Satellite Workshop 01
This receiver does not appear to be a "clone" of anything else but,
when a dead one arrived in the mail the other day, I was surprised to
find that the power supply is very similar to the Amstrad SRD500
design. Fitting parts from an SRD500 power supply repair kit cured
the fault which had destroyed several parts including the mains input
diode, D501, the 10 resistor, R504 and the MJE18004, Q501. The Bush
kit is available from "Economic Devices."
This receiver is wedge-shaped which, as I tell my customers, makes it
ideal for use as a door stop. But people become rather attached to
their equipment it seems. Certainly, the lady with the wedge-shaped
face was insistent that she would pay me lots of money to fix her
receiver. Faced with an offer like this, how could I refuse? The
symptom was familiar: two vertical white bars and the message "No
video signal."
The LNB voltage was present and, from time to time, a German station
on Astra 1D would appear. This was a valuable clue. A few
measurements confirmed that the tuning was stuck at the lowest
possible frequency. Replacing the SDA3202 surface mount chip beneath
the tuner did the trick.
Now another problem appeared on the screen. A request for the PIN
number! Not knowing the number. I made a "forced entry" by pressing
9A69 on the remote control which I had bought from Sendz for the
princely sum of two pounds! This got me into the menu and I was able
to change the PIN. However, the darn machine continued to request the
PIN each time I applied mains power. The Ferguson instructions on
this are unclear (at least they are to me) so, if anyone knows the
exact sequence of button presses required to disable this feature I'd
be pleased to hear from them. In fact I might even send a free copy
of my book to the writer of the first correct answer!
The power supply whistled in standby so I replaced the 220 F
capacitor and the two 3v9 zeners near the power input socket. Now the
only remaining fault was lines and "streaky pictures." Replacing
every electrolytic on the secondary of the power supply with 105 C
types cured the lines. The streakiness finally disappeared after I
replaced all the electrolytics which sit to the left of the tuner.
Phew!
The lady with the wedge-shaped face hasn't been back to collect it,
yet. Still, it's only six months and I know she'll pay me lots of
money!
(picture supplied on disc)
Whenever I lend out a manual, it arrives back with a page missing!
Unfortunately, I find out only when a receiver comes in for repair
and I have no time to hunt for the errant sheet of paper. Such was
the case with a Ferguson SRD6 which was brought to me by the owner of
the "Bull & Bushel."
He swore to me that nobody had poured beer inside it but it had some
rather suspicious looking stains on top. Luckily the inside was dry
and clean but only three volts was present on the LNB input. Without
the relevant circuit diagram I was forced to trace the supply track
with an indelible red marker pen. The culprit was easy to spot,
however. Diode DK01 on the 22kHz tone board had become so hot that
the solder had melted. I was reluctant to change the diode because
its type was unfamiliar to me and I know that a voltage of exactly
0.6 volts must develop across it for the 22kHz tone to be recognised
by an LNB. At 300mA that's a worst-case dissipation of just 0.16
Watts with the oscillator not running. I don't see why it had run so
hot. Cleaning and resoldering the joints provided a cure but I did
wonder how long it would be before the pub owner brought it back
again.
Occasionally, I get telephone calls from dealers who think I run a
free technical help line. Well, I do but only for those people who
buy spares from me, send me a lot of repairs or give me help in
return. Otherwise, the free advice is by e-mail only. This serves two
purposes: I can answer the e-mail in the evening when I'm less busy
and it leaves the telephone free for my genuine customers. At present
I get roughly ten telephone calls per day and fifteen e-mails*.
That's as many as 125 enquiries per week. At an average of ten
minutes each, that's twenty hours of charity work per week! (Not
counting the replies to letters which are very
time-consuming). Oh yes: for those of you who found the number, I
reply to faxes only if you enclose a five pound
note.
*Nowadays it's nearer to 50 e-mail messages per day!
A local shopkeeper also deals in satellite equipment but he
concentrates on sales and installation while my main business is
repairs and spares. Consequently he brings me receivers to repair and
I pass most of my installation enquiries to him. Since we are only
five minutes apart, he expects me to repair his receivers while he
waits. This is fine for the easy ones but last week he brought me a
tricky one. It was a PRD800 which would give an excellent picture
from the Scart sockets but nothing from the RF Modulator. However,
the terrestrial signal looped through perfectly so there was
obviously no break in the connection. The clue was that, on UHF
channel 69, I could see a faint ghost of a picture from the satellite
receiver. My impression was that the modulator output was on UHF
channel 70.
This clue was all that I required. A few measurements confirmed that
one side of the "Nicky 2" chip was not working. A new chip cured the
fault and my friend went on his way, pleased that he'd seen me sweat
for a change.
Being on the main caravan route to Scarborough does seem to attract
the foreigners. A tiny lady towed a huge fellow with a number one
haircut into the shop. I would have called it a "crewcut" but my
daughter tells me that's not "cool". During the war it was very cool
but things must have hotted up since then. I blame it on global
warming and Mrs Heckmondwyke's greenhouse next door.
But I digress. The tiny lady handed over a Pace D150 and
twittered
"Tell the man what's wrong with it, Yoorgen."
"Lauft nicht." Rumbled the monster in a gutteral voice.
"Yes, Yoorgen, we know it won't work but can we be more
specific?"
"Keine Mitteilungen auf dem Bildschirm. Dekodiert nicht."
Now that last bit I understood but the tiny person peered over the
counter and translated "No information on the screen. Won't
decode."
This was all very strange because the stout fellow clearly understood
every word she said in English! Anyway, I booked it in as "Kaputt",
which seemed to please the hulk so much that his monacle fell
out.
"Aufwiederschauen" I smiled at the pair as they left. I learned that
in Dusseldorf.
"Goetz von Berlichingen" they replied. I guess that means they like
goats.
On test, the D2Mac decoder appeared to work all right until I pointed
the dish at 1 W. The CTV package announced "No Access" even with a
valid smart card. A quick call to Pace established that these
programmes are now broadcast in "Simulcrypt" which means both D2Mac
and DMac. A new Eprom (807-2301009) arrived the following day.
Replacing the existing Eprom in the socket was simple and cured the
problem. It's a real delight to deal with a company that can answer
technical questions and supply the parts for product updates straight
away.
The little woman and large gentleman were staying at the "Bull and
Bushel" so a quick phone call brought them back. I refused the offer
of a 500 deutschmark note and settled for an English tenner instead.
You can't fool an old soldier! I've been caught once with a 500
peseta note. The big gent patted me on the shoulder, kindly, and
called me "Dumkopf." I think he liked me.
Jerry runs the TV and Video repair shop in town. I pass all the TVs
to him and he usually reciprocates with satellite equipment. On this
occasion, however, his problem was so simple that I told him to do it
himself. His customer had acquired a second hand SR950 from an
elderly relative who, having paid 350 to have it installed (!), found
it too complicated to use. Unfortunately, he'd already pressed every
combination of button on the remote. The problem was that there were
no decoder messages and half the channels were missing because the
new owner was using a standard 10.0 GHz LNB.
Now, this model comes programmed for an "Enhanced" 9.75 GHz LNB and,
unlike the similar SRD700, the SR950 has no menu option for any other
local oscillator frequency. The only way to use it with a standard
LNB is to use the "AutoTune" facility. To do this is simple.
You press [SETUP] [>] [>]
[>] then quickly (within 5 seconds) press [SETUP]
and [MUTE]. The receiver will supply 18 volts to the LNB and
search the entire band from the lowest to the highest frequency,
storing each programme on successively higher odd-numbered channels
as it does so. This sequence is repeated with even-numbered channels
and 13 volts to the LNB. It takes several minutes for the automatic
process to take place but once it has finished you will see "OK" on
the screen. Press [CANCEL] and it is done. As the programmes
will be stored in transponder order you then need to reprogramme the
"Favourites." Press button [1] then press the button with the
"smiling face" to select "Favourites" mode.
Now press the [up] and [down] buttons to find "Sky
One" or whichever programme you want as Favourite 1. Press
[STORE] and this programme will be fixed as Favourite channel
1 and the number will increment automatically to Favourite 2 ready
for the next. Press the up/down buttons to find the next programme
and press [STORE]. This process is really simple and best
done without a card inserted so that you can read the
names of the scrambled channels which appear after "Please Insert
Card."
Unfortunately, in Jerry's life, nothing is ever simple. He followed
my instructions but nothing seemed to work. In desperation he brought
the SR950 to my workshop and I connected it via Scart to my TV. There
were no messages because the video bandwidth was set to wide instead
of narrow. Wide shows as a [. . .] symbol in the Setup mode
whereas narrow shows just a single dot within the square brackets,
thus [.]
I corrected this but Autotune failed to find any stations at all,
even though I could see pictures! Changing the "AFC" value from "-32"
to "0" cured this. However, my LNB is a "Universal" type so there was
no point in continuing. Jerry returned to his shop where he uses a
standard 10.0 GHz LNB. Within minutes he was on the phone again.
"It's reset itself to "wide" again and every time I press a button in
the Setup mode it goes into standby!"
After several trips back and forth we realised that he was using a
fully wired Scart connector whereas I was using a partly wired one.
According to the User Instructions, his was correct. However, on
looking at the Scart connection list, I found pins 10 and 12 labelled
as "Data" and "Clock." It seems that his Sony TV was interfering with
these lines. Cutting off the two offending wires restored normal
operation.