BBC etc FTA 27.5 West

dxhound2005

With thanks to William from Alsat forum.

Along with what he listed S4C HD and STV HD are there but no picture. An no sound on the other HD channels. Channels resolved on my Dr D F15 but not on AzBox might be to do with the high symbol rate. Very strong signals with me. These BBC's were always encrypted up until now service name, BBC-SATBACK.

http://alsatforum.com/showthread.php?359572-All-BBC-ITV-C4-including-HD-are-FTA-from-27.5-West

watty

UK channels use this satellite as DTT transmitter backup (extra cost) because in some cases the feed on Sky/Freesat isn't suitable.

They are quite likely to be encrypted again as the BBC has no plans for FTA Norwegian service

(via http://www.intelsat.com/flash/coverage-maps/sat_foot.html?sat=IS-907%20at%20332.5%BA%20E&display=map&spot=1 )

This is a big eventual advantage of Saorsat, that the "fill in" signal will in fact actually be the DTT backup feed.

C4, Five and BBC can't do that so they have extra expense. The Ka-Sat space per channel is far cheaper than Intelsat 905! So "Domestic Saorsat" is practically free as RTENL needs the Satbackup anyway.

The Intelsat 905 @ 27.5 was looked at as a PayTV for Ireland and feed to Terrestrial sites for main cities.
Apart from 28.2E / 28.5E and particularly Astra 2D the Intelsat 905 before advent of Hylas-1 and Ka-sat was the ONLY satellite with a decent UK & Ireland footprint. Hence been heavily used for UK and Irish OB links.

But there were two problems:
1) Not enough space left on an quite old bird (EIRP is lower than indicated)
2) Impossible to compete with UPC and Sky.

The planned service was "sort of" announced back in late 2005. Tests done in 2007 and 2008. Nothing to do with MMDS or UHF DTT though.

So plan very quietly buried.

These BBC etc on Intelsat 907 there for years and likely unencrypted from time to time. So this isn't really news. See
http://www.lyngsat.com/intel907.html

Apogee

Lyngsat lists RnaG on the mux - is that correct?

edit: Presumably that's an error and it should be BBC Radio nan Gàidheal.

lawhec

If I was to take a guess, I would say that the weather in Scotland recently took out a number of transmitters and relays, are looking to temp. feed relays with a satellite feed but don't have enough receivers with BISS capability.

byte

Quite plausible, I'd imagine.

watty

lawhec wrote: »

If I was to take a guess, I would say that the weather in Scotland recently took out a number of transmitters and relays, are looking to temp. feed relays with a satellite feed but don't have enough receivers with BISS capability.

yes, links to relays.

So indeed as I said this is hardly news, nothing really new.