Uk Vessel In Africa HELP PLEASE!

F

fr294

Member
My Satellite Setup
Marine Seatel System + Technomate Decoder
My Location
Equatorial Guinea
Hello,

I am on a ship that is in the Gulf of Guinea west Africa and we have no sat TV!!
Onboard we have a large Seatel Dome which is controlled from the Seatel control DAC unit.
We have 5 Technomate receivers connected to the Seatel control unit.
I want to be able to watch at least an English speaking news channel (bbc world news or cnn etc) but I am unsure which satellite to tune the seatel to?
I think I will have to make sure the seatel control unit is tracking the correct satellite then tune in the technomate receiver to the correct satellite?

Any advice would be much appreciated from anyone who knows what to do as I am lost!:eek:
 
Well the first thing you need to do is determine exactly your longitude on a map then check lyngsat to see if a satellite beam is receivable where you are, as it is unlikely anyone will radiate a footprint into the sea unless there were heavily populated small islands near by. Unfortunately the ususal for BBC World News e.g. 19.2 East the beam does not extend down as far as W Africa so it is unlikely to be of much use without a gigantic dish. What diameter dish is the seatel dome equivalent to?
 
Hello, Our longitude is 8º 43' East and our dish size is 60" or 150cm, we are working really close to land only a few kilometres from Malabo.
I find it quite difficult to use the lyngsat website,I don't even know where to start and I am quite baffled by it , would someone be able reccomend a satellite to pick?
 
That puts you just off the coast of Equatorial Guinea by my reckoning.

Hang on lets see what we can find.
 
You might want to try Astra 1E/4A at 4.8°E. It has an African beam which should be available in your location. On transponder 12605V there's France 24 News channel in English.
 
Might be worth looking inside the dome to confirm what LNB is on the end of the dish. It could be a C-Band system.
 
Hi Channel hopper, if it makes any difference to you we are able to watch sky no problem at all when we are in the north sea??
 
Well that's definitely Ku Band!
 
The biggest problem you have fr294 is theres not actually very much transmitting in English being fired into your area.

Theres some stuff on the sub Saharan Africa beam on 36E but its all encrypted.
 
Aye got you Analoguesat, I have tried to set up on "Globe Cast" on Astra 1E/4A at 4.8°E however I find that the settings provided in Lyngsat might not match what I need for the Seatel Antenna unit, see what you boys think?
The Seatel asks for:

SAT=004.8E (Simple)
THRS=0985 (Some kind of Threshold I belive to do with when you lose signal?)
FREQ=???? (Obviously Frequency but I can only input 4 digits)
BAUD=????? (Baud Rate 5 digits)
TONE=ON (Should this be on or off?)
VOLT=VERT
FEC=3/4 (Is 3/4 correct as I do see it on the lyngsat website next to GlobeCast)
NID=0000 (Network ID, Please advise I think it should be left at 0)

Thanks for your help guys, we have another 25 or so days down here and conversations are getting a little boring!! haha
 
If FREQ only allows 4 digits try leaving off the first digit which will be a 1 (so 12345 MHz is entered as 2345)

So try these

FREQ= 2605
BAUD=29950
VOLT=Vertical
FEC= 3/4
 
If you get this working then theres also radio channel RNW2 on the same frequency which is the English service of Radio Netherlands.

A decent enough service with some interesting documentaries on it
 
The Frequency will more likely be the IF and depend on the LNB on the dish, but if it is a universal (not sure whether it will be), the IF for that frequency would be 1745. Tone (if this refers to 22Khz) would be on.
 
Hi

I know whats its like to be in the middle of nowhere with no entertainment on the boat it gets very thin.From your location Intelsat 10 @ 68.5° East has a couple of FTA english speaking channels but as you go away from the beach or north you will lose the c-band signal.here is a list of the fta channels -http://www.tracksat.com/satellite4-FTA.html not much on it but it all helps :) im sure the guys will also find other channels for you but with a 1.5m dish you should be fine foe 68.5e
 
Do my fellow mariners no longer while away down-time by searching for the Golden Rivet?
 
Ku band

Astra 1E/4A @ 4.8° East
12605 V 29950 3/4 DVB-S/MPEG-2


Eutelsat W2A @ 10° East
11638 H 27500 Auto DVB-S2/MPEG-4( France TV) -Africa beam

NSS 7 @ 22° West
10986 V30000 3/4 DVB-S/MPEG-2 -West Africa beam - CanalSat Horizons (France)
 
Tivù said:
Do my fellow mariners no longer while away down-time by searching for the Golden Rivet?
Click to expand...


Granted, time can pass slowly, but there is a limit to the kind of activity you allude to :eek:
 
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