AFN releases July 31 advice, deadline on realigning satellite dishes

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Armed Forces Network issued a press release July 18, advising subscribers on issues related to simultaneously trying to receive AFN and local television broadcasts in the U.K. and Europe.

According to an AFN press release, 40,000 people have viewed AFN Europe's on-line manuals, videos and hints to realign their satellite dish and reconfigure their decoder, and another 1,500 have called AFN's Help Desk seeking alignment advice.

If you get AFN TV via a direct-to-home house-hold satellite dish and decoder, realignment must be done prior to the end of this month, said Bill Bigelow, AFN Europe commander.

"We know this change will inconvenience folks, but people need to lock in the new satellite now to July 31 to continue getting AFN TV," said Bigelow.

According to AFN, the biggest reported blip has been for viewers in Germany and Italy who want to get both AFN and host nation TV shows.

U.K viewers have some of the same general issues as people in Germany and Italy, said Staff Sgt. Timothy Vergori, an AFN Detachment technician at RAF Feltwell.

"If you want AFN and also with a solid signal, we recommend you use two separate dishes," said Vergori.

If a viewer installs two separate dishes, properly aligns them, yet still has trouble locking onto the AFN signal, the problem may be hardware, said Vergori. In this instance, "you may need to replace your LNB [low-noise block] with a newer model. They typically sell these at the Exchange on RAF Lakenheath or at local retail stores."

The LNB is the amplifier in front of the reflecting part of the dish, which is usually held in place by one to three metal bars or braces. The bigger the dish, the less often viewers will lose signal during heavy rain or snow.

Fixes in the U.K. and those in other parts of Europe are different, said Vergori, advising that viewers reading online chatter about Germany- or Italy-based remedies may not work here in the U.K.

For instance, the AFN Help desk is advising viewers who want both AFN and German TV to use a 100-120 cm dish with a special adapter and two individual LNBs. In the U.K., viewers should maintain two dishes.

For people in Italy who want to continue to get AFN TV and local service, a possible solution is to use one of the different types of commercially available clip-on satellite devices which do not require the dish to be physically moved. Vergori doesn't recommend this for U.K. viewers as he doesn't have sufficient data on the success of receiving a solid signal using the clip-on dishes.

Since setting up a dish and adjusting a decoder varies according to decoder model and other variables use the manuals and how-to-videos in English, German and Italian at www.afneurope.net or contact the AFN Help Desk for unresolved issues.

The AFN Help Desk is manned Tuesday-Friday from 1-9 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Central European Time). Viewers from Germany, Italy, Belgium, the UK and most other European countries can call via a toll free-number, 00800-2362683662 (00800-afnantenna).

(George A. Smith, AFN Europe Public Affairs, contribute to this article.)