Astra 2F at 28E (at last!)

[William Kay]

First signs of success here in Radøy outside Bergen. Following Hiach's procedure, I tried fine tuning the dish using the Southern Beam of Astra 2A. Managed to get upto 85% Strength and 90-100% Quality on 2A (CNN). My elevation is slightly off, and at the moment I've got one rusty nut which no amount of WD40 is loosening. Standing up the ladder and pushing the dish upwards I can peak at 100%, but it drops to 80% when I go back inside.

Anyhow... I was still showing 0% on 11023H. Left the Humax on the tuning screen... and suddenly at 1134 CET feint signals began to come in. I've now got reasonably stable 80% Strength and 60% Quality; the signal has noticebly strengthened a little in the last 5-10 minutes. Have been able to tune in the channels and am watching at the moment with ok picture. Keep getting pixelation now and again, I think more fine tuning on the dish would help.

 

[C0re]

Okay thanks for clearing that! This would mean that there could be an issue at Sky/BBc/Arqiva etc. delaying the transfer to the 2F.

 

[Huevos]

My dish is a second hand 150cm PF. I've never had a/ the correct feedhorn, so get by on LNBFs

Well that dish is performing like a 1.2m if you're lucky with that mismatch.

 

[Huevos]

at least until they sort out the wobble

What wobble? The signal is absolutely stable. All satellites have a change in signal quality of a couple of a per cent throughout every 24 hours and for people right on the edge of reception that might take them below the reception limit. Certainly not due to anything wobbling though.

 

[M60]

Okay thanks for clearing that! This would mean that there could be an issue at Sky/BBc/Arqiva etc. delaying the transfer to the 2F.

If it's platform rather than service related then it could be something to do with Sky, they seem to kick off at anything remotely affecting their business (despite the fact they shouldn't be selling abroad anyway!).

It's interesting the info in this thread and the fact that as most contributors have a technical head with professional set-ups mean they can work out various issues, I guess once all the services migrate and Joe Bloggs abroad with a Sky+ HD STB (and his 2mtr dish ) just see 'no signal' then they'll become unstuck very quickly, especially in areas where 2F looks like it's a no-go such as the Canaries.

 

[Lazarus]

Chaps, please keep further debate about 27.5W in the dedicated Thread.


(I've now moved some, but not all of the Posts as there is a clear interest here)

 

[pipino]

Chaps, please keep further debate about 27.5W in the dedicated Thread.

sorry guys got carried away ;)

 

[dvdfilm]

do people in Central Europe still get a signal increase during the day?

 

[mbsnr]

If it's platform rather than service related then it could be something to do with Sky, they seem to kick off at anything remotely affecting their business (despite the fact they shouldn't be selling abroad anyway!).

Ha!
SES - So all these encrypted channels could just move to the UK spot beam.
Sky - We have no issue with them staying on the Pan Europe beam
SES - But all your customers are in the UK and Ireland.
Sky - Cough...

 

[Huevos]

Does anyone here have any contacts, however tenuous, with SES-Astra bods who can at least give us an informed clue as to what is going on

Astra 3B migrated the first broadcast transponders overnight on a Monday night / Tuesday morning so nothing to say it must be a Friday night. Astra 1M was a Friday night though.

 

[C0re]

The only certainty is that it would be done overnight ;)

 

[deepbluesky]

do people in Central Europe still get a signal increase during the day?

You can take a look at this diagram which a member on german DF board very close to me constantly renews: _http://forum.digitalfernsehen.de/forum/5703171-post1994.html

 

[joddle]

What wobble? The signal is absolutely stable. All satellites have a change in signal quality of a couple of a per cent throughout every 24 hours and for people right on the edge of reception that might take them below the reception limit. Certainly not due to anything wobbling though.

Maybe "wobble" is not an exact description but people on other forums are reporting a cyclical change to reception on the east and west edges of the beam which seems to have about a 3hr period during which time the signal is seen to increase then decrease again with predicatble regularity - hence my use of the term "wobble".

If these observations are correct then one must ask why? Is it a problem with the sat or something they are doing to try and fine adjust the aim of the beam before swapping over the transponders? One also wonders if this regular change to reception is or could be affecting "UK reception" on the edges of the intended beam e.g. in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Islands - if so then maybe they want to get that right first.

 

[Mr Hoover]

There are two narrowish signal now on transponder 22 12,140 (which is stronger with me)
and 12,127 vertical which is a bit weaker(3dB ish)-In fact 12,127 is varying as I type
but the other one not.

I'm assuming this is Astra 2F...maybe European beam

 

[solly]

I wonder if the existing 2B West Africa services will move down from 12.5GHz to the lower 10.7GHz spectrum once the WAB goes live? SES may have new transponders on this beam also contracted to new uplink providers as I guess they'll now be wanting to expand operations on this new slot.

the west africa provider
Infinity or Multi TV shifting to 2f ?
interesting 10.70 also use west africa beam
who it take 12.50 ghz ?

 

[Satellite74]

One other thing our commercial said was the migration will be seamless and the client base will not really notice when it's carried out so it shouldn't be an issue as to when exactly its carried out. Clearly, he has no appreciation of who is using the UK spot beam at the moment though I suppose he's technically right for those people in the UK and Ireland.

seamless, my foot. won't really notice, also my foot.

As we've discussed on digitalfernsehen.de, why can't there just be Europe-wide pay tv... I and many others would gladly pay a certain amount every month to get Freesat. Rights holders are worried about TV content from other countries spoiling their profits in markets that that content isn't intended for. Well, that's easy to fix, just give us a reasonable monthly subscription price for Freesat and we will pay... and then broadcast it per Internet broadband, which would mean minimal overhead costs compared to satellite transmission.

I, for one, would much rather pay a bit more to have Freesat instead of some overpriced Sky Germany package where I probably wouldn't ever watch most of the channels anyway.

 

[Lazarus]

@Satellite74: That's a whole different Debate for another time, another Thread.

 

[tothbros]

i think part of the reason for the delay might be that sky isnt happy with 3 of their tp's on spot beam becoming virtually un-receivable in a lot of areas after the switchover to 2F (tp 51, 52, 55)

 

[timo_w2s]

i think part of the reason for the delay might be that sky isnt happy with 3 of their tp's on spot beam becoming virtually un-receivable in a lot of areas after the switchover to 2F (tp 51, 52, 55)

I can't see why that would be an issue, I would think either they are on a spot for a reason or they can now switch to a wider beam if they wanted.

 

[Satellite74]

@Satellite74: That's a whole different Debate for another time, another Thread.

yes... I'm sorry... got a little carried away there.

Well, back to topic, I just got a new LNB in the mail that I ordered, it's an Inverto Black Ultra and it's supposed to be very good for weak satellite signals... I'm about to go into the back garden and install it... maybe that will bring some improvement.