Martin963

[quote user="ericd"]Martin963. Question on the Sky region 2 dish. It's 90cm x 60cm mesh dish........ does that make it a 70cm dish ?? We will be on-site end of February and will be able to report [/quote] Well I'm puzzled now because my region 2 Sky dish appears to be 72 x 57 cms.  I've just gone out and measured it - the sun is out here!!!   A Sky conventional dish seems to be 52 x 39 cms. I've hitherto taken that (my size of region 2) to be a 60 cm dish equivalent,  but yours seems to be a good deal bigger.   How odd.   If yours is that size then I would guess it's going to be better than a 60 cm conventionally shaped dish.

Two good questions to which I can't give exact answers!!! With the first question,  there are a number of other variables that come into play that make it worth while being over-generous with the dish specification.   Different frequencies come in at different levels,  as more generally do the two polarisations.    Then there's the weather,   cloud and rain,  which if one is determined won't affect reception merits an extra sized dish.   Then there's how accurately the dish is installed (azimuth,  elevation,  skew) and how well suited the LNB is to the dish (all that's not normally a problem).   Also of course how "good" the LNB itself is. So individual situations will have circumstances that come into play,  making a definitive answer impossible. And of course my magic line is something of  a guess!!!! I'll go and see if my Sky region 2 dish is the same dimensions as yours.  It's actually pointing at Astra 1 here in Devon. My guess though is that it's equivalent to a GOOD 60 cm "rounder" dish.  Certainly I doubt it would do as good a job as an 80 cm conventional dish but I may be wrong about that.  Presumably somewhere there are figures for how many dBs of gain the various Sky (and other dishes) can offer - that's more of an acid test of how good a dish is.

Probably the dish with the missing channels needs a slight revision.   If the skew (the twist of the LNB) was set up to favour 2D originally it may need a little correction. Having said that,  Herault is a long way south and I'd be keeping an eye out for the need to upgrade to a 1 m dish.   Will be interesting to see whether the working 80 cm actually does the business 100% of the time. Until we get more reports in it's hard to say for sure....

If you've got an 80 cm dish I guess you'll be fine.   I believe Danny is roughly at the same latitude as you. If it's a 60 cm then it might be on the edge.   Certainly it would be great if you could let us know when you get out there.   I'll be out at about the same time but as we're the best part of one hundred miles north of you we're well above the risk zone.

[quote user="PaulT"]Yes, I echo the sentiments of a big thank you to Martin and Jako for their technical input to this subject. Could there be a conflict amongst the commercial providers......for example, ITV can carry an advert for, Fred Bloggs cornflakes ehich are available across europe and at present this can be viewed in various countries of europe. Would commercial operations in those countries be upset?[/quote] Thanks - it's appreciated.   I have to pinch myself that I've been trying to help people out here for fourteen years!!!   I'm so long in the tooth that I can remember all the furore over the BBC move to 2D in 2003 - there was (amongst some,  Baz I think was one) mass panic that we'd all lose the BBC and there were so many "rumours" about what SES could and couldn't do.   I tried to keep everyone calm  and as it turned out the benefits of scapping the Solus card system were huge - for us and for the BBC.   Anyone remember oh-so-grumpy Mazan,   a true expert but well - a bit grumpy! This current situaton is of course slightly more serious - but only slightly,  as we're seeing. TBH I don't think advertisers are that bothered.   In Devon we have the ludicrous situation where if one watches ITV 1 HD (as opposed to SD) on terrestrial one get ads for carpet warehouses in Birmingham and Wolverhampton.   Then (last time I looked anyway) we had the London regional news inflicted on us.   I know that ITV have done a lot of agonising over the regional ad situation in Britain - understandably,   but on the international front I doubt advertisers are that bothered - after all if their ad gets seen does it matter what channel it's on....? Of course,  it might be annoying for those companies that price their products at the same numerical value in euros and pounds (as some do) and trouser the extra British profit.   It might increase the chances of their being rumbled by folk who watch ads in Britain and on the continent.

[quote user="HoneySuckleDreams"][quote user="dave21478"] My dish is up on the chimney breast though and I fear a larger dish would catch the wind too much.[/quote] That's a good point. So I think I will have to order a 130cm dish and see if that does the trick. I think I can stick it on the chimney in the same place [/quote] If you haven't handled a 1.3 m dish you will probably be disgruntled to find how awkward they are!   I don't have anything bigger than a 1 m but that's bad enough,   and even on a ground mount the Devon winds have given it (and me) grief.   If you do need to go to 1.3 m I would be very careful about putting it on a chimney - you undoubtedly know what you're doing by the sounds of it but if a ground position is an easy alternative I'd consider it carefully. Doesn't look as though the other low freq band transponders have moved from 1N yet - presumably those who have lost the BBC are still getting most ITV and ch 4 SD stuff....?

[quote user="dave21478"]I am in the Tarn, between Albi and Castres - BBC channels have gone. Thats with an old Panasonic box and a cheap BricoDepot 80cm dish. There is a tree in front of the dish whos upper branches are beginning to encroach on its line of sight which is due to be chopped down during the week, so perhaps that will help. otherwise, I will wait and see regarding dish sizes. My dish is up on the chimney breast though and I fear a larger dish would catch the wind too much.[/quote] See what happens when the tree is gone.   I attended the brother of some French neighbours' installation in September and for a few minutes couldn't understand why a 60 cm wasn't pulling in 19 deg E for Canalsat.   Only when I was about to start loosening bolts did I notice the oh-so-innocent cherry tree which had just grown tall enough to block the signal.   Of course my suggestion that "l'arbre est en cause" was met with incredulity,  but in the end we moved the dish and all was well. For safety I reckon you would be better with a 1 m dish Dave but let's see if a few more people report in. Incidentally,  a VERY long standing sat bod has started this up;   something similar was done for 2F and proved very very useful. http://goo.gl/maps/Ha4xf Tell us what happens when the tree is gone - we always enjoy your anecdotes!

I'll try and answer outstanding points tomorrow - Dave and others.  Sorry it hasn't been tonight. @gardian - Jako and I do agree on the frequency re-use bit.   That's one reason why the footprint has been tightened.   Please re-read the bit about frequency re-use in different geographical zones.   That re-use relies on tighter beams. re the rights stuff Jako - yes,  but my point was that in the end the BBC in their turn have quite a lot of clout over rights - after all if Hollywood play hardball the BBC simply won't buy their stuff,  and if there was really an issue with beams SES might simply turn round to the BBC and say "OK,  if it's a problem,  go back to encryption". The sky didn't fall in in 2003,  and I stick with my thought that the BBC is a small player as far as SES are concerned. Now if the BBC were on Astra 1 or Hotbird (to which lots of vernacular European dishes point) then it might be very different. cf TF1 being un-encrypted on a sat to which relatively few dishes point (9 deg E). As it is depriving the Iberian peninsular of FTA BBC makes only a tiny dent in the overall "wrong population" coverage of Astra 2.   If you take Paris/Brussels/Holland/W Germany and add up all the potential viewers there it comes to a very high figure,  against which depriving a few hundred thousand in Spain and Portugal begins to look petty. Unless anyone is privy to an actual conversation between the BBC and SES I remain sceptical that it played a big part;  although I grant you that tightened beams do indeed "suit" the BBC's case when it comes to rights.

I just don't buy the rumour about BBC pressure.   (I don't - I hasten to add - mean that I don't believe you Jako,  just the rumour!). The BBC rent a max of 8 transponders from SES.  I can only actually see six working but the BBC call them transponders 1 to 8 so maybe I'm missing some. Astra 2E has 60 Ku band tranponders - so the BBC is renting less than 15% of the capacity on that ONE satellite - there are more spot beams on 2F.   Yes I'm sure that SES will try and accommodate reasonable requests but to be honest the BBC is a small player in all this and I doubt they greatly influence SES's thinking,  at least in comparison to the frequency re-use incentive.  We had all this conspiracy stuff a while back with 2D - people were saying that SES would "tip 2D up a bit" to make reception harder in Spain - it was all absolute rubbish and was quashed by the people who know much more about this than I do. We will probably never know the truth and it's academic anyway (albeit interesting!) but my money is that the BBC has a lot less influence than some people think.

[quote user="Jako"][quote user="Daft Doctor"]Hi, can either Martin or Jako help me with my question earlier in the thread.  If I have decent signal strength and quality on all channels with a 60cm dish, would an 80cm dish make the signal significantly more stable in bad weather or adverse atmospheric conditions?  Instinct says yes it would, but my instinct isn't always right!  Many thanks  [:)][/quote] Yes, but what we do not yet know is whether 80 cm will be enough because reception of Astra2E outside the spotbeam is not stable over time. Having a decent signal now is no guarantee the signal will be decent in three months from today under the same conditions. [/quote] One of the reasons I delayed in replying to you is precisely because we don't know for certain how this will develop.   Other things being equal yes a bigger dish will resist rain fade and other signal degradations better than a small dish.    For example the French transmitter authority use 1.5 m dishes at the terrestrial transmitters to pick up the programme feed where in fact a 50 cm dish would do the job 99.5% of the time.   But that 0.5% downtime is critical if hundreds of thousands of viewers of a UHF transmitter are going to lose their programme when it snows or rains hard.   The big dish gives pretty good security that the feed is going to be usable 99.9% of the time - or even higher. TBH I think it's fairly safe to recommend an 80 cm dish where you are if a 60 cm is doing the business most of the time.   If you were in Spain or the extreme south of France I'd agree that there's a risk that what works now might not  work in a few weeks/months,  but I think it's unlikely that Astra can actually do THAT much tweaking of the signal where you are without compromising reception in the intended areas.   I could be wrong of course but I don't subscribe to the idea that Astra have THAT much control over the signal once the reflectors have been designed.   And if they do start pushing the signal around (for example by slightly altering the attitude of the satellite) they merely give a bigger signal to some other part of Europe as the cost of reducing it elsewhere - so what do they achieve?   Take the signal from Spain and you probably improve it in Finland! But please don't waste your cash JUST on my say so - I can only give the advice based on my best guess (and some experience!);  but an 80 cm dish is certainly worth the relatively small investment - in my view.

re renewing the satellites etc. Yes,   the main limiting factor is actually the on board fuel for keeping the craft in the right place via its little thruster rockets.   This is normally the first thing to run low (and they have to keep a reserve even after the sat is decommissioned to keep it out of the way of other sats).   The next thing that goes is that the amount of energy coming out of the solar panels gradually diminishes with age and sometimes an aging sat will only have half its transponders working as the panels can't bear the full load. As to the tightening of the beams - well no one knows for certain,  but I'm sceptical that much pressure has come from the BBC et al to persuade Astra to make it harder to receive British progs abroad.   When the BBC originally shed its encryption (provided by Sky) in 2003 many people said the sky would fall on Greg Dyyke's head as far as copyright was concerned,  but it didn't;   and I don't think much has changed since then.   The restricted beam hitherto has been sufficiently restricted to satisfy those oh-so-precious rights people. No - there's another explanation.   From a technical point of view it's advantageous if you can tighten up the beam,  because if you can do that you can then re-use the same frequencies in another part of the world - but still using the same satellite,  or one in the same orbital slot.   So for example you can beam one set of progs to Britain,  and - using the same frequencies - beam another set to north Africa (for example).   With wide beams this isn't possible because when two frequencies arrive at the same receive point they wreck each other,  but if you can tighten the beams that problem can be avoided.   And in the overlap area (in this case Spain) people can't get EITHER sets of programmes because they mutually interfere.   But that doesn't matter if the programme providers are only concerned with serving their own specific areas. This technique is increasingly used to save on frequencies and sat capacity.   For example here in W Devon I can get Irish TV on a FTA transmission,   but the beam they use is VERY tight and by the time you get to Exeter it's not possible to receive it - however big a dish you use.   Two reasons,   partly because Exeter is further away from the beam centre than I am,  but also (and more importantly) because another beam - using the same frequencies but aimed further east - starts to cause significant interference to the Irish beam.    That suits Irish TV and it suits the operator of the satellite who can keep using the same frequencies over and over again. As I say,  I'm not privy to negotiations between Astra and British broadcasters but I think the tightening of the beam is more to do with technical "because we can and it might be useful" rather than "the rights people are getting upset,  please tighten the beam". What do you think Jako?

Yes Quillan,  I suspect that CBeebies report is down to the fact that 10818 MHz happens to  just get past the digital cliff at HSD's set up.   And that being the case it suggests that a dish one size bigger will get their reception back,  although I'd go for two sizes bigger if space and finance allows...

[quote user="Wils"]Not being a very techie tech (hope I'm still allowed here) it appears that BBC1 HD Scotland and Wales are still on 2F. Now it seems their channel number is 101 on Sky, same as all the others. If this is the case I assume you could change the 'default' BBC 1 setting on a sky box to go to one of these....no? If so how do you do it?[/quote] Sadly I don't think you can.  Problem is that your default BBC 1 is determined by your Sky card,  and is writ in stone when you apply for the box and card - ie the post code for your "official" address. I don't have a Sky HD box but on the SD boxes you can get at the other regional BBC 1 channels around the 941 onwards (someone correct me please,  the Sky SD box I have is 700 miles away!). I believe Sky even make it difficult to add some HD channels as "other channels" as they don't allow you to select a symbol rate of 23000 kbps - but again someone with a Sky HD box can confirm or contradict me on that one! But I think - as you say - that the BBC channels already on 2F will stay there. In practice it probably will make little difference - 2F and 2E are twins and whilst the odd fringe spots may be different it's not intentional and more down to the vagaries of RF propagation and beam shaping than something to be relied on as a game-changer. And it's all right Wils,  we need less techie people to ask the questions that we don't think of ourselves!

Just seen another report of a 45 cm dish that used to work around Bordeaux but now doesn't - although 70 cms is OK. I don't think my "magic line" was much misplaced for the majority of typical installation situations.

HSD - so you've still got BBC 1 and 2 Northern Ireland and some BBC 1 English regions,  and BBC News....?

That's very useful val douest. With regard to signal and quality,  there is rare agreement between different makes and models of receiver.   For example my Metronic Fransat box is hopelessly optimistic and gives quality readings of 95% and above even when the signal is about to fall off the edge.  Whereas my Aston Fransat HD box is quite conservative,  and still just about decodes Irish TV on Ka band when the quality is down to 15%.   Even on a cracking signal it only acknowledges 55 - 60% .  My other boxes lie somewhere between these two extremes.  Of course for setting up a dish a conservative meter is more useful - the Fransat Metronic is hopeless as a sat finder.

I don't think an amp would help.   Can you even get one for satellite?    Generally amps only help with very long cable runs,  if the signal "isn't there" at the antenna an amp often actually makes things worse. The equivalent for DSat is to get a more sensitive LNB,  and/or increase the size of the dish. Don't know the intricacies of planning laws,  I only have just the four dishes on the barn wall (although two are on ground poles so maybe they don't count).   Would anyone be able to see what you're proposing to do.  If not I wouldn't worry.

And this from someone near Pau: <<Loss of all BBC channels We are 30 kms west of Pau in Pyrenees-Atlantiques with 80 cm dish. Assume a bigger dish necessary. Any advice would be welcome. >>

You could be right andyh.   I was trying to be a bit "conservative" on placing the line so that we didn't get back a flood of replies on the lines of "you said I'd be OK and now I've lost the signal"!   And of course there are folk with just a 45 cm minidish - which may well start to struggle just south of the line I suggested. Certainly interesting to see what's come in so far.

Which (Graham and Brenda) confirms that north of the magic line (which I have previously suggested is Arcachon through Cahors to Grenoble) there's not going to be any noticeable difference for most people. Here in Devon my clematis-infested 45 cm dish is seeing quality improvements of a couple of %,    81 -> 83,   85 -> 87 etc etc.   So at least the power taken away from those in 30 and 31 is ending up somewhere,  although really we had enough signal in Britain already. Those in difficulties do have my sympathies,   but apart from the most stubborn cases I suspect that a bigger dish WILL bring the BBC back in southern France,  we need to see a few more reports.   So far it seems that differences with 2F coverage in the fringes are pretty academic,   some people in Spain are getting slightly weaker signals on 2E (compared to 2f) but nothing too significant.   However, in the absence of a really big dish the removal of the BBC from the Iberian peninsular seems to have been pretty effective! One of my ex-Sky boxes in 24 is on loan to French neighbours on a 60 cm dish,  I'll try and contact them and ask them to let me know what if anything they can see.   But I doubt there will be the slightest difference there.

I suppose you can't blame them.   Dumbed down though the BBC is I'd be sad to lose it (and I do pay the licence fee in Britain,  and indeed la redevance in France).  For those who don't have fast internet access (and we don't) the loss of DSat would be quite a blow..... I'm keeping an eye on signal qualities in Devon to see if there's any discernible improvement....

I must say Jako I thought exactly the same as you did when I read that!   I imagine the BBC worded it thus to try and avoid a deluge of "complaints" before the change has even happened. I've put an alert on the Post Bag section of the forum and suggested that anyone with concerns should join us here for advice and help.  Hope that's OK with the rest of you illuminati.

I hope the mods won't mind my putting up this "alert" in the Post Bag,  but it's to let anyone who doesn't already know that changes to the BBC transmissions on satellite are now imminent,  and are scheduled to take place during the night of Wed to Thursday this week. In essence,  our best guess is that if you are north of a line from Arcachon via Cahors to Grenoble you won't notice any difference.  South of this though there is a risk that existing dishes will struggle to receive the BBC if they're not big enough. I should stress that you don't need to retune anything,  but if you find that your reception starts to break up - or indeed stops completely - please be assured of a warm welcome on the Satellite sub-forum here,  where we'll be delighted to try and offer some advice. I don't have a date for ITV and channel 4 at present but they won't be far behind. Might I suggest that any discussion of this should take place on the existing thread in the relevant sub-forum in order not to confuse the issue any more than it needs to be! http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/12/3066188/ShowPost.aspx#3066188

The playing is over.  We have a date.   Thursday morning (very early,  ie during the night of Wed -> Thur). http://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/news/news_item25.html I trust Quillan will be up with the lark and telling us all about it!!

They appear to be playing with us!