Astra 2F: Iberia & Balearics Discussion

[Analoguesat]

DONT install a 1.5m dish on a chimney no matter how solid it looks!!

The forces exerted by gale force winds are enormous and the chimney will fail sooner or later.

 

[euskalikaslea]

@ Euskalikaslea,
I know exactly what you mean re local tv options. You will have seen from my posts that have tried a 1 m dish (which a friend gave me) with mixed results, as it only really works in the morning. It looks like a 1.25 m dish would do the job although if I can get a 1.5 m dish for the same kind of money I might go for that. The only thing holding me back is that my wife has threatened me with divorce if I continue to mess around on the roof (five floors up - they don't really understand the concept of a hobby here) and also I am slightly worried that a big dish might rip the chimney which it is attached to off the roof on one of those days where we get 100 km southern winds. It's a fairly solid piece of masonry and was orginally set up by a professional installer but although I have the neighbours' permission, wasting the chinney, although it's only for extracter fumes, would not go down well.

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to reply and let me know what does/doesn't work. it would appear that we are also in a null, like our Catalan friends. If I was of a suspicious nationalist nature I might be tempted to assume that it's all the fault of Madrid . Bit of a bummer having (possibly) to change my 80cm, which has worked flawlessly excepting thunderstorms, for one appreciably bigger. Might order one of those Inverto Black LNBs on the off chance. Kinda weird that someone has reported an 80cm as working in Mauleon which, in sat coverage terms, is just up the road? However as I am not missing Channel5 at all - no cricket right now - I think I'll sit it out and see what happens when they launch the next satellite, and see what the BBC does. Radio stations would go also unfortunately, can make it by internet, esp the podcasts, but I rather like my "Sky Gnome" to carry round the house - I would appear to be alone as regards that....

Don't know what to suggest re such a big dish on your chimney stack. I imagine the perforated ones, like I have right now, are much less problematic?? if you DO get a working set-up I'd be very interested to know. Equally I'll let you know if I manage owt, altho wife AND bad knee both are dead set against much ladder work.

 

[Lazarus]

As regards the local (to you) 80cm report, it rather depends upon

a. Whether it's kosher

and, if so

b. The owner understood what exactly they were reporting upon

 

[davidcmadrid]

Positive report from Leon , NW Spain

110 cm
All stations solid with plenty of weather margin. Very interesting in the sense that it puts a postive on the map in an under reported area.

 

[davidcmadrid]

There have been reports of the signal changing strenght appearing ( not a huge amount of reports but enough to think something changed ) 11023H for me which was the weakest has gone from 65% SNR to 72% SNR , thats on a 1.55x1.6m with an eco (nomy lol ) lnb. The others have increased also , on my 1.2m motorized the signal is 55% SNR. the floor for reception is 30-32% on my receiver.

 

[grevs]

David .Presumabley this will slightley help to reduce the dish size needed in some of the weaker fringe areas.It was good to see a positve report from Leon.

 

[Nagusia]

There have been reports of the signal changing strenght appearing ( not a huge amount of reports but enough to think something changed ) 11023H for me which was the weakest has gone from 65% SNR to 72% SNR , thats on a 1.55x1.6m with an eco (nomy lol ) lnb. The others have increased also , on my 1.2m motorized the signal is 55% SNR. the floor for reception is 30-32% on my receiver.

I noticed about the same difference on Saturday. I thought it was because I was using a different receiver- a Technisat SkyStar USB. Unfortunately the difference isn't great enough to get 2F channels on the FOXSAT-HDR which seems to need at least 50% quality to get a lock.

 

[davidcmadrid]

My increase is verified by other reports from Madrid in Spanish, i will say that in other regions of Europe decreases seem to be reported ( but for the most part people are refferring to " other reports " they have seen though i cant find many source reports ). Causal factors have been suggested variably as station keeping ( causing slight movement in fringe hotspots and nulls ), or increase in transmission power, without more reports personally i wouldnt hazard a guess. It may or may not be coincidence that this increase especially on 11023H has been noted in the run up to this TP going live DTH.

Does anybody have information relating to variable power based on sky conditions in the UK being employed , its been snowing heavy in North Scotland of late. I read it somewhere , but cant remember where and you read a lot on the internet .

ps. The effort has been worth it , watching MOTD or BBC four documentaries is one of lifes tv pleasures

 

[Huevos]

It may or may not be coincidence that this increase especially on 11023H has been noted in the run up to this TP going live DTH.

I don't see any evidence of this at all. I put up a my 1.1m test dish on the 22/11/2012. I've just checked my spreadsheet for that dish. On that date, on 11023H, on the Emitor Satlook Color HD I was receiving 8.6dB, and 56% SNR on the Vu+ Ultimo. Those readings are identical today.

Edit: Most likely thing is something has changed at your location, maybe the cooler weather, but for me, I can't see any change.

 

[davidcmadrid]

This is the very strange thing in ways Huevos, 2 other spanish forum users here in Madrid have verified the increase here in Madrid ( one using several readings with a promax ) , some such as yourself note none and others a decrease .. other than that I would not have bother to report the change. A slight " move " in the beam could be experienced in differing ways ?

 

[kota]

Nothing changed here. Still no signal whatsoever on any of the tps that have migrated to 2F. Nada !!

 

[Huevos]

This is the very strange thing in ways Huevos, 2 other spanish forum users here in Madrid have verified the increase here in Madrid ( one using several readings with a promax ) , some such as yourself note none and others a decrease .. other than that I would not have bother to report the change. A slight " move " in the beam could be experienced in differing ways ?

I don't know. What receiver are you seeing that huge increase on? Could be varying performance of a substandard LNB. Also this is why I keep written records, it's so easy to get confused. And it is even easier to get confused if you are an installer seeing lots of different dishes and readings every day. Data overload.

I think I even posted part of the spreadsheet further back in this thread, or the previous one.

 

[davidcmadrid]

vu+uno is my reciever , lnb on fixed is the eco as i reported and black ultra on motorized , comparitive increase on both setups. The installer who reported the increase is retired so he is only looking at his own dishes. This particular fella is quite ( ummm how shall i put it ) serious about this type of thing. I would expect that Andy, madridman and Bolou2 who are also in the madrid region posting here will chime in at some point.

 

[madridman]

vu+uno is my reciever , lnb on fixed is the eco as i reported and black ultra on motorized , comparitive increase on both setups. The installer who reported the increase is retired so he is only looking at his own dishes. This particular fella is quite ( ummm how shall i put it ) serious about this type of thing. I would expect that Andy, madridman and Bolou2 who are also in the madrid region posting here will chime in at some point.

I have also noticed an increase on 11023H in Madrid. I now get 68% quality in the afternoon/evening, whereas before it never went above 65%. I haven't checked what the reception is like early in the morning, when the channels on this transponder usually disappear or have frequent pixelation. I won't be able to check that until the weekend.

 

[Huevos]

There have been reports of the signal changing strenght appearing ( not a huge amount of reports but enough to think something changed ) 11023H for me which was the weakest has gone from 65% SNR to 72% SNR , thats on a 1.55x1.6m with an eco (nomy lol ) lnb. The others have increased also , on my 1.2m motorized the signal is 55% SNR. the floor for reception is 30-32% on my receiver.

First the noise floor. It's not one set level, it changes based on the parameters of the multiplex. For DVB-S2 8PSK 2/3 it goes into heavy pixelisation around 42%, and the DVB-S QPSK 5/6 transponders around 38%. 32% would be a DVB-S QPSK 3/4 transponder.

Second is the increase you are reporting. 7% is quite a big difference and Madridman is only reporting 3%. And I get a shift of about 1% throughout the day, but completely stable 56% since November.

1.1m dish with BU single on 11023H,


1.5m dish, motorised, skewed for the arc, not Astra, with BU single


1.8m Famaval dish, with Invacom quad C120,


So, if what you are reporting is not being caused by your equipment how is it possible it affects you and not me? Well one possible explanation is as follows: satellite stability is 0.1º (?), which translates to about 100 km on the ground. If I draw a circle around my location with a radius of 100km and the whole of that circle has reception at 56%, however much the satellite moves within the 0.1º I'll not see any change in power. But at your location, if 100km north of you gets 50%, and 100km south of you gets 70%, if the satellite moves 0.1º, you will see changes to SNR that I cannot. Anyway, just a theory.

 

[davidcmadrid]

Thanks huevos, out of interest I will study this more, we have seen for example around porto big differences over even 20kms, bolou2 and Andy will in time check in I guess. That ex installer a few clicks up the road reckons his increase was 8 per cent while a report from porto reckons they dropped 10 per cent taking him from healthy margin to zero margin with total loss in rain. That is the first source report I have seen of a drop,, while not conclusive it suggests some form of move in the beam as opposed to a general increase... Still though more reports needed to form any kind of statistical accuracy.

Incidentally thank you for the info re noise floor, I had taken a simplistic view of it.

 

[Huevos]

Just one other thing, if anyone has touched their dish in any way since their previous tests, tried to tweak it, skew, LNB depth, etc, I would completely ignore their reports as a reference. And also don't forget we've had quite a bit of heavy wind lately so this could also have affected any exposed dish with positive or negative bias.

 

[davidcmadrid]

From South Madrid ( Bonou2 ) 135x120


--amiko alien 8900hd
-11023 H 23000 2/3 L=75% ,Q=71%

and now
--amiko alien 8900hd
-11023 H 23000 2/3 L=75% ,Q=78%

Also another in Central madrid , 1m motorized SNR went from 46% to 56% , i have links to the screen captures outlining times captures were taken etc but its not appropriate to post them. I think its safe to conclude that things have changed in Madrid with corroborating reports from other sites. Gives an insight into how things can change but in unexpected ways , one might have expected Madrid mans signal to increase by more than it did , yet it didnt and others have bigger increases than me.

 

[Analoguesat]

Another factor - its very cold over much of Europe atm Lets see what happens when the temperatures go up again.

 

[Huevos]

Another factor - its very cold over much of Europe atm Lets see what happens when the temperatures go up again.

Not so cold here. 15ºC at the moment (1am).