GTMEDIA Forum

I bought a V8 Finder 2 a few weeks ago. It locked onto Astra 2 and Hotbird and I scanned it successfully and was able to view channels etc. However it will not lock onto these channels anymore. I have a satellite input into my TV for Astra 2 and when I take that cable out of my TV and put it into the Finder nothing happens. I do not get a Lock light and I can’t view any channels.

I did a factory reset but no change. I went to Installation and tried to scan Astra 2 again (without a Lock light) but it found no channels - not surprisingly. Am I missing anything here? Thanks

Check you have the correct LNB settings, like LNB power "ON"
If you have one put a tone type finder in the LNB cable and check there is 13/ 18v power.

What model finfer2, Grey or Green?

Owen

Thanks for the reply Feralkiwi. The LNB power was set to Auto. The options were Auto, V, H and Off. I changed to V and it locked and showed the channel. I left it there for about 5 minutes and suddenly it lost the lock (without any input - I was in the other room) and showed a blank screen again.
At this point it was showing just one bar on the battery so I charged it. Plugged it into the satellite cable after charging and it locked again and showed the satellite channels. Does this make sense

Yes that does make sense.
It sounds like you have the Green finder2.
These have a too small 3.7v battery that struggles to supply full LNB power.
With a low battery it will struggle to maintain 13v on the LNB and may not ever get 18v.
They dropped this green 3.7v model quickly after release due to this as far as I can figure it.

If you need to use this a lot it would pay to have a 12v battery pack to charge it with while using it.

Tale care if you flatten the battery, recharge it outside.
Don't leave it flat as all the GT Media finders use a little power even when OFF and that will take the battery below Li battery self low volts kill.
All the other finders also need recharge every three months to prevent battery death level discharge.

Owen

Apologies for not answering that Feralkiwi. I have the grey model - looks nearly black. I thought that there was a tone type finder around somewhere but can’t find it. Probably don’t need it now when the finder locks sometimes. Sounds like I should keep it from going fully flat and charge it fully before use?

Some of these finders could also output 22kHz from the LNB 13.18v switch mode supply at some LNB load levels.
The lost of lock could also be the universal LNB being switched to the high band by this 22kHz oscillation.
It should not be as much a problem in the Grey finder2 as it has a 7.2v battery twice the size as the green finder2.

Again a tone type finder would show this.

Yes watch the charge level, I was lucky as I walked in just as my finder-meter V73 started the "Pop" and smoke. Another minute later and I would have lost my room.
This after over night full discharge with the unit "ON" and then after three hours charging it went up.

Owen