Problem tuning second satellite (astra 1) to XF85 sony bravia TV

[s00bf06e]

Hi,

We recently go a 49 inch XF85 tv for our newly built house here in Ireland and are having trouble tuning in the second satellite feed to pick up the german channels. We have two satellite feeds (28.2 and 19.2) and a digital aerial feed connected to the TV. The cable for the english satellite is connected to the 'main' connection and the one for the german is connected to the 'sub' connector but the tv is not picking up any signal from the astra 1 dish. I check the cable by connecting it to my old tv and sat box and it tuned to teh german channels fine so that is not the problem and I also only connected the german cable to teh TV and it still wouldn't pick up any channels. Is there something I'm not doing or settings I need to change? I even got my aerial/dish installer to check everything and try tue it but he couldn't. We also reset the TV to factory and tried again and no joy. So i'm stumped. Any advice accepted.

Thanks in advance.

[Pascale_F]

Hi s00bf06e,

Welcome to the community.

I'll see if I can track down an answer. Maybe someone else in the community has an idea in the meantime.

Thanks,

Pascale

[dutchice]

Hi @s00bf06e,

First off I'd like to give you a warm welcome to the Sony Online Community! I think we could go through some very basic steps together to find exactly what is the problem. I would like you to first confirm to us that:

• you have selected the correct steps in the wizard for setting up your satellite reception on the TV. There is a step where you are asked if you are connecting two different dishes with each their own single LNB to the two SAT connectors on the TV.
• you have already tried to proceed to the next step of searching for channels on both dishes despite the TV displaying no signal strength for the ASTRA 19.2 dish, and that after the search completes no channels are tuned for ASTRA 19.2.
• you can easily access both dishes currently to perform basic operations at the LNB outputs.

Confirm the above so we can get started.

Cheers,

Dutchice

[s00bf06e]

Hi Dutchie,

Thanks for getting back to me.

1. I'm not sure if I did select if I was connecting to two different dishes, to be honest I don't remember being asked that (but it is a week or more since I set up the tv), but I get the screen which has Sat 1, Sat 2, Sat 3, Sat 4 . How to I get back to that wizard, do I reset to factory? ( I dont want to loose the apps I have installed/dpownloaded already) . But even if I only connect the cable from the 19.2 dish (which worked with another tv and box) to teh main connector it failed to pick up anything- no signal strenght.

2. I did continue to try tune both dishes but it has never picked up anything from 19.2.

3. The dishes themselves are high on the side of the house, but the installer will come back if I need to get access to the LNB outputs and make whatever changes are necessary.

Thanks in advance, it is frustrating that I cannot get it to work cnsidering the build it sat tuners were one of the main reasons I went for the Sony.

Ciaran

[dutchice]

Hi Ciaran,

Thanks for your clear answers. We need to isolate the problem. It should be fairly easy. It is either the TV's own satellite reception settings, the type of LNB or the cable connecting the two.

• To exclude the cable you will need to swap the ends from the 19.2 LNB to the 28.2 LNB then make sure that you have reception from the 28.2 dish using the cable that was previously on the 19.2 dish. If this works, then we know the cable is not the culprit. Often if the centre conductor wire of your coaxial cable (on the TV-end) is not reaching at least the surface plane of the connector edge, it will not make proper contact with the female side built in the TV. Note that the centre conductor wire should also not protrude out any longer than 2 mm max from the surface plane of the connector edge.
  

• It might be also worth checking for the LNB type on the BOX or TV which has reception of the 19.2 dish for the correct settings of Voltage (13v/18v), Tone (0kHz/22kHz), Oscillator Freq. (9.75GHz/10.60GHz) and IF Range (950-1950MHz/1100-2150MHz). Unless of course you know definitely that both LNB's are identical. In which case the settings you already have in the TV for 28.8 should do for 19.2 too. At this point we will also know what type of settings should work for the attached LNB on 19.2.
• Please also find out if you are or are not using DiSEqC switches anywhere between the TV and LNB. Note that some multi-head LNB's have built-in switches. So it might not always be visible or known to you. The use of these switches requires a dedicated antenna configuration on the TV.
• I believe that once the above is cleared out, you should start all over with the Digital Satellite Setup. There is no need to perform a [Factory Data Reset].
  Press the HOME button, then select [Settings] > [Channel setup] > [Digital setup] > [Satellite setup] > [Digital satellite tuning]. Press OK when warned that all programmes tuned might be lost. From the available options, choose [Antenna Configuration] > [Fixed Antenna]. Select this only if you are sure you don't make use of DiSEqC switches. As a test you could opt to setup one fixed antenna i.e. 19.2. Then return back to the options, leave [Band], [Band frequency], [General Satellite] and [DiSEqC Control] on their default values, since you are configuring a fixed antenna. Select [Scan type] to [Full Scan]. You could alternatively do a manual scan in order to setup any LNB specific options too. But you will have to search manually for the transponders you wish to tune in.
• Note that when configuring your two fixed antenna configuration and connecting both dishes to the MAIN and SUB connectors, you will also have to set [Satellite tuner mode selection] to [Satellite twin tuner mode].

I understand that at times configuring your new TV might be a daunting task. If you make sure that all hardware is properly setup and can confirm that you know what type of hardware you are using, perhaps you could try to press the [HELP] button 5 times on the remote, dial the number displayed for customer support in your region, then proceed to Remote Support to generate your access code. Sony Customer Support will be glad to remotely make sure the configuration is set correctly for both your dishes.

Keep us posted Ciaran!

Cheers,

Dutchice

[s00bf06e]

Hi Again,

Sorry for taking so long to get back . I tried everything again over the christmas break and in the end called sony who connected into the TV over the internet and then decided I needed a service engineer. SO a guy came out after christmas and straight away changed the main board on the tv. The problem still existed. He tested a few things and swapped over the  sat cables etc. He thought the problem was then with the tuner as whatever satellite was connected to the 'main' connection worked and the one connected to the 'sub' connection did not. He then questioned if the TV was capable of receiving a feed from two different satellites at the same time, i.e Astra1 and Eurobird 28.2. But anyway he took the tv away and said he would put in a new tuner. SO got a call last week that the tv was ready and that he would leave it in the shop where I got it. I Picked it up and the same problem was still there when I got it home. I called the shop and spoke to one of the sales men there. He said he didn't think the TV could take two seperate satillite dish feeds at once either and that the main and sub connections are for connecting two feeds from the same satellite so you can record from one and watch the other.

So my question is can the tv even do what we want it to or is their anybody who has my planned setup in place with a SOny tv.

Regards

Ciaran

[dutchice]

Hi Ciaran,

Thanks for your full description of what has taken place so far. Please allow me to verify this directly with our engineers. I will get back to you as soon as I can, but be aware that it often takes sometime before I can get a definite answer for you.

Cheers,

Dutchice

[s00bf06e]

Hi,

Just wondering did you get anywhere with this. The retailer is now telling me its cant do it even thou they told me it could when I was buying it.

Regards

[dutchice]

Hi Ciaran,

I managed to discuss your issue yesterday. Without going into too much technical details, let me directly inform you that the twin tuner in your TV has been specifically designed for the use case to enable you viewing channels while recording others. This capability requires you to use the same satellite antenna configuration for both Main and Sub connectors on your TV. The three possible satellite antenna configurations are as follows:

• Single Cable Distribution: enables delivery of programmes to multiple receivers over a single coaxial cable. So if you have a Unicable LNB or a SatCR device feeding multiple receivers in your home you must select this configuration.
• Fixed Antenna: is usually the simplest installation type, in which there is one satellite dish and LNB. If you plan to use this configuration and make use of both SAT connectors, you must set [Satellite tuner mode selection] to satellite twin tuner mode before the [Digital satellite tuning] process.
• DiSEqC: is also very popular and allows you connect to multiple satellite dishes or LNBs grouped on a DiSEqC switch to each of the SAT connectors on your TV or even both simultaneously.

So in short if you have chosen for a particular configuration for the Main connector, you will be required to have the same configuration for the Sub connector too. This means that the twin tuner is not designed to have (as what you are trying to do) a fixed antenna configuration on the Main connector while having a different fixed antenna configuration for the Sub connector.

To achieve the simultaneous reception of two independent fixed antennas as in your case, we suggest you make use of the very commonly used DiSEqC switches to connect both dishes to the switch first, then connect the switch output to your Main connector through a single coaxial cable. In order to use the twin tuner to enable the viewing while recording capability, your switch must be a 2x2 multi-switch type which combines both dishes into one feed but also has two outputs of the combined feed. You then connect switch output 1 to your Main connector and switch output 2 to your Sub connector. In this way you provide the same feed to both connectors on the TV and can make use of the twin tuner the way it was designed for use.

Be aware that if you plan to view and record encrypted channels, you will be required to have a supported CAM module and Smart Card inserted in the CAM slot of the TV. However the twin tuner can only have access once at a time to the CAM slot. This means that the viewing while recording capability is not supported for two encrypted channels simultaneously.

I hope our response clarifies your issue and hopefully is also helpful in solving it. Don't hesitate to ask any further questions you might have. We are here for you.

Cheers,

Dutchice