Introduction to Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS-1 75.0 East)

seanlangston · 13-06-2007

Dear Forum Members,

I would like to introduce myself. I am the Senior Director of Broadcast Services at Asia Broadcast Satellite, the owner and operator of the ABS-1 satellite at 75.0 East. I have been following some of the message threads about ABS-1 (ex LMI-1) in this forum and would like to open a channel for communications with our company here.

If you have any questions about ABS-1, our services, coverage, power, or channels currently broadcast by our satellite, I will do my best to answer them.

ABS will be exhibiting at the upcoming CommunicAsia 2007 expo in Singapore from June 19 to 22, and at the planned EMEC 2007 in Karachi from July 16 to 17. If you would like to learn more about our company, please drop by and say hello.

Regards,

Sean Langston

**dspdsp** · 13-06-2007

Welcome Sean, thank you for joining us.

**rolfw** · 13-06-2007

Welcome Sean, good to see a service carrier taking the time to help our members.

***Hareesh*** · 13-06-2007

Hi Sean, Hearty Welcome to the forum as many members are discussing about this satellite and its reception in the continent this thread will be helpful to all those interested.

**immi22_80** · 13-06-2007

This is a copy of the post from
Receiving LM1 northern Ku beam in southern India
This is copied as ABS official/ABS1 members receiving the northern beam can answer.
Hareesh.
Hello sir,

Regarding --------ABS-1 (LMI 1) @ 75E (North beam).

Few days ago, I am able to receive all the channels from both beams i.e north as well as south, but now I am not able to receive any transponder except 12640 V 22000 3/4(i.e. NTV, DTV, RBCTV, Telekanal Domashniy, STS)
The signal strength of this transponder is 5-10% only but earlier it was more than 50 - 55 %.
This problem arises only from 1 month, before that I am able to receive all the transponder from North beam as well as south beam

I confirmed with my friend about this matter and he also says that he also now not able to receive signal from North beam.

My query is that, is the signal strenght of north beam is week or there is any other reason….

I was using all the beams on my Dish Tv dish (60 cm).
My name is Imran, and I am from India (Jaipur, Rajasthan)

Please reply soon. I am waiting for your suggestions……

lnb15k · 13-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

Dear Forum Members,

If you have any questions about ABS-1, our services, coverage, power, or channels currently broadcast by our satellite, I will do my best to answer them.

Thanks for coming into the forum. Is it anyway possible to receive the Ku northern beam of ABS-1 in south India? Till now no one answered to this question. Is there any maps for possible side lobes? When it comes to out of footprint reception some are in sweet spots and others are not so. As you would know more. I am waiting for your reply.

**Analoguesat** · 13-06-2007

Of course its possible - you just need a big dish!

Please note - side lobes are very much an accidental byproduction of satellite reflector design. It wouldnt help most folks anyway - reception strengths of lobes can vary greatly over a few miles.

From the official footprint it is obvious that it has been designed so that signal strengths of the northern beam fall off rapidly as you go south. The ONLY way to find out what will work is to try different sized dishes at your location and basically test it.

seanlangston · 14-06-2007

Dear All,

Thanks for the welcome. It's nice to join the discussion.

------------

Dear lnb15k,

It would be very difficult to receive the Northern Beam of ABS-1 in South India. The EIRP over South India and Sri Lanka is less than 30 dBW, as indicated in our pre-launch RF testing. I'm not sure how much less than 30 dBW, but the actual EIRP is likely very low. You might be able to pick it up using a 9 meter or larger dish, but even then the power levels would not be stable, as it is far from the official EOC.

------------

Dear immi22_80,

Nothing has changed with our Northern Beam transmissions or power levels, so there could be a problem with your downlink setup (perhaps the LNB is not polarized properly). Jaipur is right at the bead edge of the Northern Beam, where the power levels drop off rapidly. Most satellites specifications allow +/- 0.05 degrees N/S & E/W variability in station keeping and a similar variability in beam pointing accuracy. Based on your location, either the station keeping or pointing variability could have a huge effect on your ability to downlink the various carriers on the Northern Beam. There is not much that can be done to make it possible for you to receive Northern Beam transmissions unless you use a much larger dish to ensure plenty of link margin. However, Southern Beam transmissions should be very good in your location.

Sean

**Analoguesat** · 14-06-2007

There you go lnb15k - told you it would need a big dish

9m

**member91040** · 14-06-2007

Welcome on board seanlangston .

lnb15k · 14-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

------------

Dear lnb15k,

It would be very difficult to receive the Northern Beam of ABS-1 in South India. The EIRP over South India and Sri Lanka is less than 30 dBW, as indicated in our pre-launch RF testing. I'm not sure how much less than 30 dBW, but the actual EIRP is likely very low. You might be able to pick it up using a 9 meter or larger dish, but even then the power levels would not be stable, as it is far from the official EOC.

------------

Sean

Thanks for your reply. Why I asked was because in the case of Hotbird many receive that satellite even in Srilanka with a 4m or 5m dish and its foot print is no were near. So any similar thing for this satellite? As you would have measured those side lobes too after the satellite started its operation.

**Analoguesat** · 14-06-2007

lnb just which channels/programmes are you interested in - there may be easier ways of getting them

**member91040** · 14-06-2007

What about If 3.990 GHz V .

seanlangston · 15-06-2007

Dear Member91040,

As you are located in India, you may as well give up receiving anything from the "A Beam" of ABS-1. The reason for this is due to the location of our satellite (75.0 East) and its proximity to one of the ISRO slots (74.0 East). Since we are so near to the ISRO slot, we must share the C-band spectrum. ABS is authorized to use the 3.4 to 3.7 GHz range over India; however, we can not transmit on the standard C-band range of 3.7 to 4.2 GHz over India. This is why you see a <18 dBW contour on our A Beam coverage map over India.

A benefit of our proximity to the ISRO slot is that viewers can typically receive signals from ABS-1 and Edusat/Insat 3C on a dish with just one wide-band LNB. This will become more apparent when Insat 4CR is launched and large numbers of viewers start installing dishes to receive the DTH package from that satellite. Depending on the dish alignment and size at those installed locations, viewers may pick up channels from ABS-1 Southern Beam (or Northern Beam in the far North of India) on their receivers.

Sean

lnb15k · 16-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

Dear Member91040,

As you are located in India, you may as well give up receiving anything from the "A Beam" of ABS-1. The reason for this is due to the location of our satellite (75.0 East) and its proximity to one of the ISRO slots (74.0 East). Since we are so near to the ISRO slot, we must share the C-band spectrum. ABS is authorized to use the 3.4 to 3.7 GHz range over India; however, we can not transmit on the standard C-band range of 3.7 to 4.2 GHz over India. This is why you see a <18 dBW contour on our A Beam coverage map over India.

Sean

I have seen detailed ERWP about this satellite. Are they actual measures from those places or it is just planned ERWP? For Eg.3674 from ABS1 covers Chennai with 38dbW. If I measure it in Chennai would that be excatly 38dbW? Also some transponders are stronger and some are weaker. Why is it so? Does that depend on the uplinking station or what?

**member91040** · 16-06-2007

I think its a weaker Trasnponder.

seanlangston · 17-06-2007

Dear lnb15k,

You can check our website for a representative EIRP footprint of each beam. The site is www.absatellite.net, and there are links to the coverage maps on the homepage.

Every transponder on the satellite has slightly different performance characteristics. This is more pronounced on the C-band payload than on the Ku-band, as the antenna configuration uses two different shaped reflectors for V & H Pol. However, these differences are within the planned specification for EIRP, and the transponder settings are then adjusted to ensure consistent performance.

The uplink station link budget planning would have a much bigger impact on the C/N and Eb/N0 you see for individual carriers on any transponder operating in multiple carrier mode. Allowed uplink and downlink power is carefully controlled depending on the commercial and technical requirements from each customer. If a transponder is operating in single carrier mode (saturated), it is still possible for there to be different link characteristics due to uplink station and transponder settings. Again, this is much more pronounced on the C-band payload than on the Ku-band, as the Ku-band payload has special features intended to minimize effects of different uplinks.

The Southern Beam on ABS-1 has some transponders operating with 90 W of power and some operating with 135W. We can select the power level allocated to each transponder. Typically, we are using the high powered transponders for the DTH-type services (such as the ones you see on Transponder 11S and 13S), and the lower powered transponders are used for VSAT/DSNG services where the receive site dish size can be more easily controlled.

Does this answer your question?

kav4 · 17-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

ABS will be exhibiting at the upcoming CommunicAsia 2007 expo in Singapore from June 19 to 22, and at the planned EMEC 2007 in Karachi from July 16 to 17. If you would like to learn more about our company, please drop by and say hello.
Sean Langston

Will "CommunicAsia 2007 expo in Singapore from June 19 to 22" available in the south beam? What is the frequency ?

lnb15k · 17-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

Dear lnb15k,

You can check our website for a representative EIRP footprint of each beam. The site is www.absatellite.net, and there are links to the coverage maps on the homepage.

Does this answer your question?

Thanks for the answers. It helped a lot.

So if a particular transponder is much weaker than others then it is mostly likely be because of the uplinking station?

Can you configure a transponder to work on a particular frequency anytime, offcourse within a range?

Can a beam be adjusted? or it is only possible with satellites that have steerable beams?

hsenet · 20-06-2007

Dear Sean,

Thank you soo much for taking your time and interest in answering us. Me and several of our community in south india, around 40 families have installed a 90 cms dish and are pointing towards ABS-1 satellite to receive Christian programming, which would otherwise force us to install a min of 8 ft dish to receive from other C-Band Sats which is not at all an option for us.

The TBN channels that you are broadcasting are really a boon for us. As we prefer to watch such programming. I wanted to know the following:

1) Every week some sat channels of the christian genre come and leave within a week. Two weeks back it was GCN Manmin tv. Will they come back? Or was it just testing or preview?

2) During the month of feb, God and Daystar TV were also coming. I want to know, if you are going to bring them back to the platform? It would be really great if they come back.

3) We love 3 ABN and the TBN channels. Will they stay on the platform?

4) What new channels of the christian genre will come in the future?

These answers will help me tell my community to hookup to this satellite and more people will! I am just afraid, that the channels will be removed or hooked off. Who can better assure me than you?

Looking foreward keenly for your reply.

Hsenet

seanlangston · 23-06-2007

Originally Posted by lnb15k

Thanks for the answers. It helped a lot.

So if a particular transponder is much weaker than others then it is mostly likely be because of the uplinking station?

Can you configure a transponder to work on a particular frequency anytime, offcourse within a range?

Can a beam be adjusted? or it is only possible with satellites that have steerable beams?

Dear lnb15k,

Yes, if a particular carrier (note: a transponder is a physical block of amplified bandwidth on a RF device, a carrier can vary in size occupying all or only part of a transponder) is uplinked with less power, or the transponder setting is for greater output backoff, the carrier to noise ratio (i.e. signal strength) will be lower. This does not mean that you can't receive the carrier with the same quality level as others, as long as the link parameters are set with that in mind. The most common way to configure a lower power carrier to work with smaller downlink dishes is to increase the FEC (forward error correction) or to use a more resilient modulation type (for example, BPSK instead of QPSK).

Usually a transponder is set to a fixed frequency, although some satellites are designed to have more transponder frequencies than amplifiers, effectively meaning that a transponder can be switched from one frequency to another. ABS-1 was designed with a fixed set of parameters in mind, so we can not modify the frequency range that any of our transponders use. However, an uplink station could be configured to use a different transponder on the satellite. We did this with the TBN channel bouquet which was originally operating on transponder 13S (12.640 GHz) but later moved to transponder 11S (12.579 GHz).

Beams can be adjusted, but there are limits. Normally, the beam shape can not be changed, as antenna reflectors on the satellite are specially designed to create a specific beam shape. Some satellites have steerable beams, usually shaped in some kind of oval. These beams are normally referred to as "spot beams" and they are used when coverage is needed in a certain location for one or more customers, but the duration of the coverage requirement is limited. This allows flexibility for the satellite operator, since business needs tend to change over time. Ku-band and Ka-band are commonly used for spot coverage, as the power levels drop off more rapidly at an edge of coverage, offering the benefit of frequency reuse in different geographical locations. ABS-1 does not have spot beams, as our beams were shaped to carefully correspond to the geography of Asia, providing maximum power over land areas.

Sean

seanlangston · 23-06-2007

Originally Posted by hsenet

Dear Sean,

Thank you soo much for taking your time and interest in answering us. Me and several of our community in south india, around 40 families have installed a 90 cms dish and are pointing towards ABS-1 satellite to receive Christian programming, which would otherwise force us to install a min of 8 ft dish to receive from other C-Band Sats which is not at all an option for us.

The TBN channels that you are broadcasting are really a boon for us. As we prefer to watch such programming. I wanted to know the following:

1) Every week some sat channels of the christian genre come and leave within a week. Two weeks back it was GCN Manmin tv. Will they come back? Or was it just testing or preview?

2) During the month of feb, God and Daystar TV were also coming. I want to know, if you are going to bring them back to the platform? It would be really great if they come back.

3) We love 3 ABN and the TBN channels. Will they stay on the platform?

4) What new channels of the christian genre will come in the future?

These answers will help me tell my community to hookup to this satellite and more people will! I am just afraid, that the channels will be removed or hooked off. Who can better assure me than you?

Looking foreward keenly for your reply.

Hsenet

Dear Hsenet,

Thanks for your note and interest in the channels on our Southern Beam. I encourage you to send news about you and your friends to TBN, 3ABN, and the other Christian channels you mentioned. These channels are our customers, and they love to hear that their service is being received by many people (this is why they offer their channels on a free-to-air basis).

1: This was a short-term service for one of our partners. I'm not sure if they will be coming back or not, but believe me that we are doing our best to bring more channels like this to our satellite.

2: Daystar, unfortunately, did not get enough positive responses during the time they were on ABS-1, so they could not continue their service. They had a prayer drive during the month they were on our satellite, and they used the responses received to gauge the effectiveness. They might still be convinced to reconsider their decision if they were to receive more positive feedback about ABS-1; however, they are actively promoting cable carriage in India, so when I mentioned your market as a possible beneficiary of the transmission, they thought it was unnecessary due to their already wide reception on cable. Please send them your comments through email. The God Channel was handled by one of our partners, and they chose not to continue service at that time. Please also send them your comments, as they might reconsider.

3: Yes, 3ABN and TBN will be on our satellite for many years to come.

4: We are working with many partners to bring new channels that you might enjoy to ABS-1 (especially on our Southern Beam). I can't mention any specific names, but expect some developments soon.

I noticed that you didn't mention FETV. Is there any reason why? They were on ABS-1 for more than one month, but they also didn't get enough positive feedback. We have been working hard to bring them back, as their programming style is somewhat unique for a Christian channel (they have old US TV shows, movies, and sports events, mixed with ministry and talk shows). Sending emails to them would help a lot.

Here is a list of email addresses for the channels mentioned:

TBN: comments@tbn.org or bmiller@tbn.org
3ABN: mail@3abn.org
Daystar: comments@daystar.com
God Channel: info@god.tv
FETV: harvest@lesea.com

**Analoguesat** · 23-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

4: We are working with many partners to bring new channels that you might enjoy to ABS-1 (especially on our Southern Beam). I can't mention any specific names, but expect some developments soon.

Lets point out to our Indian viewers that Sean and the rest of the ABS team will be bound by client confidentiality clauses about new channel launches so cannot drop any info about new channels until the agreed time.

puneet · 23-06-2007

i want to see spice channel from abs 1 . it is a paid channel . kindly tell me the procegor to see this channel or any other adult channel from this sat. in north india punjab

lnb15k · 23-06-2007

Originally Posted by seanlangston

Dear lnb15k,

Yes, if a particular carrier (note: a transponder is a physical block of amplified bandwidth on a RF device, a carrier can vary in size occupying all or only part of a transponder) is uplinked with less power, or the transponder setting is for greater output backoff, the carrier to noise ratio (i.e. signal strength) will be lower. This does not mean that you can't receive the carrier with the same quality level as others, as long as the link parameters are set with that in mind. The most common way to configure a lower power carrier to work with smaller downlink dishes is to increase the FEC (forward error correction) or to use a more resilient modulation type (for example, BPSK instead of QPSK).

Usually a transponder is set to a fixed frequency, although some satellites are designed to have more transponder frequencies than amplifiers, effectively meaning that a transponder can be switched from one frequency to another. ABS-1 was designed with a fixed set of parameters in mind, so we can not modify the frequency range that any of our transponders use. However, an uplink station could be configured to use a different transponder on the satellite. We did this with the TBN channel bouquet which was originally operating on transponder 13S (12.640 GHz) but later moved to transponder 11S (12.579 GHz).

Beams can be adjusted, but there are limits. Normally, the beam shape can not be changed, as antenna reflectors on the satellite are specially designed to create a specific beam shape. Some satellites have steerable beams, usually shaped in some kind of oval. These beams are normally referred to as "spot beams" and they are used when coverage is needed in a certain location for one or more customers, but the duration of the coverage requirement is limited. This allows flexibility for the satellite operator, since business needs tend to change over time. Ku-band and Ka-band are commonly used for spot coverage, as the power levels drop off more rapidly at an edge of coverage, offering the benefit of frequency reuse in different geographical locations. ABS-1 does not have spot beams, as our beams were shaped to carefully correspond to the geography of Asia, providing maximum power over land areas.

Sean

Thanks for the reply. It is really nice to learn a lot from you.

Now 12.518 GHz V is assingned to Northern beam and 12.579 GHz H is for Southern Beam. Can the frequencies be swaped (12.518 V to Southern beam and 12579 H to Northern beam)? Or the tranponders are linked with the beams?

There are no channels in some beams in a few satellites. Does that mean those transponders are idle? Dead weight?

You said about changing the frequencies in the uplinking station. We have to just change the frequencies through softwares or do we need to replace a whole lot hardwares?

Who are presently using the Ka band services? ABS1 do provide those services? I saw there were spot beams for Chennai (Madras) too. But didn't remember the satellite.

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