Astra 2F Discussion Here Please!

[Sprogster]

In the south of France, one satellite company is saying a 1.2 to 1.5 metre dish will be required to pick up the free to air BBC,ITV, Channel 4 and 5. However, they are advising to wait until these channels all move satellite, so this can be checked.

Even then they do not appear overly confident as maybe it might not be possible to receive a strong enough signal if you are as far south as the Med.

[Jako]

The problem is that reception of Astra 2F is still not stable, especially in the south of France reception reports are deteriorating. As if 'they' are still finetuning, which could well be possible. Rumour has it that this new generation satellites indeed can still be adjusted once in orbit.

The good news is that in France you will always be able to improve reception with a bigger dish. That might not be possible further south when frequencies are re-used on the Africa beam.

[Pierre ZFP]

So all those Sports Bars (I mean Football Bars as we all know sports = football only [:@]  ) in Southern Spain are going to have problems then.

Hmmm, I sense a business opportunity, I wonder if I could turn the garage of my UK house into a Server Farm ? [geek]

 

[Jako]

No, probably not. As the sports channels are encrypted the expectation is that they will remain on a pan-European beam and not the UK spotbeam. Although Sky would have a problem explaining why they need the pan-European beam.[:)]

[Martin963]

A launch from Baikonour yesterday of three Russian satellites ended in catastrophe when the launch rocket became unstable and crashed with its load back onto the ground.

It would be very surprising if SES Astra aren't now in something of a panic,  with their 2E satellite scheduled for launch from the same site and using the same type of rocket in under three weeks.   If they lose 2E they could be in real trouble as its arrival would have freed up other satellites that are temporarily holding the fort at 28.2 deg E.     2E is the satellite with tighter footprints (like 2F) to which the BBC and ITV etc were due to migrate in September.

So we will see.   It's just possible that those of you in the extreme south and south east of France will not be getting weaker BBC signals as soon as anticipated....

[PaulT]

[quote user="Martin963"]A launch from Baikonour yesterday of three Russian satellites ended in catastrophe when the launch rocket became unstable and crashed with its load back onto the ground.

It would be very surprising if SES Astra aren't now in something of a panic,  with their 2E satellite scheduled for launch from the same site and using the same type of rocket in under three weeks.   If they lose 2E they could be in real trouble as its arrival would have freed up other satellites that are temporarily holding the fort at 28.2 deg E.     2E is the satellite with tighter footprints (like 2F) to which the BBC and ITV etc were due to migrate in September.

So we will see.   It's just possible that those of you in the extreme south and south east of France will not be getting weaker BBC signals as soon as anticipated....
[/quote]

Oh dear, what a pity, never mind [;-)]

[marmite]

Maybe its another of Pope John Paul 11 miracles

[Jako]

Delaying the inevitable until winter is a bad idea.

Replacing a dish on a bright and sunny day in September is much better than suddenly loosing UK channels by Christmas.[:)]

[Quillan]

Fortunately I am not paying for this but we had a 90cm dish installed, worked for a while with C5 etc. Stopped working about (except at certain times on a sunny day) eight weeks ago. Went to 1m, same result so am now waiting for 1.2m dish. We are right down south by the way near Spain. Seems they can (and probably have) adjust the beam slightly (well if you're in the UK it is slight but it's a big movement down here.). Under certain conditions you can get it to work and from what I have learnt (the hard way) I would wait till September when both 2e and 2f are fully live before actually spending money. But exactly this advice was given ages ago by those far more cleverer than I at the beginning of this thread.

[John Brown]

BBC News, "A Proton rocket was scheduled to carry the satellite Astra 2E into

space on July 20. However, after Tuesday’s failure, that launch will not

be carried out. Other Proton launches scheduled for this year,

including one for the American radio satellite Sirius

FM6 on August 14, have also been scrubbed in light of this week’s

failure. Three other launches scheduled later this year have also been

postponed until further notice."

What a shame

[Quillan]

[quote user="John Brown"]BBC News, "A Proton rocket was scheduled to carry the satellite Astra 2E into space on July 20. However, after Tuesday’s failure, that launch will not be carried out. Other Proton launches scheduled for this year, including one for the American radio satellite Sirius FM6 on August 14, have also been scrubbed in light of this week’s failure. Three other launches scheduled later this year have also been postponed until further notice."

What a shame [/quote]

I tried searchin ghte BBC website and then the Internet in general but all I could come up with is the following.

http://www.space.com/21819-russia-grounds-proton-rocket-launches.html

I can't find anythng on the BBC website.

[tonyv]

Here, with some good videos...

http://satandpcguy.com/blog/2013/07/astra-2e-could-the-launch-be-delayed-after-rocket-launch-failure-at-baikonur/

[Jako]

Some sensors were placed upside down, so instead of up it went ... down.[:D]

At least it is a quick and simple explanation as to what happened, but apparently procedures and tests did not discover this before launch and they should have.

[Jako]

Astra 2E  launch date now set for September 15 2013.

source: http://www.ilslaunch.com/mission-control

[PaulT]

[quote user="Quillan"]Fortunately I am not paying for this but we had a 90cm dish installed, worked for a while with C5 etc. Stopped working about (except at certain times on a sunny day) eight weeks ago. Went to 1m, same result so am now waiting for 1.2m dish. We are right down south by the way near Spain. Seems they can (and probably have) adjust the beam slightly (well if you're in the UK it is slight but it's a big movement down here.). Under certain conditions you can get it to work and from what I have learnt (the hard way) I would wait till September when both 2e and 2f are fully live before actually spending money. But exactly this advice was given ages ago by those far more cleverer than I at the beginning of this thread.[/quote]

Q would be interested where you got the 1.2m dish AND if it works.

[Quillan]

Wouldn't it just (be interesting). I am still waiting on them to come and install it. I shall wait till after the weekend then go and give them a push now we have a launch date. I will give an update when things happen (or not).

[Jako]

Depending on the exact cause of the problem you might even need less signal instead of more.[:)] The Astra1N satellite is very powerful and in combination with a high amplification lnb and/or a big dish the total signal of the quadrant ( hi/low+hor/vert) the LNB  sends to the receiver can simply be too strong for the receiver's tuner causing  some transponders to fail, especially the weaker ones. This will improve as soon as Astra1N is switched 'off', but you could try an adjustable attenuator or satslope filter.

[Quillan]

We got hold of one of those scope things where you can look at spot frequencies etc and can record signal quality over a set period. The signal from Astra 2F was between 10 and 16% over a period of 10 days on a 1m dish whereas the 1N was 99/100% although we were not too interested in that. I appreciate that the quality will depend also on the material the dish is made from, who made it, its coating etc and the LNB (I am using and Inverto Black which is better than the one the people turned up with.). I would have thought there might be some calculator that you can feed in a given dish size and quality of signal and it will tell you what size you need to get 100%?

[Jako]

Did you measure directly at the LNB ?

Small explanation: 

The total amount of energy in the quadrant (as explained) coming from the LNB first enters into an amplifier that tries to output roughly the optimal power level  for the tuner, then the desired frequency gets isolated, cleaned up and digitally processed.

If the total signal strength is too strong, the first amp could be unable to comply and strange things can happen.

The problem at your location is that you are well within the Astra1N spotbeam and the pan-europe beam, but outside the 2F spotbeam. So the total amount of energy coming from the Astra2 position is huge and yet a few Astra2F transponders are very weak at your location.

That is not the situation any 'normal' (Sky-) receiver is designed for. The first amp will attempt to reduce the signal to an acceptable level, possibly 'killing' the weak transponders in the process. As stated, this effect should diminish as soon as the Astra1N is switched 'off'.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Jako"]Did you measure directly at the LNB ?
[/quote]

Yes

[Martin963]

Keep us posted Quillan,  what's happening at your location is extremely interesting.

No comfort to you but a far cry from the situation here in Perigord where one honestly wouldn't notice any change hitherto as far as 2F is concerned.  I went over to a neighbour recently whose son needs to brush up his English and moved their (now unused) 19.2 deg E dish over to 28.2 deg E.   Only a 60 cms job,   I took no trouble to optimise the 2F signals but there they all were,  behaving perfectly....

The only problem was the sub-titling which doesn't seem to work that well on an old Echostar 2110,   so I've lent them an even older Pace Sky box which "sub-tittles" perfectly.

[Jako]

Another 2 days delay. Astra 2E launch date now set for September 17. (might be September 16 UK time though[:)])

[Jako]

Launch delayed yet again by several weeks due to technical problems.

click

[Martin963]

How SES must wish they'd got in the queue like everyone else for launch by Ariane.

Still,  as I often say,  given how secretive and unhelpful they (SES) are as an organisation - all this couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people.....

[PaulT]

[quote user="Martin963"]How SES must wish they'd got in the queue like everyone else for launch by Ariane.

Still,  as I often say,  given how secretive and unhelpful they (SES) are as an organisation - all this couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people.....
[/quote]

Is the Russian rocket built be a subsidiary of the Moskvich organisation? [:D]