Alden SSC Woes

[Sunlovers]

Our aged Alden SSC half-moon controller is refusing to lock onto anything of late. We recently had two nights of successful lock-on in France, but the following day having moved a couple of hundred KM's northwards, it then stubbornly refused to want to lock onto anything again. So, I've made contact with Alden in Strasbourg and they've responded by saying that it is now not possible to do anything with the half-moon controller as it is not HD compatible.

My concern with this is that we had been able to receive a stream whilst in France, "after" the latest of frequency changes, but then subsequently we're not able to receive anything further .... it doesn't make sense that we could receive a stream, and now having not changed anything but our geographical position (we're now back in the UK) we cannot lock onto a satellite feed.

My question therefore is, has anyone else got a working half-moon SSC controller that's taken the frequency updates offered from the latest downloads, and are they still able to enjoy using their system? If not, have there been any workarounds to overcome the shortfalls of the aging system? Any advice gladly welcomed before we have to stump up £380 on a new Alden HD controller

 

[Sunlovers]

Thanks for this Eddievanbitz. I had already been using that instruction sheet for the last four years or so, and indeed had already tried to update the system again using the same instructions, but as of today I can't even get the system to lock on at all. I have changed the LNB for a brand new like for like and remade the cable connections (even though the whole system was working fine in Le Pellerin) but by the time we had driven an hour northwest to Vannes it then refused to want to lock on again.

I am intent on taking the van off of its hard standing and out to an open area with a completely clean line of sight to the sky (we have trees all around us and I can't rule out they are causing the lock on problem even though I have changed the LNB). I understand I have to get it to lock onto Astra1 to download the codes, but I'm still feeling rather nervous that it won't lock on even when in open ground

 

[eddie]

No, Astra1 just proves nothing physically wrong, and the update will work

If it won't lock on to Astra1 there is a physical fault and no amount of updating will fix it

 

[Sunlovers]

No, Astra1 just proves nothing physically wrong, and the update will work

If it won't lock on to Astra1 there is a physical fault and no amount of updating will fix it

And that is exactly the kind of information I need to collect, THANKS. So if I can get to clear skies and can't lock on, then I know I'm into sorting out a new SSC

 

[michndan]

I have sold mine now but I had all the latest updates done by Alden themselves through Miriad in Derby. They are very good at fixing these dishes if a bit slow. You need to check your coax they break anywhere in the run. Use a multi metre if you can to test the voltage. If had to replace mine twice over the years but make sure you use the super thin stuff. Also check the LNB arm measurements as they wear and can cause problems. See below.

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[Sunlovers]

I have sold mine now but I had all the latest updates done by Alden themselves through Miriad in Derby. They are very good at fixing these dishes if a bit slow. You need to check your coax they break anywhere in the run. Use a multi metre if you can to test the voltage. If had to replace mine twice over the years but make sure you use the super thin stuff. Also check the LNB arm measurements as they wear and can cause problems.
———————

Thanks Mitchndan, again, that’s a helpful insight to take note of. I’ll report back as soon as I can.

 

[Sunlovers]

Ok, I now have a clean line of sight to the sky, and I can successfully lock on to Astra1. Following the update instructions from Eddie at Vanbitz however, I can’t understand how by selecting Astra2s then closing the dish down it is able to then download anything over the air when I am pressing the red button for 5 seconds at a time ?‍
Despite trying every combination of ideas around that I still cannot update the SSC. HELP please ?

 

[michndan]

If yours is the half moon that will not work but what it can do is corrupt the stored data. I know this from personal experience. I would say you need to post it to Miriad so he can send it to France for update. He can do some without sending just depends on your version. his name is
Ron
Ron Griffiths
Technical Support
For technical support please email technicalsupport@miriad-products.com

Tel: 01283 586060
If you call him he will help you out mine was last updated in July 2018. If nothing else he can plug it in and see what the frequency’s held on the controller are.

 

[Geo]

SunLovers From your first two posts i calculate you drive at 124.27 mph

 

[Sunlovers]

If yours is the half moon that will not work but what it can do is corrupt the stored data. I know this from personal experience. I would say you need to post it to Miriad so he can send it to France for update. He can do some without sending just depends on your version. his name is
Ron
Ron Griffiths
Technical Support
For technical support please email technicalsupport@miriad-products.com

Tel: 01283 586060
If you call him he will help you out mine was last updated in July 2018. If nothing else he can plug it in and see what the frequency’s held on the controller are.

Thanks for that Mitchndan, I’ll look into doing just that if all else fails tomorrow. Not giving up “just yet” and the fact that I can lock onto Astra1 tells me it’s not broken beyond repair just yet ?

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[eddie]

If yours is the half moon that will not work but what it can do is corrupt the stored data. I know this from personal experience. I would say you need to post it to Miriad so he can send it to France for update. He can do some without sending just depends on your version. his name is
Ron
Ron Griffiths
Technical Support
For technical support please email technicalsupport@miriad-products.com

Tel: 01283 586060
If you call him he will help you out mine was last updated in July 2018. If nothing else he can plug it in and see what the frequency’s held on the controller are.

He left

The instructions for the update work perfectly well for the half moon controller

 

[Sunlovers]

eddievanbitz so how does the system take the new frequencies when the system is closed down? If locking on to Astra1 proves it’s functioning, do the new settings come down at that point? Is it then a case of getting them to write to the flash memory by following your instructions? I just can’t seem to get anywhere despite trying many times to follow the sequence.

I get the one, then two, then three flashing lights bit, but when the dish goes back up to find Astra2, it just seeks forever ?

 

[eddie]

Getting the system to acquire Astra1 down loads nothing, it just proves that there is physically nothing wrong with the system, LNB, no broken cabling etc

The update is changing pre-loaded codes in the half moon controller. It doesn’t even need to be in the Motorhome.

If your following the instructions precisely, and your getting the LED sequence exactly as described in the instructions you may have another issue as dozens of people have successfully updated their system with this method.

Good luck

 

[Sunlovers]

A disappointing day on the updating score then. Been back over the crib sheet five times again and each time there’s just no joy. The TV has at least got the right time set on it now though so I suppose I should be grateful for that after all my patience.

In your instructions you refer to checking that you’ve got all three leds flashing after the update. Apart from watching them illuminate individually (& collectively) as you progress through the red button 5 second hold part, is there supposed to be another way to verify this?

 

[Funnymunny]

Back a couple of years ago I had the same problem with our alden, I tried to follow Eddies sequence but it didn't work so I went and had a look on you tube and found a video on how to update it, it worked perfectly. Have a look on You Tube its worth a try

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[Sunlovers]

Back a couple of years ago I had the same problem with our alden, I tried to follow Eddies sequence but it didn't work so I went and had a look on you tube and found a video on how to update it, it worked perfectly. Have a look on You Tube its worth a try

Is that the Australian one where he unplugs the motor drive whilst doing the button pressing sequences?

 

[Funnymunny]

Is that the Australian one where he unplugs the motor drive whilst doing the button pressing sequences?

Sorry as I said it was back some time ago and honestly cant remember, I cant say it was Australian I thought it was a British guy

 

[Sunlovers]

Funnymunny no worries, I’ve bitten the bullet and ordered a new SSC-HD at a cost of £370 from RoadPro (didn’t even realise I could have saved 5% being a funster ?) I’ll update everyone once it’s arrived and plugged in ?

 

[Sunlovers]

OK, so the good news today is that having invested £370.00 of my hard-earned sheckles into a brand spanking shiny new Alden SSC-HD box, we now have a fully functioning satellite system on our moho again Part of me is thinking I really should have done this 4 years ago, but hey ho, that's all part of the learning curve I guess. From the research and diligence undertaken, I could only come to the conclusion that the old half-moon SD box was never going to capable of fetching the newer HD streams which were overtaking the SD streams, and as each month went by, the availability of transmission that the old unit could work with was definitely getting less and less each time.

So, if you're reading this and wondering whether or not you can still eke another year out of your old piece of hardware, the answer is truly, NOT!

 

[eddie]

Glad that your pleased and it is all sorted.

However, we regularly get emails thanking us for the update on the half moon controller, perhaps your box had a fault so the update didn't make a difference?

Regarding eking out more serviceable years, you can connect a HD freesat or HD FTA box it would have given you all the HD as nothing has fundamentally changed with your set up.

I will check with Alden to to be 100% that no recent changed could have affected the FOC instructions the we have on our web site to help people.

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[Sunlovers]

eddievanbitz I'd contacted Alden direct too, and the support guy's response is included in the body below. Our TV itself has the necessary hardware to bring the feeds in, but it wouldn't be able to control the dish. I guess come the end, we were just wanting it to work when we occasionally decided to pop the dish up and pull the TV out of the cupboard, even it was only to get the BBC news etc. With the old controller always needing coaxing and tiggling we just had to accept that it had done its time for us.

I'm certain that over the past 6 years I have referred to your crib sheet many a time when needed, to get the dish to lock on as required. Perhaps it was failing, we won't ever know. What's not clear is why we had two good days with it in the middle of a month away, and then nothing again, despite getting closer to the UK with every hour passing. When it locked on, it was perfect, it just wouldn't lock on every time, despite the atmospheric conditions being good and the line of sight being clear. Technology eh? Guaranteed to expire with the passage of time!

Dear Sir,

Thank you very much for your mail.

Due to HD technology’s opportunities, it is now « mandatory » to get an Alden control box SSC HD: it is not possible to catch properly the requested satellites with an « old » version control box (such as your half moon SSC box), whereas SD technology will not match 100%.

We suggest you to order to RoadPro:

Name: Module SSC HD Auto Alden
Reference: SSC-G30A
Price: 399€ (excl. workforce, logistic and transportation fees).

We invite you to contact our English distributor so that he can get back to you effectively.

Please find below the contact.

RoadPro

Tel: 01327 312233
Email: sales@roadpro.co.uk

https://www.roadpro.co.uk

 

[eddie]

Alden have been "good" for a number of years claiming that updates cannot be done, whilst we "suss" out a "workaround" to a simple "Non"

I have emailed a contact in their technical department who isn't "front of house" and asked if anything has changed recently to stop the "fix" from working.

I will report back when I get a response, after lunch, a fag break, a chat another break and then a coffee and all the other things French technicians "need" to do prior to answering emails

 

[Sunlovers]

"Titter"

 

[Sunlovers]

eddievanbitz ..... So, did the back-of-house techy man give you any worthwhile insight as to Alden's latest position on this problem for half-moon controller owners? Interested to know now more for curiosity's sake than anything else. This weekend we were pitched up right behind a big old fir hedge and I thought to myself, hmm, there's no way that's going to get a lock on sitting here, but to my complete delight, with the new HD box in place, the dish went up, rotated once, jiggled a smidge to fine-tune itself and locked on perfectly.

 

[Sunlovers]

For anyone considering whether the Alden upgrade spend is worth the money, we've found we can now lock on and collect a strong signal from our hard standing storage position. This is in a yard surrounded by high dense trees and it's somewhere we have never been able to get a lock on in 6 years before. Since changing the old half-moon controller to the newer SSC-HD box it's locked on to the signal wherever we have tried to find it. Whilst I was reluctant to spend the coin for something we don't make masses of use of, to have the facility available is reassuringly comforting, especially when we will be away in the darker winter months with a bit more "inside down-time"

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[Sunlovers]

Question for all — currently sitting in Dinkelsbühl, Germany. I can find Astra 23e and get a Lock but I cannot receive any signal. I can also lock onto Eurobird 9a/9e but not get a signal. So, do I need to be doing anything different to get a picture? Puzzled ... all was fine in Belgium a few days ago. Help sought, thanks ?

 

[Sunlovers]

Continuing the saga, whilst we were absolutely fine receiving a full signal in Belgium, by the time we got to Cologne just two hours further east, we had nothing on Astra 28e. As we travelled further south and more in the middle of Germany we weren't able to get a lock on at all, not even Hotbird (13e). As we travelled back towards France, we were still unable to collect any usable signal until we eventually got to Sedan. There was something there, Signal was 95%, but Quality was zero to 40% and flaky with it. It wasn't until we got to Embry that the whole system lit up again and worked just fine (without us having done anything or changed any settings).

I guess my question would now be, with an 85cm dish, a brand new LNB and a brand new Alden HDSSC is there anything else I can do to be assured of getting a consistent signal result?

 

[eddie]

I forgot to let you know that Alden told us that the update instructions for the half moon controller should still work.

Did you skew the new LNB properly?

But more worrying is that is you can't get any satellite it more likely to be cable break which we see quite often

 

[Sunlovers]

I forgot to let you know that Alden told us that the update instructions for the half moon controller should still work.

Did you skew the new LNB properly?

But more worrying is that is you can't get any satellite it more likely to be cable break which we see quite often

Hi Eddie, the cable can't be broken as when we arrived in Embry last night (10 miles west of Montreuil) the dish locked on in a flash, and was proudly pulling the signal in as if it had been doing it all fortnight Indeed, now back home and with the van on the drive, I popped the dish up and again it locked on and worked perfectly in a trice. So, the cable is confirmed as good, and with regards the LNB, I aligned it using the fixing clamp and the moulded mark on the LNB.

I appreciate I would need to skew it if further south, and probably Schwangau in Germany was a bit too far east for me to hope to get a feed from Astra 28e, but when we got back into France, even sitting above Reims it didn't yield much for us. Am I expecting too much do you think? Another question is why I can't pick up the other european satellite feeds either? The SSC appears to have the codes loaded and they are accessible from the selector.

 

[eddie]

If the LNB is working, and you have the latest controller, and the system won’t lock on to ‘any’ satellite a broken cable is very likey

When we used to repair Alden our workshop has replaced dozens of them, normally with an intermittent break in the RF cable as it goes down through the turntable.

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