Astra 2E/2F Technical Thread

[Patf]

Somebody's going to make some money out of this [;-)] probably those who sell the recommended equipment.

At the moment we're making do with Sky News, Judge Judy, and some old films. plus internet radio.

And a few BBC favourites on the 'puter.

ps don't go Martin [8-)]

[andyh4]

Yes please don't go Martin.

It is important to have a range of views to get a full perspective of what is going on and what are the solutions.

For me the fact that you and Jacko do not agree on this one point is much less important than the information that has come out because you have bounced ideas and facts off one another.

[PaulT]

Martin, it will be a very bad day if you will withdraw your advice.

Often experts disagree which can be rewarding because this provokes debate. An example of this is climate change debate - some claim that there is global warming and those that say there is not.

[Gardian]

[quote user="andyh4"]Yes please don't go Martin. It is important to have a range of views to get a full perspective of what is going on and what are the solutions. For me the fact that you and Jacko do not agree on this one point is much less important than the information that has come out because you have bounced ideas and facts off one another.[/quote]

Agree 100%.

You (and Jako) have been posting on here round the clock for the last week. The help of both of you has been invaluable and will hopefully continue to be so.   

[Quillan]

Well I got my loan Humax box and set it up yesterday evening. Never had one before and was surprised it also had the ITV Player on it (you have to connect it to your router) and BBC Iplayer although the latter will not for obvious reasons actually play a program.

Anyway my first experience was by using the 'Info' button then moving through the channels and keeping in mind what channels are broadcast from which satellite. Whilst the signal strength from both seemed to be around 80% the quality from 2F seemed to be lower (by quite a bit in my case) than that of 2E.

Today I will do it again but check via the 'Satellite Setup' which actually gives a percentage readout.

[Quillan]

Sorry to be a pain but what satellite are Sony TV (Sony TV +1) and the Sony Film (+1) channels broadcast from as I can't see them on the Humax box (they were on the Sky box) and not in the Lyngsat list for 1N, 2A, 2E, 2F and Eutelsat ? Also where can I find exactly which channels are on which satellite because it does not seem to indicate that either?

[Pierre ZFP]

I found them on the Lyngsat list, for example

http://www.lyngsat.com/packages/skyuk.html

and here

http://www.lyngsat.com/tvchannels/us/Sony-Movie-Channel-UK.html

If I read it correctly you only get it with a Sky package (do you have to have a Sky box too?)

[Danny]

The Sony channels are not free to air and therefore not on freesat.

On Lyngsat, all the channels in the general list you linked to are only free to air. For encrypted channels you need to find the list of packages

For example Sky here

According to King of sat Sony movies is on 2F and Sony Entertainment UK is on 2A

The King of Sat site is quite good to see what is on where once you get used to the layout.

Danny

[johnycarper]

I am new to all this as just brought a new smart tv and humax box and after the new satellite I had no problems still got all the channels but I did do a research as lost the radio channel for some reason..My question is is it possible to receive the BBC on a smart tv and the on demand channels as it is obviously picking up from my live box and so its downloaded all the French stuff.

I am still playing around with it so any advice to cut out any problems will be appreciated.

Thanks,

John

[Quillan]

[quote user="Danny"]The Sony channels are not free to air and therefore not on freesat.
On Lyngsat, all the channels in the general list you linked to are only free to air. For encrypted channels you need to find the list of packages
For example Sky here
According to King of sat Sony movies is on 2F and Sony Entertainment UK is on 2A
The King of Sat site is quite good to see what is on where once you get used to the layout.

Danny

[/quote]

Thanks Danny, but they are free because I don't have a Sky subscription just a Sky box with somebody elses card and I can watch them. This explains why I can't watch them with the Humax box.

[andyh4]

But there Q lies the difference between free (do not cost) and free to air (do not cost because they are not encrypted and any old receiver can handle them.

[Danny]

[quote user="Quillan"]

[quote user="Danny"]The Sony channels are not free to air and therefore not on freesat.

On Lyngsat, all the channels in the general list you linked to are only free to air. For encrypted channels you need to find the list of packages

For example Sky here

According to King of sat Sony movies is on 2F and Sony Entertainment UK is on 2A

The King of Sat site is quite good to see what is on where once you get used to the layout.

Danny

[/quote]

Thanks Danny, but they are free because I don't have a Sky subscription just a Sky box with somebody elses card and I can watch them. This explains why I can't watch them with the Humax box.

[/quote]

difference between 'free to air' and 'free to view' http://www.ftasat.co.uk/ the list is now out of date but you get the idea

Danny

[Quillan]

OK here goes.

The information source for satellites and channels I have used is the King of Sat website as recommended.

Weather - Sunny, little bits of cloud, light wind from the west but the dish is protected by the house wall.

Dish - 150cm (epoxy) Saditel 70150 (can't find any data on this), LNB make unknown (no markings)

Receiver - Humax Foxsat-HD

Having gone through the channels on the Humax box and using the Menu - System - Diagnostics for each channel I would assume (I hope I am right) that the Humax box cannot look at individual channels just the particular transponder they are coming from.

Most of the Astra 2E signal strengths are between 85 and 90% and often are observed moving between the two on a single transponder. Likewise the signal quality seems to move between 70 and 80%.

When I looked at the Astra 2F channels I observed that they were all showing 85% strength and 70% quality and are 'solid'.

The only non technical conclusion I could come to was that it appears that the output from Astra 2F is more stable than 2E with my particular setup.

There are some errors on the King of Sat website. It has Pick TV marked down as being on 2E and Movies4Men (and +1) from 2F yet the transponder codes do not match and all of them are giving 100% strength and quality so I suspect they have not moved yet.

On the SES website when you look at Astra 2F at the bottom of the page it shows what channels are currently transmitted from it. A couple of days ago this was empty and now it has a list. I have made the assumption that they have published the list because the move to it is now complete.

SES shows both Astra 1N and 2E as being empty. I can only think that is because 1N is now empty but they still have some channels to move from Eutelsat (or wherever) to 2E and once that is completed they will publish the list on 2E.

These are only my observations under the conditions I gave with the equipment currently installed listed above.

I am a bit concerned about the dish and LNB but they are loans although I am wondering if a know brand dish and LNB may function better.

[Danny]

The King of sat (and also Lyngsat) site takes a few days to be updated.

notice the last column - date updated.

Each of the new sats 2E and 2F have a Europe wide beam and a UK spot beam. All of the PSB (BBC ITV Ch4 ch5) channels are on UK spot beams but the ones that you are getting stronger signals on are on the Europe wide beam - Sky News for example. This explains your different reception levels.

For a receiver in the UK, there is no major difference in reception levels between the UK and Europe beams.

Danny

[CeeJay]

Martin

I well remember your good advice many years ago about receiving French television in UK before the big move!! Therefore I think it would be a great shame if all the other members of this fraternity were to be deprived of your enthusiasm and expertise on this subject which is so baffling to the majority.

So.......returned back home to Ganges, north Herault, this afternoon after a month in New Zealand and also trying to escape the ravages of Cyclone Ian on Tonga, and fully expecting no television at all, when, much to my surprise we have all channels both on Freesat and Sky and perfect reception even though it is rainy and miserable!!!!! Can't believe it, after all the doom and gloom on the Forum.

SWMBO is very happy!!

[PaulT]

Filmon problems:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/as-filmon-is-shut-down-by-courts-all-eyes-are-on-aereo/

[Clair]

[quote user="PaulT"]Filmon problems:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/as-filmon-is-shut-down-by-courts-all-eyes-are-on-aereo/[/quote]

This is not current news (Sept 2013) and regurgitated news from another (unreliable?) French forum.

FilmOn is working fine on my laptop and Ipad.

[PaulT]

Awfully sorry.

[osie]

Just for info I was a bit peeved last week when BBC 1 & 2 HD and London went and also RB1 Olympics 1 (but not 2).  I resorted to BBC2 NI and BBC1 Oxford. 

Well it all seems to be back again as of yesterday without any tweeking on my behalf.

I dont think the weather has been a factor so I am just guessing that people up there are still tweeking with their satelites.

Humax, 60cm, Figeac

I used to complain about the s%h£i%t tv but now I am just happy that it works...

[Gardian]

Same as Osie.

Listened to BBC4 radio via the iPad this morning, but decided to switch to Classic FM.  Hitherto, that has worked OK via the TV / Skybox.  Still OK.

For some reason and for the 1st time in a week, I decided to try BBC1 TV and to my surprise got a rather broken picture.  Went to '967' BBC1 South West (which has always been our 'go to' when the weather is dodgy) and we get a perfect picture - well, as perfect as we've ever got down here!

BBC2 on 970 is OK, as is Ch4 & Ch5 (have been without the latter for ages).  No ITV, BBC radio 2 & 4 dodgy.  Haven't tried much else yet, but clearly there's a lot of tweaking still going on.

We're currently just a 50cm dish in the NE Gard.  We have a 1m dish on order for installation in a week's time and we'll still go ahead with that I think, because this is obviously a moving feast, but it does at least provide some reassurance that the new one should prove sufficiently large.

[nomoss]

FWIW, after reading Gardian's post this morning I tried switching to a few different channels, and find we now can get BBC1 on 963 thru 967, BBC2 on 970 and 971, and BBC News on 503. We lost all of these last week.

We are somewhat south of Gardian (that's nearer to the satellite[:D]), and have a 75 x 55cm oval perforated dish on a 1 metre pole in the garden, with the hanging branches of a large eucalypt obstructing its line of sight about ten metres from it, which I initially lined up by trial and error a couple of years ago. Signal strength and quality are currently showing close to 90% on the Signal Test bar graphs.

Edit: Well, seems it was just a taster. All gone again now[:(] 

 

[Quillan]

I wouldn't get to excited as it is all down to atmospherics etc. What it does intimate is that you probably only need to go 10cm bigger on your dish rather than 50 or more which will of course be cheaper.

[soupagirl]

After a week of no BBC/ITV, this afternoon we managed to get ITVHD. It did break up a bit, but Himself is over the moon as he is currently watching Man City v Chelsea. Not a perfect picture, but a step in the right direction. We also now have all the Channel 5 channels. Still no BBC though (apart from RB2), and no other ITV apart from HD. Think we still need a bigger dish.  Thanks to everyone posting on this thread, it's been very helpful.

[ericd]

Friends of ours 6Km due West of Laguepie 82 are today reporting full quality reception of all channels including HD with a 80cm dish. His Satellite Man came in last week, not sure if the dish was re-aligned (as per this thread not necessary) or what (but I will find out!!)

[dave21478]

Switched the telly on for the first time in a while and bbc 1 and 2 are back. Itv and c4 are very intermittent but their +1 channels are fine.

I cut down the ash trees last week, but suspect from other comments that this has had no little effect.

80cm dish in the Tarn, near Castres.

Once things settle down a bit I will see whats what.