Astra 2D in Portugal with 1meter!!!

[jleal]

I can see all of the FTA BBC in astra 2D in Portugal with 1 meter dish!!! and my Humax naci5700.

I had to adjust the dish with great precision but i've managed to open the desired channels.

The location is Peniche in the west coast of Portugal, 100km north of Lisbon.

I only have 68% signal strenght and 23% signal quality (image appears with 20%). The weather was cloudy today. I'm curious to know the conditions with clear skies.
I think a 1.2m dish will be enough even with bad weather.

Tomorrow i will do some more tests. I'll post the results then.

jleal

 

[PaulR]

I suspect that you are getting reception off one of the sidelobes from 2D. Most other people need huge dishes that far outside the normal footprint.

It will be interesting to see whether the lobe is stable over the coming weeks/months.

PaulR

 

[PoloMint]

The rather strange lobes and edges of 2D don’t seem to have moved or shrunk since the sat started transmitting, so hopefully you’ll be okay for a while. But if it goes the same way as 2b North beam (which has been shifting and shrinking for a couple of years) a lot of people will be annoyed yet again.

Like you, I at home despite being 800 miles off the official footprint for 2D could receive it on a 1m dish (south of Spain). 2B North used to be perfect on a 1.2m (20-30% signal in average weather on all transponders) but now with a 1.2m over half the transponders on that beam only have a 10% quality signal for a couple hours in the afternoon, at most. This isn’t my setup; everyone in the area is affected.

 

[jleal]

The rather strange lobes and edges of 2D don’t seem to have moved or shrunk since the sat started transmitting, so hopefully you’ll be okay for a while. But if it goes the same way as 2b North beam (which has been shifting and shrinking for a couple of years) a lot of people will be annoyed yet again.

Like you, I at home despite being 800 miles off the official footprint for 2D could receive it on a 1m dish (south of Spain). 2B North used to be perfect on a 1.2m (20-30% signal in average weather on all transponders) but now with a 1.2m over half the transponders on that beam only have a 10% quality signal for a couple hours in the afternoon, at most. This isn’t my setup; everyone in the area is affected.

There are some channels on the north beam that i can not receive also.

Why does the footprint shrinks?

What is now the minimum size dish for your location to see all channels?

I know that there are people in my country with 1.3 and 1.5m meter dishes for a long time and they can see all the channels in good conditions.

jleal

 

[PoloMint]

A 1.8m offset dish will receive all channels here in good and moderate weather.

As for the footprint moving or shrinking (beyond its daily pattern) there is no clear answer, but there are many theories. If anyone could confirm or shoot them down it would be appreciated.

It could be intentional, if the actual footprint is bigger than the one produced by Astra, they might decide to reduce output to save power/prolong life etc.

It could be that it is just age/deterioration of components; the footprint might continue to shrink until it reaches its official smaller size.

Other theories say that the size hasn’t changed at all, it has just moved. If the satellite was slightly drifting off course when it was brought back again the whole footprint might move slightly so people on the edge would notice a shift.

Also the satellite filled up (more transponders used) around two years ago, power to transponders already in use might be reduced, or perhaps interference is caused by the newly used transponders that are close in frequency to ones already in use.

As I said there seems to be little or no evidence to back these up, and there are probably other (perhaps more accurate) reasons also.

 

[tsilva]

The location of Sky execs' holiday villas?

I'm going to try a 1.80m in the north of Portugal in the hope of getting, among others, channel 4 (2B north I believe).

I wonder how long the digital satellite sector can continue ignoring the irresistible logic of supply and demand?

 

[Old Fred]

Most footprint maps are totally inaccurate. The best one I've seen for 2d was on a site that does repair kits.

Fred

 

[PaulR]

"The rather strange lobes and edges of 2D don’t seem to have moved or shrunk since the sat started transmitting"

Well something definitely changed earlier this year between Easter and the end of May.

At Easter I could get ITV on a region 1 minidish in France near Orange 84. It was a bit weak and disappeared when rain arrived but it was definitely there.

Come May and the move on to 2D by the BBC, and I find that ITV has disappeared as well.

So what happened? Did Astra move their bird a little bit? Or maybe they backed off the power just a smidgeon?

PaulR