Rick's Notes
August 2004

2004/08/21

Well, a friend on holiday in the UK has loaned me their remote control so I can patch the Astra 19.2°E channels back in.
So I did.

You know, if I wasn't such a laid back guy, I'd have slit my throat by now. I don't get it. I really don't...

Picture the scene: LNB hooked to little mesh dish (less likely to be blown over in the wind than the big solid dish). Receiving through a bunch of willow trees. It is a miserable August so it is raining. I hook up the Digibox and prepare to be surprised if it gets anything at all.

The signal strength is barely even visible. The signal quality is around 80%!!!
In the way of the signal are wet trees, rain, and clouds. CNN on analogue has sparklies. CNN on digital sometimes glitches, but in general all the stations come in okay. They have done for hours, days. I have Alouette playing into the hi-fi.
Like, how the f... is this even possible?

Like I said... I give up. This makes no sense to me at all. There should be no signal. Hell, analogue is suffering from the weather - why isn't digital!?

Lousy signal strength, unexpectedly good quality...

(but I bet if I pointed the dish to 28.2°E...)

Anyway, updated the channel list. CC Valenciana is no longer, CNBC Europe is moving, and some other stuff.

Added the document on getting Sky Digital, and the one about finding channels. Also numerous small updates and corrections to the rest of the text.

2004/08/22

Ater a number of experiments and reprogramming because of the loss of all of the Other Channels, I now have a workable theory. It is a weird theory, but it does at least appear to be 'real'!

I've also written a mini-history.

2004/08/24

Moved the Digibox to 28.2°E for some things in English. :-)

2004/08/26

Added documents relating to SkyDigital's service(s).

2004/08/31

Lost the SkyDigital signal. The Digibox does, occasionally, read the time and date from the satellite so I know it is just a simple alignment problem.
The moral of the story - if you have a dish propped up with ridge tiles and rocks, it isn't wise to have two cats and nine kittens (!) anywhere in the proximity of the dish - they are Weapons Of Miniature Destruction!

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