My family and I recently moved into a row house we are renting which already had a satellite dish in the garden. My husband bought a receiver from Media Markt and hooked it up along with our new TV. However most channels give us the message 'no CI module in slot', what does this mean? Do we need additional items to receive satellite channels or is this even possible? I'm completely ignorant in this area and any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

More info. Which receiver. Which satellite. Which channels do you want. Which channels do you get.

dave

Maybe you should give your hubby more time to fiddle, figure it out and keep his pride intact.

In the meantime, you should spend your time reading such threads as

http://www.englishforum.ch/tv-intern...tart-here.html
Dummies Guide: Satellite install for free to air channels. No monthly fees - cheap

it means that you're trying to watch an encrypted channel and there is nothing in the CI slot. Ergo you can't watch that channel.

Add to the list of things to do:
what channel are you trying to decode?

We bought a Pace DS810 HD Digital Receiver. Not sure what satellite dish we have but we get an Astra signal. Right now we get about 25 channels, mostly French, German, Austrian and some English (CNN BBC Prime, VIVA Germany, Sky News, NRJ Paris, RTL Austria, Kabel 1 Schweiz are a few). I thought with Satellite you receive mostly UK TV, we're from the States and are basically interested in having more English channels. We have two young kids (4 and 6) so any kids programming would also be good.

you are pointing most likely at 19 degrees east. You seek 28.2 east. Left a bit and slightly down as you look from behind the dish.

Who installed it?

Thanks, will give it a try. Have no idea who installed it, dish was here when we moved in and our contract says we can't remove it. Other than that we have no information on it.

Lucky you

If you can re-align this to 28 Degrees, then you can get the 'FreeSat' channels from the UK, plus the other 'Free to Air' channels.

Yesterday evening I finally setting up my satellite dish (85cm) and have good reception at 28.2° for Astra/Eurobird. I set my (generic) receiver to scan for Free-To-Air channels only, and it found hundreds. The great majority of them aren't worth watching of course, but they're there. The strange thing is that while the reception of every other station I've tested so far is fine, all the BBC and ITV channels seem to be unavailable. No picture or sound. The only thing that does function properly for BBC and ITV is the Electronic Program Guide.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

The BBC and ITV channels are on a 'Narrow beam' and not aimed here, so these channels are more difficult to get. Try fine tuning your dish.

...which would mean that a scan would find them but not be able to display any more than the EPG?

Hmmm. I thought I had actually fine tuned the dish. I used one of those little "sat finder" gadgets with a gauge and horrible whine and the signal seemed pretty good - but I'll persevere then. Maybe set the scan to the specific frequency of the transponder...

Thanks for your help!

These meters normally have a 'gain' control which enables you to turn donw the gain and increase the sensitiviy of the meter. Maybe select the BBC channel while doing this as well.

I use a profi meter which allows you to check the individual polorisation (V/H) and frequency (H/L) separately.

Whew! Got it done in the end but it took most of the w/e.

The only way I could get the signal strong enough for BBC/ITV was to realign my dish to 28.2°E and then move both the other LNBs (13 &19.2°) to match. Oh, and I had to adjust the elevation to somewhere between.

Probably would have been a lot easier with your pro meter, OTH, it probably cost more than my dish