Newsnet on Ka Band A

Vipersan

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Ok I got interested in this area of the Ka spectrum ..well ...because I could really ..
It would appear ITV Newsnet lease a chunk of spectrum in the Vertical ..difficult to lock onto as Llew will testify ..but the SL3 handles this chunk well enough..
I believe this is the whole chunk between the Yellow bands ..
The data being 32APSK and occasionally identifiable and lockable to the left ..and a continuous view of the news gathering office via camera which occasionally shows newsclips intended for ITV news consumption..
Most of the time showing the office ..and an overlay with a date to the Next newsnet .. the extreme right peak.
When the 'NET' happens the area between these 2 peaks becomes active with Newsfeeds links and OBs presumably ...
These are visible and have sound ..ie DBS ..
anyway ..to illustrate here are some screen caps taken today ..
rgds
VS
 

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Llew

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Yes VS, it's a regular carrier here, usually in the afternoon. I can sometimes lock it , but doesn't show any PIDS in TSReader for me - presumably unlocking as I invoke the reader.
 

tony smith

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Hi
yes interested in this field folks, what satellite did you downlink this Newsnet signal?
 

Llew

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19.2E Tony. As I mentioned, I rarely lock ITV Newsnet. Tried again today on my 1.2 Gibertini and Norsat LNB - nothing doing. Could well be a footprint issue with me - Vipersan has better success where he is with his SL3 LNB arrangement.
 

Vipersan

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19.2E Tony. As I mentioned, I rarely lock ITV Newsnet. Tried again today on my 1.2 Gibertini and Norsat LNB - nothing doing. Could well be a footprint issue with me - Vipersan has better success where he is with his SL3 LNB arrangement.
Not recently though Llew ..
Either they have modified the footprint or signal levels have dropped ..
The only transponder of any significant strength currently is the Nag feed..
Even have trouble locking Ocko atm..
There was a time a few weeks back when I could always lock ITV at between 8 and 10db ,,but now at 5.4 db and has been this way for about 3 weeks.
rgds
 

Llew

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The reason I mentioned the footprint of Newsnet is that when it's active, the peak is always quite small here compared to its neighbours, contrasting with the one you posted, e.g this one I locked a while ago -
 

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tony smith

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Hi Folks
Thanks for your replies.The footprint (downlink) for this satellite is massive
covers into eastern Europe as well as west. it was intended for K/Ka band internet conection.
it has multi uplink beam coverage, so depending where you are in Europe dictates the pol and frequency you can use.
It is weak, but depending on weather, like amount of rain/ water bearing objects in the up and downlink path, dictates the downlink signal level at your location, thats from any uplink .

As K band downlinks off this bird, she has 2 K/Ka band transponders H and V aprox 400 Mhz each, is very weather dependant, like double loss of Ku band in heavy rain, so Ku up to 4 dBm
K upto 8dBm, thats not including "Dish Wetting Loss"

It is to my location Midlands UK much higher level on H pol than V, in fact I have a problem somtimes nulling out the carrier at 18.7xx, can quite happly see both pols at the same time if I wish.

It can be received with a 1.2 metre dish (Midlands) but it needs careful pointing to get max signal, and a good feedhorn, I have a selection all rectangular, not circular, so pol setting required,we use ones we made or have a high gain one from USA. I get signal level of aprox 14 dBm on the 18.552 Ghz(With respect to noise floor) on ( 72 dB micovolts) on 1.8 metre dish.

If the weather changes it drops like a brick, untill it's lost in noise.
 

Llew

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Hi Folks
Thanks for your replies.The footprint (downlink) for this satellite is massive
covers into eastern Europe as well as west. it was intended for K/Ka band internet conection.
it has multi uplink beam coverage, so depending where you are in Europe dictates the pol and frequency you can use.
It is weak, but depending on weather, like amount of rain/ water bearing objects in the up and downlink path, dictates the downlink signal level at your location, thats from any uplink .

As K band downlinks off this bird, she has 2 K/Ka band transponders H and V aprox 400 Mhz each, is very weather dependant, like double loss of Ku band in heavy rain, so Ku up to 4 dBm
K upto 8dBm, thats not including "Dish Wetting Loss"

It is to my location Midlands UK much higher level on H pol than V, in fact I have a problem somtimes nulling out the carrier at 18.7xx, can quite happly see both pols at the same time if I wish.

It can be received with a 1.2 metre dish (Midlands) but it needs careful pointing to get max signal, and a good feedhorn, I have a selection all rectangular, not circular, so pol setting required,we use ones we made or have a high gain one from USA. I get signal level of aprox 14 dBm on the 18.552 Ghz(With respect to noise floor) on ( 72 dB micovolts) on 1.8 metre dish.

If the weather changes it drops like a brick, untill it's lost in noise.
Hi, good to see another enthusiast for this band on the Forum. Sadly, it's an expensive business obtaining the necessary LNBs and feedhorns, and unless or until the band becomes more popular with domestic satellite operators, a tad out of reach for most people.

We like to do a little DIY with feedhorns, sometimes appropriated from 'over experimented' Saorsat LNBs, but Vipersan has fashioned his own as well. Also, we have obtained Hughesnet LNB Band C assemblies from the US for further experimentation, which you can see in the relevant sections here.
 

tony smith

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Hi
Thanks for your reply Llew yes it can be expensive, the cheapest way to do it is
you can use most sat receivers to receive K band, just change the LNB settings
to the LNB L.O. eg 17.250Ghz, buy the cheapest LNB, not a LNBF, DRO type
make your feed horn out of thin tin plate, and away you go.
 

Llew

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Yup, we use various receivers, PC cards. Best receiver I have for sensitive tuning is the DR HD, and PC cards TBS6925.5925 and Skystar eXpress HD, using Crazycat's Crazyscan application for spectrum scanning and constellation monitoring

Cheap K Band LNB? Point me to one :rolleyes:
 

tony smith

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Hi Llew
Have you tried Norsat, they did do DRO types at about £80:00/£90:00 plus Vat, but I have heard since they may now have discontinued and only offer PLL types at about £750:00.
But give it a try, they have a UK base.
 

Llew

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Got a Norsat, and an XMW Ka LNB for Band D. See left.
 

tony smith

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Hi Llew good did you get them at the right price?
I notice the some of the modulation types called up on Vipersan, spectrum display at the 18.552Ghz,as 16 psk and two higher carriers are 32 psk, the two higher ones are not DVB-s2x
may be data, I think the 18.552 should be 8psk, otherwise my receiver is much better than I thought.

The lowest one, 18.36x as qpsk is correct thats Penthouse 3D I think, nice wide bandwidth 14Mhz.
The Newsnet feed, which is uplinked from MC (Media City) UK did carry an ident, but now seems to have dropped this.
 

Llew

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Needed a second mortgage for the XMW LNB :(

The data carrier at 18561V is ACM, and the FEC can change to compensate for link conditions. Hence the difference in FEC here, constellations taken within a few seconds -
 

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tony smith

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Hi Llew,
Data it is, I was talking about the access method as 32psk, these non-syncronous data feeds which they have to be, e.g Eithernet Packet Based, to adaptive coding modulation has dynamic changes in their throughput to keep the satellite link margin good in all weather up and downlinking, not sure why the forward error correction would change, as the receiver end would have to try and track this, if it was still Read Solomon based mapping. usually these run at 16psk, but maybe this is an exception.
Did you by the way get your Norsat LNB from UK base?

Your constellation display is that just 1 or all of the vectors? if it is all, looks like 8psk, with out pilot carrier correction
 

Llew

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Only shows 8PSK vectors in my version of Crazyscan, irrespective of modulation changes. And they are changing very rapidly on this feed, from QPSK through to 32APSK. Possibly a problem with Crazyscan?

We obtained the Norsat from their UK rep, who brought over over one or two redundant DRO stock from Canada. I think about £100.
 

tony smith

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Hi Llew
Yes thanks for your info. also you got the LNB for a good price
 

Llew

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Hi Tony, what in your experience do you make of the strange observation I noticed yesterday whilst scanning 19.2E (posts #22,23 here -

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/threads/lower-ka-band-reception.160023/page-2

All the active KA transponders ceased for about half an hour, with (presumably) KA1 and 2 becoming active at the same time.
They disappeared when normal service resumed. If it was a test of the transponders, why would the other transponders have closed down? Power saving?
 

tony smith

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Hi Llew
The Astra satellite at 19.2 east, with Ka transponders is Astra 1L, she is a sort of one of 2, the other was 1H now retired, built by Locheed Martin, shes a A2100 craft, during my check out of this type, I found that earlier versions built upto 2006, did have a problem with their solar panels, some sections going near short circuit, later craft they installed protection diodes.
Astra 1L was launched 2007 , but if she had the mods on I can not find out.

This brings me back to your question, her up link transponders are split H and V they are each split into 10 subtransponders each 50 Mhz wide( 29.500 Ghz to 30.000 Ghz) , the V ones are all numbered odd so Ka 1 to Ka 19 and H are even Ka2 toKa 20(some may be inactive as SES calls up 400 Mhz .

The down link transponders are reversed thats V even spit into 10, and H odd split into again 10.
(18.300 to18800Ghz)

Each subtransponder has it satellite antenna oriented to diffrent sections of Europe, so you can use very small uplink antennas for uplinking, UK has beam 4 uplink is Ka10,Ka 12,Ka 14 (H up) and (V down) so our downlink transponder numbers are same. the UK downlink is 18.500 to 18.650, the active UK one is 18.500, to18.550Ka 10 at this point in time.

Bit long winded this but the point is, I have seen Ka 10 V go very low in level, and some carriers
switched off and back on in either seconds or longer up to few mins, this I think is a fault with the satellite, I have also found out that she may have a digital channeliser, to assit in bent pipe
operations,( frequency changing and feeding to down transponders) I did speak to the USA Forum as its a American made satellite, to see if they could shead any light on this, as a possible fault cause, but silly me they of course cannot see it.

The downlinks were for "Hubs" very large antennas to pick up and feed data out via internet cables to end users, but it seems to be in a SNG operation, working into smallish antennas for regional ITV News, therfore if the satellite has a fault, then this could be a big problem, and not just the weather reducing signal level to possibly below their antenna or receivers thresshold.

This may have been what you picked up yesterday, or not as the case maybe.the only other active V downlink transponder I have see active is Ka 4 18.36x thats beam 1 or 2 Spain or Portugal(Penthouse 3D?)

So as you may have seen interesting happenings, thats keeps me looking at it.
 

Llew

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Thanks for that. So it's possible they switched over or off the UK transponder, and beamed one of the others to the UK for the duration, for whatever the reason...
 
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