what satellite am i pointing to?

EIN

hi people, got a new 90cm dish, installed a pole in the ground and concreted in the pole, i have a fortec star 90cm dish on the pole.

today i went hunting for hotbird 13E

i am not quite sure if i got hotbird, but i got something! signal strength and quality are 80%.

i can get the pentagon channel, C SPAN channel ( usa news) some french channels, loads of middle eastern channels iran iraq etc... my free to air box says im pointing at sirius 5E.. but im not sure if i am!

i checked lyngsat and it doesent have the pentagon channel listed for the sirius satellites...

when i manually set the box to hotbird satellites it only gets 13% signal

if i manually set the box to sirius satellites it gets 80% signal strength and 80% quality...



any ideas if i am actually pointing at sirius or hotbird?

remlap

You have indeed found Hotbird, and by the looks of things Voice of America TV if its airing C-Span and Pentagon channel clinched it.

what_car

remlap wrote:

You have indeed found Hotbird, and by the looks of things Voice of America TV if its airing C-Span and Pentagon channel clinched it.

thats strange, if i tell my satellite receiver that im pointing at hotbird then
it shows really low signal...


if i tell it im pointing at sirius the it says it has 80% signal..

why would this be?

also if its hotbird, then from what i saw theres feck all to watch on that satellite....



basically im after some usa feeds/news channels , would i be better pointing at astra 19.2? would i have more watchable tv there?

remlap

what_car wrote:

basically im after some usa feeds/news channels , would i be better pointing at astra 19.2?

You can forget USA Feeds, but for news channels hotbird is a little better.

Im not sure if C-Span airs on Farsi Voice of America on 15w but Pentagon Channel is also located there but not Free to Air.

watty

what_car wrote:

thats strange, if i tell my satellite receiver that im pointing at hotbird then
it shows really low signal...


if i tell it im pointing at sirius the it says it has 80% signal..

why would this be?

1) Wrong default transponder

2) You probably have not got all the "usefull" channels on Hotbird
Check out www.lyngsat.com europe frequencies 13E and add the missing transponders and scan/search again.

wil

Some receivers dont have a proper blind search and may be limited to scanning only those transponders that have been programmed in to memory. If this list is out of date you may scan and find little.
Things change frequently in the satellite world.

Wishlist question?
Is there a list of default transponders or strong channel frequencies for the different satellites? (I guess it would be based generally on where you live)
If you dont have a strong channel chosen when alliging your dish, it can be very hit and miss.
Also useful would be a list of weaker channel frequencies, receivable, that can be used to fine-tune the allignment.
Astra1,2, Hotbird are easy to find but it takes a bit more searching to find others

Hotbird is aimed (literally & figuratively) more at the Italian, German & Arabic market with a sprinkling of others.

Kingofsat has a useful search facility that might help you for US channels
http://en.kingofsat.net/search.php

what_car

watty wrote:

1) Wrong default transponder

2) You probably have not got all the "usefull" channels on Hotbird
Check out www.lyngsat.com europe frequencies 13E and add the missing transponders and scan/search again.

hi there thanks for the info, can you give me some examples of the "usefull" channels on hotbird..i had a look but mainly saw non english ones. and the ones i saw in english were encrypted....

am i missing something?

watty

Depends what you are interested in.

English:
BBC World TV
CNN
Sky News
Russia Today
Bloomberg
Al Jazzera International

Mostly English:
Arriang (Korean)

part time english (about 1/4) News / Documentary
Nile TV International
DW TV

One or two English news a day
IBA C33 (Arabic service in Israel)
TRT International (Turkey)

Occasional English/Intersting
Arte
Terranova
BR Alpha
TV Polonia (English Subtitles on Polish Drama)
Oman TV (US soap/Sitcom English with Arabic subtitle)

Various Sport & Popvideo channels.

Also many good Radio stations, some english,

remlap

IBA C33 left for Amos Middle East beam recently sadly.

The old American news reader was really entertaining.

watty

Rats. Down to audio only on Kol Israel International. Or rent eircom's mothballed Middleton dish.

remlap

Think that left too unless you mean short wave, and how long that will last is no-ones guess with IBA's financial problems.

watty

I have the shortwaves and longwaves and such too. Though not yet relaible DRM

Ulsterman 1690

More part time English channels on Hotbird

Some Greek channel (Dont ask me to spell/pronounce name) that shows lots of documenteries (many in English with Greek subtitles)
VOA/C-Span (Despite being US Government owned can be quite interesting)
Cubavision (occasional English)
Kurdistan TV/Kurdsat (nightly English news from Northern Iraq/"South Kurdistan") Roj TV (weekly 15 minute news about SE Turkey/"North Kurdistan")
Some arabic channels (particularly Egypt, UAE and Kuwait)
CCTV 9 (China) about a third of its perogramming in English IIRC
Thai TV (odd programme in English)
Gay TV (has the odd film in English)
Iran has Persian and English (part time dubbed) versions of its two Government channels (some of the propaganda here is laughable/scary)
Euronews and EbS (laudable but extremly dull effort to raise public awareness of European affairs)

Plus theres all the endless hours of fun and entertainment to be had from the many religious channels

Oh and some of the foreign music channels are good

watty

I actually caught a documentry about a Cratloe (Co. Clare?) goat farm making cheese on Ebs. Very Interesting.