. A Sky minidish is generally OK within the 56dBW area.

Footprint courtesy of  http://www.eutelsat.com

caroline

If your dish is less than 5 years old it may be fitted with a universal LNB which will allow you to readily receive digital signals.

If you buy a digital receiver and point your dish at 28.5 and still cannot receive Caroline you will need to buy a Universal LNB. A Universal LNB costs from around £15. If you buy one with a TWIN output you'll even be able to continue using your old analogue box as well as the new digital box that you're going to buy - however, at time of writing there are no analogue signals at 28.2 or 28.5. You would, however, need two separate cable feeds from a TWIN output LNB, not a DUAL output (a dual output LNB splits horizontal and vertical signals into two separate feeds for cable distribution systems, whereas a twin output LNB feeds two separate satellite receivers). You must seal the connection between LNB and cable to prevent water from entering the LNB and cable. This is very important - self amalgamating tape is generally used for this purpose. If you intend to be frequently changing over cable connections at the digital receiver it can be fiddly unscrewing the 'F' connector. 'F' connectors can be converted into push on connectors by buying screw on adaptors.

New Free to Air (commonly referred to as FTA) digital boxes are available from around £169. No phone line or subscription is required. There are even boxes that will receive digital and analogue, for as little as £229. Alternatively, if you have one, you CAN use your Sky digibox. You could buy another small oval minidish as used by sky for around £29-£39. I  mounted mine on a small board which sat in the yard outside and therefore did not infringe planning regulations, which often stipulate only one dish per dwelling. (There are other more technical ways of mounting two or more LNBs on one dish)

If it fails to restart (displaying Channel 998), using the remote, first press 'services', 4 and 4 again. Do not alter any settings. Just highlight 'Find Channels' and press 'Select'. Store any channel and the box should now be back to normal.

Should this fail, you will need to unplug from mains power, wait a minute or so and then reconnect. It could take, in extreme cases, as long as 10 minutes to restart and during this time the friendly sky box will display the message, 'no satellite signal is being received'. Do not panic! It will work again. It is just like a PC which crashes and needs to be restarted.

The following is courtesy of the excellent website www.satcure.co.uk  :-

"Switch off the receiver at the mains wall socket. Press and hold the front panel "backup" button and switch the mains power back on. Continue to hold the button for 20 seconds or until the LEDs all light (depends on the make/model). As soon as this happens, you'll see a message on the screen (only if you have connected via the TV Scart). Leave the receiver for at least 15 minutes to download the software via satellite.

Note that this will not work unless the receiver is getting a good signal!

After a forced download you should switch the receiver off at the 230v wall socket for ten seconds. Remove the card. Switch back on. Wait till it asks for the card then insert it. This sequence is occasionally necessary to solve problems caused by the download, although I don't know why! The same sequence repeated a couple of times will often clear unwanted "Personal Planner" entries.

Note that a software download will occasionally change user settings back to factory standard (for example the UHF output channel to 68).

Note that switching the Digibox mains power off can sometimes show up a Power Supply fault which you didn't know it had! Be prepared to get it repaired if it's more than about 18 months old."

 Now, using your Sky remote, press SERVICES, then 4, then 4 again. You are now able to manually tune a channel.

Step 1


Enter the frequency 11585 simply by pressing those digits on the remote. Now go down to the next box and change to 'H', for horizontal. The Symbol rate is 27.5 and the FEC needs to be changed to 2/3. Next highlight the Find Channels box and press select.

Step 2

You should now have a selection of channels to choose from. Some are encrypted and there is probably only one that you will wish to select - Radio Caroline. Highlight Radio Caroline and place a tick on it by pressing the yellow button on your remote.

Now press SERVICES again, followed by ' 6' for OTHER CHANNELS

If you buy a digibox that has never received any signals (and consequent software downloads) from 28.2° you may find that you need to select 'TV Guide', followed by '8' for OTHER CHANNELS

You should see Radio Caroline listed. Highlight Radio Caroline and press 'Select'.

This is the screen you should now see. If so...

Congratulations, you can hear Caroline! Now connect the box to your stereo system and hide the remote!

You may find that you occasionally lose all of the 'OTHER' channels that you have stored. This never happened at 19.2 but you are now in the world of $ky Digital and for reasons known only to them certain digiboxes are prone to losing these 'OTHER' channels at irregular intervals, possibly caused by software downloads. I can offer no practical solutions (other than turning the dish away from 28.2/28.5  overnight to avoid the usual overnight EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) update...but that does work, as I managed to continue using a digibox at 28.2 for several months and retain the original software (light blue screenshots) until I forgot one night...

If you unplug the digibox, or experience a power cut, the digibox will not restore itself to the channel to which you were previously tuned. Simply select 'Other Channels', then Radio Caroline. If this does not work you will need to begin again and go through the complete tuning procedure for Radio Caroline as per the above tuning parameters

Note: Sky will tell you that you must always keep their box connected to 28.2°. This is true as it enables you to receive the software updates. In practice I have known digiboxes to be disconnected for several weeks and still function perfectly when reconnected to Sky at 28.2°.  If you have any comments or need any more information e-mail chris@vinylgems.co.uk

Good Luck and happy listening,

Chris B.

P.S. If you live in a conservation area, apartment, or have any other difficulty with positioning of dish, remember - Satellite dishes do NOT need to be mounted high on walls or chimneys (see picture on next page). If you have a south facing window you may be able to achieve satisfactory reception through glass with a dish mounted indoors.

If you ever turn your dish to 13 or 19.2° you may be pleased to know that there are many completely free to air TV channels available and a huge choice of radio stations. Some of these are listed in Caroline Listeners Digibox Questions & Answers For full details of channels available at various positions take a look at www.lyngsat.com

If you are wondering what you could listen to or view, completely free, using your sky digibox or any other digital receiver at 28.2° East, you will find a comprehensive list of 'Free to Air Channels' at another part of this site. There is also more digital TV & radio information at: UK TV  &  BBC Satellite Radio Reception in Europe.