RTE on 9E

[Analoguesat]

According to Lyngsat Ka-Sat has lit up at 9E. RTE programming in the Ka band

=http://www.lyngsat.com/eka.html

Anyone in Ireland got any suitable Ka equipment can have a look for us???

A reminder - Ka Sat has ultra tight spot beams - you aint going to get this much outside Ireland!

 

[fergyc]

I'll believe that when I see it ;)

Can you convert a Ku band setup cheap and easily?

 

[Analoguesat]

No idea bud. Ka band tv receive is basically new technology in Europe.

 

[Huevos]

Just change to an LNB with suitable local oscillator frequency. I don't believe the spot beam is going to be as tight as people say.

 

[Analoguesat]

^^ I do

The beams HAVE to be tight - there are 82 of them & there are only 5 frequency bands in use.

 

[Huevos]

The beams HAVE to be tight - there are 82

How do you fit 82 aerials onto a satellite and make them big enough to produce a spot beam? And were only talking a couple of Gigs up from Ku band, not some super high frequency. I don't understand it. What am I missing?

Edit: just had a read up. 4 multi-feed aerials mostly for broadband.

 

[A nonymous]

Its circular polarity aswell by the looks of it. Not your usual european Vertical or Horizontal garden variety.

Wonder how long before the receiving equipment comes on the market ?

I see their advertising already

 http://www.saorsat.ie/

Nano

 

[Huevos]

Saorview's site says there is one spotbeam to cover ROI.

Edit: "We see this on the map above, thus the usable area of the Irish spot for a "normal" size dish could be four times area, almost 1000km (approx 600mi) diameter".

 

[sexiboi]

I thought saorsat on 9E would only be available in the single spot beam that covers most of the rep of Ireland, with interference from the same freq/polarisation combination being used for the french spot covering Calais area, thus preventing any realistic hope of picking up a signal in Britain regardless of dish size.

You only need four different combinations of freq/pol to achieve no adjacent spots having the same setup, but the rep of Ireland and north west France use the same.

However, a question: will they not need to use the spot covering NI and west Scotland too? to provide signal to Donegal and NI?
If so, then the next spot with the same freq/pol combination is Spain I think, so British punters would be able to pick up the NI signal (with some degree of attenuation) would they not?

I'm really new to the world of satellite tv, looking around and haven't got any system yet, but I do want to get free channels in UK and RTÉ stations... pref without any charges. Any advice/hints/links/help in this regard are very welcome (however devious!)

Thanks,
Dec

 

[Analoguesat]

Welcome to the forum sexiboi.

We cant give you any info on the coverage area of the new RTE signals atm - this is new territory for all of us and the signals only started a few days ago. Receive equipment is still rare.

However you can start with the equipment for the UK stuff. You will need a dish, cabling and something like a Freesat stb. Decide if you want pvr capabilities. If you are handy at diy its easy enough to install yourself, but if diy is a foreign land one of our installer lads in the north west will do it.

 

[sexiboi]

Thanks for the welcome Analogue, and for the advice. We won't know how it all pans out until (importantly) the French spot is active and then if the NI spot is used for saorsat or not.

I'm cool with doing the DIY myself, and a background in IT makes me want to delve in at the reprogramming a suitable box for my needs.

I'm not interested in sports/films/s_x channels so freesat/saorsat/other EU national channels is what I want to access.
What's your opinion on the portable camper van dishes? I fancy one if they work for ease of bringing on hols.

Dec

 

[Huevos]

I thought saorsat on 9E would only be available in the single spot beam that covers most of the rep of Ireland, with interference from the same freq/polarisation combination being used for the french spot covering Calais area, thus preventing any realistic hope of picking up a signal in Britain regardless of dish size.

Hi Sexiboi. It's not really as simple as that. For two spot beams to interfere, and thus block one another, they both need to be transmitting on the same frequency. Just because the satellite might have this capability doesn't mean that is going to be the case, at least not to start with. Take for example Astra 3B. That has a frequency re-use spot beam that covers parts of eastern Europe. Right now it is not switched on, so it is not interfering with the pan-European beam, hence people in eastern Europe receive the pan beam just fine. Say 5 transponders on the spot beam are switched on, that would only mean a small part of the band of the pan-European beam would be affected, so you would still be able to receive the rest fine. Also as a spot beam gets smaller the market is more selective so the traffic (band use) on it will also be lower. Right now (according to what I've read on Saorview's site) Saorview are going to use about 5% of the real capacity of the ROI beam. If a similar thing happens in France what is the chance of frequency re-use at this time (even though it is physically possible)? And Eutelsat is certainly not going to deliberately block its own satellite.

Also, if you read between the lines, everything you read on the net (and elsewhere) is just a re-write of the Eutelsat press release, by journalists who in reality don't know any more about the satellite than anyone else who has read the same thing. Right now there is no real technical information about the performance of the satellite in the public domain, theory or practical so the only thing we can do is wait and see how things pan out.

 

[sexiboi]

...Just because the satellite might have this capability doesn't mean that is going to be the case...And they're certainly not going to deliberately block their own satellite....

That's good news to hear - a bit of common sense! I was going off the colour coded map and frequency allocations data.
So I'll have to stick my finger in the air and see what it's like when it gets going.

Now this sounds like a right thicko question in my head as I type, but am I correct in thinking that there's no way out of having two separate dishes to receive both freesat on astra and saorsat? If so, am I able to 'combine' the incoming signals to a common receiver?

Dec

 

[Huevos]

am I correct in thinking that there's no way out of having two separate dishes to receive both freesat on astra and saorsat? If so, am I able to 'combine' the incoming signals to a common receiver?

I don't know. If the LNB outputs on the same intermediate frequency as a universal LNB you would just need the Ka LNB and a DiSEqC switch... that's assuming Soarview's transmissions use the DVB standard.

 

[Adam792]

I don't know. If the LNB outputs on the same intermediate frequency as a universal LNB you would just need the Ka LNB and a DiSEqC switch... that's assuming Soarview's transmissions use the DVB standard.

From Analoguesat's link, it looks like they're using DVB-S2 with MPEG4 video. Looking at the parameters of the transponder, it has an overall usable bitrate of about 24Mbps, which is the same as a DVB-T multiplex in the configuration Ireland are using (the same as ours) so it looks possible that the Saorsat service will at some point probably be an exact replica of the DVB-T multiplex stream.

It will be interesting to see what the coverage is like; especially with what you're saying about the spot beam only being really affected when that frequency on the Northern French beam is switched on.

 

[sonnetpete]

Anyone know why there is a 'northern french spotbeam'? Will it be Ka band? It just seems an odd area geographically. (Unless there are lots of ex pat Irish near the Channel ports!)

 

[Huevos]

they're using DVB-S2 with MPEG4 video. Looking at the parameters of the transponder, it has an overall usable bitrate of about 24Mbps

I read somewhere on Saorview's website that they will have 2 multiplexes on KA sat with a combined overall bitrate of 50Mbps (at a cost of 1.5 million €uros annually). The total ROI spot beam capacity is supposed to be 900Mbps.

Anyone know why there is a 'northern french spotbeam'? Will it be Ka band? It just seems an odd area geographically. (Unless there are lots of ex pat Irish near the Channel ports!)

It's for Ka-band satellite broadband (Tooway). That is the primary mission of the satellite.

 

[sonnetpete]

....It's for Ka-band satellite broadband (Tooway). That is the primary mission of the satellite.

I suspected that was it, though I looked at the broadband footprint and it seems to be very extensive. Maybe it's centered on Northern France. One thing for sure, although it's quicker than I get at present, the usage restrictions at it's cheapest level are too stringent for me.

 

[sexiboi]

Anyone know why there is a 'northern french spotbeam'? Will it be Ka band? It just seems an odd area geographically. (Unless there are lots of ex pat Irish near the Channel ports!)

I think the french spot is one of many they have for French TV or broadband, Ireland has just one (but this leaves out NI/north Donegal) then there are five I think covering UK. However the frequency/polarity is not replicated on adjacent spots, and the Irish one is set to have the same freq/pol as the northern French one, so any dish on the fringes of these two spots may interfere if they are happen to use the same frequencies in their allocation.

 

[Analoguesat]

Some early pics from a guy in Ireland:

-http://www.techtir.ie/blogs/watty/rte-kasat-tests

Info from watty on the DS forum:

Just a generic DVB-S2 HD box. No entry of the Ka Band LO. It thinks it's on 9E Ku band at 11966 but really at 20185

The IF is the same band...
No band or polarisation switching needed. So signals can be "split".

Ka LNBs come in four bands. Irish Spot appears to be in what Nortake call band B
19.20 - 20.20 GHz
(Saorsat TP1 is 20.185 GHz)