RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

Kristopherus

Can Saorsat be picked up in Liverpool? If so, what size dish?

irishgeo

Kristopherus wrote: »

Can Saorsat be picked up in Liverpool? If so, what size dish?

I doubt it. It uses a spot beam which means some parts of Ireland can't get it.

Thanks for all the help guys, got a soarsat signal while testing locations for the dish at the weekend.

Apogee

There was a concerted effort made to receive it in Manchester, and while there is a Saorsat signal, the corresponding spotbeam from Scotland obliterated it. Whether Liverpool would be sufficiently west of the Scotland beam to escape is very hard to judge.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/topic/153007-ka-reception-is-a-no-go-so-far-for-me/

zg3409

Kristopherus wrote: »

Can Saorsat be picked up in Liverpool? If so, what size dish?

I don't think any size dish will work. There is a jamming beaming coversing Scotland and liverpool.

I did tests in North Wales and even east wales is a no go:

Have a look at my report here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=80610475&postcount=2513

Summary is no hope for liverpool unless jamming signal is turned off.

Kristopherus

Apogee wrote: »

There was a concerted effort made to receive it in Manchester, and while there is a Saorsat signal, the corresponding spotbeam from Scotland obliterated it. Whether Liverpool would be sufficiently west of the Scotland beam to escape is very hard to judge.

http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/topic/153007-ka-reception-is-a-no-go-so-far-for-me/

Jeepers, that was some read:D

Kristopherus

zg3409 wrote: »

I don't think any size dish will work. There is a jamming beaming coversing Scotland and liverpool.

I did tests in North Wales and even east wales is a no go:

Have a look at my report here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=80610475&postcount=2513

Summary is no hope for liverpool unless jamming signal is turned off.

Thanks, ZG. It was a family member who asked about it. Mainly for the Irish sport. Gets that from Premier TV at the mo.

watty

It's not Jamming, it's frequency re-use for Internet by Satellite. But same result.

Even if not all carriers seem to have data at any point in time.

zg3409

watty wrote: »

It's not Jamming, it's frequency re-use for Internet by Satellite. But same result.

Eh no. The scottish beam was sending a blank DVB-S signal (as confirmed in Manchester) as opposed to the DVB-S2 Saorsat carrier. The frequency was not being used for internet. It seems as if it is deliberate jamming. The signal I also picked up near London (french beam) also seemed too narrow to be an internet carrier.

watty

The carriers can be any width and with few subscribers it makes sense to save power by using less bandwidth.
The Satellite has 82+ spots and ONLY uses 2 bands of frequencies and 2 polarities. It's mathematically proven you only need four "parameters" / "colours" to fill in any arbitrary "map" without any neighbouring interference.

The behaviour is "by design", it's reselling capacity for TV that was an afterthought.

Also to enable monitoring and other political issues unconnected with Saorsat or Ireland you really need all spots to be active and most of the equipment in use even if only narrowband.

Unless you have a document from Tooway or Eutelsat it's totally misleading to call it Jamming.

This was all explained before the satellite was live. I met personally with Tooway people long before any TV usage was suggested.

I explicitly explained within minutes of the original announcement that a giant dish would never work outside main area as a natural consequence of how the system achieves x20 capacity.

Originally published December 2010 and comments here explaining it date to July 2010
http://www.techtir.ie/saortv/saorsat-coverage

zg3409

A manchester guy tested the signal and confirmed it was DVB-S with no data, hence a deliberate jamming carrier.

Gerry Wicklow

I wouldn't call that "deliberate jamming", simply the nature of the beast. If you couldn't get Saorview in France because a French channel is on the same frequency, you wouldn't call that deliberate jamming.

MarkK

zg3409 wrote: »

A manchester guy tested the signal and confirmed it was DVB-S with no data, hence a deliberate jamming carrier.

It's only 'hence' if there is nothing else on the frequency.

Are you saying that Tooway do not have any customers using 9E in northern Scotland?

They are certainly selling the service there.

zg3409

Tooway seems to have added a special carrier to the French and Scottish beams with no other purpose but to stop Saorsat being received in England and Scotland. Yes there are other internet carriers, but the carriers I am talking about are not internet carriers.

They are extra signals specifically added so they can demonstrate their geograhical blocking capabilities, which would be important to many countries that might want to carry TV services.

Dintam

Saorsat is a strange one, RTE never promote it or anything. I guess they were worried if they promoted it that your average joe would think saorsat most be like sky but for free.

MarkK

zg3409 wrote: »

Tooway seems to have added a special carrier to the French and Scottish beams with no other purpose but to stop Saorsat being received in England and Scotland. Yes there are other internet carriers, but the carriers I am talking about are not internet carriers.

The Wikipedia page for the satellite says that the ISP service utilises DVB-S2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KA-SAT

"SurfBeam 2" is a modified version of the DOCSIS protocol adapted by ViaSat Inc. to the satellite physical link and adopts most recent technology for modulation on the forward channel, i.e. DVB-S2, and channel access method, i.e. MF-TDMA (Multi Frequency-TDMA).

MarkK

MarkK wrote: »

The Wikipedia page for the satellite says that the ISP service utilises DVB-S2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KA-SAT

If it's a blank DVB-S carrier on the Scottish beam then I'd think that would add fuel to zg3409's research - because if it's not DVB-S2 and isn't carrying any data, then what purpose does it serve?

MarkK

Karsini wrote: »

If it's a blank DVB-S carrier on the Scottish beam then I'd think that would add fuel to zg3409's research - because if it's not DVB-S2 and isn't carrying any data, then what purpose does it serve?

Saorsat is DVB-S2.
Why would a DVB-S signal on the North Scottish beam block Saorsat any more than than the DVB-S2 signal already there as part of the ISP service?

MarkK

MarkK wrote: »

Saorsat is DVB-S2.
Why would a DVB-S signal on the North Scottish beam block Saorsat any more than than the DVB-S2 signal already there as part of the ISP service?

It wouldn't block it any differently. I'd just be wondering why there'a blank DVB-S carrier there at all? It's not being used for internet anyway.

Peter Rhea

Presumably RTE are paying for, & expect geographically limited coverage, so Eutelsat have to put something on the adjacent spots.

MarkK

Peter Rhea wrote: »

..., so Eutelsat have to put something on the adjacent spots.

Why would they need to put on anything in addition to the satellite internet service which is the primary purpose of the satellite?

Peter Rhea

I'm only going by what's been posted since this 'jamming' thing came up, but it would appear that the signal at the Saorsat frequency, on the Scottish spot anyway, isn't carrying any information.

That would lead me to believe that this spot is operating at less than its capacity & doesn't have any actual traffic at the Saorsat frequency, hence the need for the 'jamming' signal.

zg3409

I would suggest the reason they have chosen to not use an internet carrier at the exact same position is

1) An internet carrier may not work as well to jam as it may be lower power or wider.

2) An internet carrier may get interference from the Saorsat signal, which may degrade the internet performance. In theory this should not happen, but in practice the spots are not really as clearly defined. For highest speed internet ideally you would try not to re-use the frequencies again nearby if at all possible.

3) With a non internet jamming signal they can make it narrow, and adjust the relative power of each to try and just cover the area needed.

Below is the spectrum as picked up in Manchester:


The only one we are interested in is purple 20.185 Saorsat, however it can be seen all 4 spots have 2 internet carriers (wide ones) while the purple also has one narrow one, which was measured as a DVB-S blank carrier using specialised equipment.


Above as picked up near London



and finally as picked up in Dublin. The narrowness of the signal is clearest in the more expensive test equipment. It does seem as if some of the french spots have 4 carriers (to have more capacity) while the Irish and east Scottish beam only has two internet carriers at present. Even on the french system there seems a suspicious gap between the two carriers like one was meant to jam Saorsat.

I would suspect in general they try to seperate internet carriers frequencies slightly, much in the same way as analogue TV transmitters that may be on the same frequency are normally adjusted slightly higher or lower than other transmitters to try reduce interference. Also circular polarisation even does not block the opposite polarisation completely so the blue beam will effect the purple beam too.

watty

Before you get yourself and Boards sued will you please stop using the Terminology "Jamming"

Ka-sat and its management is very complex.

irishgeo

got soarsat and sky working on the one dish, needs some adjusting but as it was very windy last weekend.

Getting only 23 percent signal quality though on soarsat , location achill island.

irishgeo

got soarsat and sky working on the one dish, needs some adjusting but as it was very windy last weekend.

Getting only 23 percent signal quality though on soarsat , location achill island.

zg3409

irishgeo wrote: »

got soarsat and sky working on the one dish, needs some adjusting but as it was very windy last weekend.

Getting only 23 percent signal quality though on soarsat , location achill island.

There is a Saorview mast on Achill Island (CH47 Vertical). Any particular reason for attempting SaorSAT reception?

irishgeo

zg3409 wrote: »

There is a Saorview mast on Achill Island (CH47 Vertical). Any particular reason for attempting SaorSAT reception?

One big hill in the way. The brother didn't want to put up a huge aerial in order to get it from clifden.

Pulidog

So! As an expat, living in west Devon who got all excited when the possibility of watching some home grown TV and some GAA appeared on the horizon, who spent millions of hours on the innernet doing 'research', who went and spent a small fortune (not really) getting the right equipment, who spent loads o' time lining it all up, then spent another small fortune on a home distribution network, I have to ask myself, was it worth it?
Of course it was - to see Mayo trounce Galway! pulverize Roscommon! live!, on the telly! here in England! has made it all worthwhile.

Its just pity I had all of the hassle to do so. There are hundreds of thousands of Irish expats here in England, and the numbers are growing every day. We all want a little bit of 'Home' now and again. Unfortunately, we still have a 'Metropolitan' elite running RTE who are quite content with the status quo and 'To hell with the Culchies'. I would have been quite happy to have paid for RTE over Astra and I have lots of acquaintances and friends here who would do still do so.
So, RTE, c'mon - Play The Game, do the right thing. We're here because we have to, not because we want to
Rant over!

MarkK

Pulidog wrote: »

I would have been quite happy to have paid for RTE over Astra

How much would you be prepared to pay per month for RTE on Astra, remembering that you would not get any imports only home produced stuff?

btw. You can already pay for RTE over Astra, get an Sky account registered at an relatives Irish address.

Gagetman

Well done puli dog,there is nothing like the satisfaction of enjoying the benefits of a job you put a lot of time and effort into. At least it is done now so you can just sit back and relax.