Problems finding HOTBIRD with SL55

ikoonman

I have bought a FTV receiver (Comag SL-55) from Lidl and spending most of my Saturday I managed to find Astra1, (Astra2), and Hotbird.

My question tho is that I can pick up about 12 channels from Hotbird, and that is mostly the english ones. No German, Dutch, Italian, French.

I don't understand why I only get so few. I do not have a clear line of sight in the direction of the satellite because there is a hill due South where I stay. But if this was the problem, I'd prob not be able to receive any signal at all? (Astra1, 2 and anys signal from HB...)

My signal quality and strength seem to be both between 55-70%. There are 3 things I suppose I can try and do, but I am not sure how to go about.

1. Get a 0.3db LNB
2. Change my cable type (running from satellite to receiver)
3. Get a bigger dish.

But if you look at item's Lidl sold, it was a 80cm dish, with a 0.6db LNB. So I am safe there. They didn't specify what cable type your should use, so I am prob ok there, and most forums I read said that an 80cm dish should be suitable for receiving most FTA European channels in Ireland.

I am desperate!

Zaphod

What are the actual channels that you are picking up from Hotbird?


If you are already receiving English languages channels from Hotbird, then there probably is nothing physically wrong with your setup. More than likely, the 'problem' lies with the transponder database in the receiver - this is the list of transponder details (freq, pol, SR, fec) that the receiver looks at when you do a satellite search. The easiest way to check this out is to do a Manual Transponder (TP) search. This involves inputting the relevant details directly and then doing a search using those details.

So for the channels RTL, VOX, NBC Europe, the details that must be entered in the Manual Search fields are:
Frequency: 11054
Polarity: H
Symbol Rate: 27500
FEC: 5/6 (or Auto if available)

Then do a TP search.

ikoonman

Thanks for your reply.

The few channels appear similar to some channels that I am picking up via Astra2 (english based channels-i don't recall them off the top of my head), but when I view the INFO on the channels it said Hotbird 13'.

If this is the case, then I can assume that I do infact get something from Hotbird, right?

I did reset all channels by loading factory defaults so that's prob the reason that i am missing some info, because, although the sat had satellite info for example Hispasat and Hellasat initially, they are gone now.

Can I not upload the channel info via serial port (using EditStb i think) without having to put them all back manually? Is there a file i can use that contains all this info?

Thanks again

Zaphod

Are you certain you are on Hotbird and not Astra? Just because the 'info' says it's Hotbird, it doesn't mean your dish is pointed towards Hotbird.

If you provide the names of the channels you are able to receive and their TP details (freq, pol, SR etc) using the 'info' button, it should be possible to work out whether you are really pointed towards Hotbird or not.

As it has an RS232 you should be able to upload channel data via a PC but I don't know what software is available for that receiver.

ikoonman

How do I tell? (I thought I could look at the INFO box on a channel.) I have to add that I am new to all this!! Thanks

Zaphod

The main ways of telling are:

See what channels you are able to receive, what their TP details are and see if they correspond with those on www.lyngsat.com or www.satcodx.com.

Look at the elevation and azimuth settings for the dish, and see what bird it matches up with given your latitiude and longtitude.

Buy either something akin to the Lacuna digital sat meters (few hundred euro) or a PCI DVB card which will allow you to access the network data in the mpeg2 streams and identify the bird.

ikoonman

Thanks Zaphod.

I need to rule on thing out tho. If the hill that is in my way was an obstacle preventing me from picking up HOTBIRD 13', would I still be able to pick up Astra 19' and 28'? (Taken into account that if I adjust my dish by +- 1 inch or so increments to move between 28'-19'-13'.

Also, using online alignment calculators, it says that my dish should be elevated at around 26'. Someone I spoke to said the elevation for HB should be around 29'. Is that right?

Cheers

Zaphod

It's possible the hill might block 13E and not the others, but it's extremely unlikely.

The elevation depends on your latitude and longtitude (and not anyone elses!), so it could be either. How far away does the person who told you it should be 29' live?

ikoonman

He is in Dublin North, I am Dublin South. Now I am more confused. Satellite meter in the mail. Is there an easy-to-find channel I can manually add to see if I can pick up Hotbird, or can I pretty much pick anything off the list?

Zaphod

Using 53N, 6W for Dublin, I get an elevation of 27deg for 13E. Of course, if the bar/mast to which the dish is attached isn't level, then your elevation will be off.

The NBC/VOX/RTL one above should be fine.

ikoonman

I got my satellite finder this morning, so hopefully this would help with finding satellites more easily. I will prob look tonight if I can find anything.

I looked last night and i think my elevation is off. Isn't there an easier way of measuring the true angle of the arm (apart from using a leveler)? I assume that when your elevation has to be, say, 20', it means that the arm which extends at the front of the dish (to which the LNB is attached), has to be at an angle of 20', or does this refer to the dish?

Zaphod

It has to do with the elevation of the satellite on the Clarke belt that the dish is focussed on i.e. the angle of the incoming radio wave from that satellite. The feedarm won't tell you anything unless you do a fair amount of maths to determine the geometry of your offset dish:
http://www.qsl.net/n1bwt/chap5.pdf

The following link contains diagrams of prime, offset and cassegrain dishes all with elevation = 0.
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/satellites/english/anatomy/comm/dish.html

ikoonman

OK. I got all the FTA channels on Astra 1. So that seems to be working ok. I may invest in a 0.3db LNB. Some channels are blank, even if I can view teletext on it. Do you know why that is?

I still cant find Hotbird though. Surely if it picks up Astra 1 FTA I should get Hotbird too?

byte

No

You can only see one bird at a time. If you're on Astra 1, you'll not see any Hotbird channels. All the satellites are in different locations in the sky.

Hotbird 13°E
Astra1 19°E
Astra2 28°E

Zaphod

ikoonman wrote:

OK. I got all the FTA channels on Astra 1. So that seems to be working ok. I may invest in a 0.3db LNB. Some channels are blank, even if I can view teletext on it. Do you know why that is?

There are 1,360+ channels on Astra 19E. How many attempts do you reckon it would take us to correctly guess the one you're referring to?

ikoonman wrote:

I still cant find Hotbird though. Surely if it picks up Astra 1 FTA I should get Hotbird too?

What elevation are you reading from the dish mount when you are at 19E? You need to raise the dish approx 2deg for Hotbird and move the dish west.

ikoonman

OK , silly me. Let me re-phrase my question. If I can pick up Astra 19°E (with a number of FTA channels), then if I move my dish I, surely should get Hotbird too.

Regarding the blank stations, one I recall was CCVALENCIA on Astra 19°E was black (no picture - as with a few of them), although I could get teletext on some of them. Signal and quality was both >60%. Is it just a matter of the channel not being broadcasted?

Zaphod

If you can get 19E, and you then adjust the elevation correctly and move the dish west, you should be able to receive 13E.

As for the blank channels, most of the channels on that transponder (10818, V, 22000, 5/6) are scrambled, hence the blank screen. Teletext usually isn't scrambled, even if the channel is - check out the Teletext for RTE1 on Astra28E. Although on lyngsat, CCValencia itself is marked as FTA - perhaps its status has changed recently?

ikoonman

Bingo! I found it....through lots of persistence, and offcourse, your help. Thank you very much.

A last question tho. My receiver has a list of preprogrammed channels. If there is something that is not on the list that I want to see, it's just a matter of pointing to the relevant sat, and do a manual search. What type of search would I do, after entering the new channel parameters? A network, transponder or satellite search?

Thank you once again for all your help.

Zaphod

It depends.

If you are moving to a new satellite for the first time, I'd delete the list of existing channels, and then do a Satellite search. This is because even though you are using the same TP details as used for the preprogrammed channels, there can be a lot of channels moving from one transponder to another exisiting one, so a Satellite search will ensure you're up to date.

Generally searches can be either FTA or Full (FTA+Scrambled). For ease of use, FTA is better. However, sometimes channels that are really FTA are designated incorrectly as Scrambled so an FTA search would miss them. Of course a full search means you then have to come along and delete all the scrambled channels.

Other times a totally new TP will come into use and you will have to enter the details manually because it won't be in the receiver's database. In that case you would do a Transponder search - you would only search for the new channel and not re-search for existing channels.

Network search uses the data contained in the MPEG2 stream to inform the receiver of new transponders and new channels. Ideally this means if you do a Network search, you would never need to manually enter details for a new TP, the receiver would find them all itself. In reality however, the network data isn't present in many cases, so a network search doesn't work as it should.

The final search type is blindsearch (or powersearch or smartsearch or autodetect symbol rate). Essentially this is a comprehensive sweep of the entire frequency range where the receiver is able to find all (or nearly all) transponders and channels by itself without any data having to be entered beforehand. However, only a limited number of receivers have this capabilty e.g. Fortec, Coship, Pansat, Satwork, Satcruiser and certain Nokias with DVB2000 software. Manhattan have recently released a new line of receivers with this feature also.