TELE Satellite 0601 Eng

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

12-012006 26

th Year Nº 190

ENG CD - English Edition

SATELLITE

New Mount adds more LNBs to

Your Existing Dish

More ChannelsMore LNBs

€ 7,80£ 4.95

DK: Kr 57

EE: EEK 99,-

LV: LVL 2.50

GOLDEN INTERSTAR: The Fast Channel Finder

PVR for 2 GLOBALTEQ: Interface to your PC

Small but CompleteTOPFIELD: An Excellent Receiver

Easy Use

TELE-satellite International 12-01/2006 — including SatcoD

X CD

-RO

M 02/2006

The World’s Largest Satellite MagazineB 9318 E

NG: 350N

LB: 5000LL

IL: 20NIS

ID: 30.000,-Rp

TH: 200Baht

PK: 125/-Rs

IN: 125/-Rs

NP: 200NR

VT: 45000D

JO: 3.00D

KE: 200Sh

DVBSHOP: Ready for Satellite TV

Convert Your PCDSN: 0.3 dB in our Test Lab

Sensitive LNB

Edition Distribution Area

English EditionUK/Europe

Ireland, Malta, Norway, UK, Sweden

English EditionNorth America

Canada, USA

English EditionEurope

Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia

English EditionMiddle East

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (KSA), UAE

English EditionAsia

Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Namibia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam

German Edition Austria, Germany, Luxemburg, Switzerland

Italian Edition Italy

French Edition Belgium, Lebanon, Morocco, Switzerland, Tunisia

Spanish Edition Spain, Latin America

Dutch Edition Belgium, Netherlands

Greek Edition Greece

Turkish Edition Turkey

Arabic Edition Egypt, Morocco, Jordan

Polish Edition Poland

Croatian Edition Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia

Russian Edition Russia, Ukraine, Belarus

Indonesian Edition

Indonesia, Malaysia

Farsi Edition Iran

Bulgarian Edition Bulgaria

6 TELE-satellite International — www.TELE-satellite.com

Dear Readers

SATELLITEINTERNATIONAL

TELE

Main Address:TELE-satellite InternationalPO Box 123485766 Munich-UfgGERMANY/EUROPA UNION

Editor-in-Chief: Alexander [email protected]

Published by: TELE-satellite Medien GmbH, Germany

Design/ProductionTELE-satellite Hungary KftNemeti Barna Attila

International AdvertisingAlexander [email protected] +49-174-676-9968Fax +49-89-921-850-23

CITY AdvertisingMonika [email protected] +36-1-788-1043Fax +36-1-3102730

Subscriptions Europe and RoWTELE-satellite Subscription ServicePO Box 1331D-53335 MeckenheimGERMANY/EUROPA [email protected] +49-2225-7085-335, Fax -399

Subscriptions North AmericaTELE-satellite North AmericaPO Box 2622North Babylon, New York 11703, [email protected] 1-631-422-5291, Fax -4318

Newsstand DistributorsTELE-satellite English EditionAustralia: EuropressAustria: Pressegrossvertrieb PGVBahrain: Al-Hilal PublishingChina: LSG Derong Trade Co.Denmark: Dansk CentralagenturEastern-Central Europe: Sat GlobalEstonia: As LehepunktFinland: Rautakirja OyiGreece: Hellenic DistributionGulf Cooperation: Emirates PrintingHungary: HungaropressIndia: Scan StrategiesIndonesia: IndopromIreland: Eason & SonIsrael: SteimatzkyJordan: JDCKenya: Nation MediaKuwait: Kuwaiti Group for PublishingLatvia: SIA “Preses Serviss”Lebanon: Levant GroupMacedonia: Tel-SatMalta: Miller DistributorsMalaysia: STP DistributorsNamibia: MCS - CaxtonNepal: BazaarNigeria: Newsstands DistributionNorway: Narvesen Norge ASOman: Dar Al-Atta’a Est.Pakistan: Paradise Books & DistributorsPhilippines: Emerald HeadwaysQatar: Dar Al Sharq PrintingSaudi Arabia: Saudi DistributionSingapore: STP DistributorsSouth Africa: MCS - CaxtonSweden: Svenska Interpress ABThailand: Infosat IntertradeUAE: Emirates Printing PublishingUK: Lakeside Publishing ServicesUSA: Prestige PeriodicalsVietnam: XunHaSaba

Copyright © 2006 by TELE-satelliteISSN 1435-7003Printed in SPAIN/EUROPA UNION

www.TELE-satellite.com/eng

Member of Distripress

These days, if you are looking to acquire a new satellite receiver, you first have to answer a multitude of ques-tions! Should it be a simple receiver? If so, then, for example, the new TOP-FIELD introduced in this issue would be one to look at. Or should it be a box that you can also use to record the pro-grams you are watching? In that case there’s the GOLDEN INTERSTAR also being introduced in this issue.

Oh wait… you don’t have that much room? Then the GLOBALTEQ might be for you since it only requires a small hard drive. This box can also be seen in this issue.

Then you realize that you also have some room inside your PC so why not a satellite TV card for your computer such as the Technotrend card from DVBSHOP also introduced here. And last but not least what about the possibility of mul-tifeed expansion such as the new mount from Vantage (also in this issue) so that you can receive a few more satellites with the dish you already have? And let’s not forget low noise LNBs from DSN tested in this issue of TELE-satel-lite.

Obviously, there’s quite a bit to choose from, the only thing remaining is for you to decide what fits your needs.

This may not be as easy as it sounds. In order to properly answer all of these questions, you need to have a pretty good idea what you want to accomplish with satellite reception.

Watching TV is not that simple any-more. And it will only get more involved in the future when additional questions need to be answered such as desired picture quality (high resolution or not), etc.

Thankfully there’s TELE-satellite, whose lab rats love to find out whatmakes these new products tick and then present the results here. What better way is there for you to make an informed decision that you will be happy with?

Sincerely,

Alexander Wiese

P.S.: My favorite radio station of the month is “The Storm” from England (ASTRA 2, 28.2E, 12.402, A-PID 2332): Endless modern Rock with very little talk; music to wake up to!

TELE-satellite is published in 19 editions in 15 different languages

MBSat on your phone ....................................................................................... 12

Beginner Section: Setting Up a Motorized Antenna .......................... 14

FEATURE:Competition or partnership for satellite TV .......... 16

Media News .......................................... 22, 30, 423D TV via Satellite ............................................ 54

TSI Team:Your questions, our answers ....................59, 77, 82

SatcoDX News .......................................66, 67, 70

TELE-satellite Receiver Guide ......................... 72

New Satellite Channels ................................... 84

SatcoDX World Statistics ................................ 97

TEST REPORTS

SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY

ADVERTISERS

CONTENT

ARION ................................................... 9

ARIZAN .................................................79

AUSTRALASIAN SAT-2006 ....................67

CABSAT .................................................24

CSTB-2006 ............................................64

DGSTATION ........................................... 5

DOEBIS 1 ..............................................10

DOEBIS 2 ..............................................11

DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT ....................95

DSN .......................................................53

DVB SHOP .............................................41

EDON ....................................................83

EMP .......................................................27

FAGOR ...................................................39

FORTECSTAR .........................................18

GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES .......................15

GOLDEN INTERSTAR .............................21

HORIZON ..............................................87

IAB ........................................................76

ITB ........................................................55

JAEGER/WEISS .....................................43

MATEL ...................................................91

MAX COMMUNICATION .........................19

MOTECK ................................................89

NETA .....................................................49

NEOTION ............................................. 100

OPENTECH ............................................. 7

PANSAT 1 .............................................31

PANSAT 2 ..............................................61

PROMAX ................................................35

SADOUN ................................................47

SATELLITE EXPO 2006 ..........................93

SATFORCE .............................................25

SMARTWI ..............................................85

STAB ITALY ...........................................99

STARSAT ...............................................29

TECHNOMATE ........................................13

TELE-Satellite CITY ...............................48

TOPFIELD .............................................. 2

VANTAGE ............................................... 4

WISAT ...................................................37

Pixx Event Digital Twin Tuner PVR with 2 CI and Blind Scan .................. 23

TOPFIELD TF5000CIPDigital satellite receiver with 2 CI and positioner ..................... 32

FORTEC STAR FSIR-5400 NADigital Satellite Receiver with Embedded Irdeto ............... 36

Global TEQ 6000PVRTwin Tuner PVR with removable cartridge hard drive and blind scan ........................... 44

Golden Interstar 9000CIPVR PremiumDigital FTA + CI satellite receiver and PVR ................................... 50

Pansat 3500SDigital Satellite Receiver with Embedded Conax ...................... 56

Vantage DigitalMultifeed Adaptor for up to 4 LNBs .. 60

Vantage DigitalAmplifier &Multiswitch .......... 63

FAGOR MICROMATVPRO 100Programmable Selective Amplifier ............. 68

DVB-SHOP TT PRE- MIUM S2300(REV 2.3)Digital satellite tuner PCI card ..... 74

MTI AK541-XT2BLUnicable LNB ..............78

DSN GR 3250Universal LNBF for Offset Dish .................80



Satellite TV on Mobile Phone

MBSat on your phoneMartyn Williams

The service began earlier this year and is beamed to viewers from MBSat 1, a pur-pose-built satellite launched by the two serv-ice operators: South Korea’s TU Media and Japan’s Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCO). It’s positioned in geostationary orbit at 144 degrees East.

Part of the service’s secret is that trans-missions take place in S-band, which is about 2.6GHz, and they are relatively high power. Because of this it doesn’t require a dish antenna, just a small antenna built into the phone or player. The satellite has a huge 12-meter reflector to help deliver the signal andthis makes it look quite different from other satellites.

Despite its strength the signal can still get blocked by buildings and that’s a big problem

An image of the top of the rocket, before launch, with the MBSat

satellite inside

So, you think you need a dish to watch satellite TV? Think again! A new service in South Korea and Japan allows people to receive satellite TV signals and watch them on cell phones or portable players. Satellite TV cell phone

from LG Electronics

Using the Samsung SCH-B250 phone on the subway

in the city so the companies built large net-works of terrestrial repeaters in major cities in both countries. The gap fillers, which arefed by additional transponders that operate at 25GHz in the Ku-band, take over when the satellite signal is too weak.

Broadcasts are made in MPEG4 in the DMB format, which is related to the Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system used for radio in Europe. Video channels are sent at a reso-lution of 320 pixels by 240 pixels and audio channels are transmitted in stereo.

So, how does it work in practice? Tele-Satellite traveled to Seoul, South Korea, to test out the system on the streets. We took a Samsung SCH-B250 cell phone into shops, onto the subway, and all around town and the results were pretty impressive.

The phone showed a very clear picture on its small display and didn’t suffer from any reception problems bar once. The phone lost the signal a couple of times while on a train and that resulted in the picture paus-ing for about 2 seconds before programming resumed. Otherwise the service worked perfectly, even underground on the subway when the gap-fillers were providing service.

Viewers get 11 TV channels and 26 radio channels on the TU Media service in South Korea and in Japan on the MBCO service there are 7 TV channels and 30 radio chan-nels. It costs between around US$10 and $20 per month for the service.

It’s a great solution for people who want to watch TV on the move and the technol-ogy that’s enabled it to be satellite-based is impressive. Unfortunately you won’t be able to see such gadgets anytime soon. MBSat has a pretty tight footprint over Japan and South Korea so the handsets won’t work anywhere else.

BEGINNER SECTION


The motor is what actually moves the antenna between the various satellite positions and is installed in between the antenna mast and the antenna mount. It is designed such that the axis of rotation is aligned with the North Star. This type of mount is often referred to as a Polar Mount. As a result, azimuth and elevation do not have to be adjusted individually. Instead, the antenna rotates on only one axis.

The antenna motor is installed on the already existing vertical mast. The local latitude position of the location is then setup on the motor’s scale thus aligning the axis of rotation in the correct position. Similar to a fixed antenna installation, the elevation scaleon the antenna mount must be set for a satellite as close to south as possible. In the southern hemisphere you would be looking for a northern-most satellite. The selected satellite should lie within 5° of your southern-most position; the southern-most position being equal to your local longitude.

For example, if your local longitude is 73° west, then the satellite you select should be located within +/- 5° of 73° west, or within the range 68° to 78° west. The elevation setting will be completely dif-ferent than the original elevation setting. The actual value is almost completely independent of your local latitude position and is related much more to the construction of the motor. The post on the motor onto which the antenna is mounted is bent at an angle. The actual angle of this bend depends on what type of motor is used. STAB motors, for example, have a 30° bend while others such as MOTECK have a 40° bend in their antenna post.

Latitude 15° 30° 40° 45° 65°Elevation Original 72° 55° 44° 38° 17°STAB 30°-Angle 27° 25° 24° 23° 22°MOTECK 40°-Angle 37° 35° 34° 33° 32°

Before starting to look for a signal, the antenna motor needs to be properly aligned. With the help of a compass, the entire motor/antenna assembly is rotated on the mast until the zero-point on the motor’s scale is pointing south (pointing north in the southern hemi-sphere). From here the search for a signal can start. Simply set the receiver to a known active channel. It might not be a bad idea to firstverify the channel data with the SatcoDX Charts.

The first step would be to activate the DiSEqC 1.2 function in yourreceiver and also, if available, the USALS function.

USALS greatly simplifies the antenna setup. It simply asks you foryour local geographical coordinates and calculates the satellite posi-tions on its own using a complex mathematical formula. The receiver then drives the motor directly to the selected satellite position. Once you have a signal, you need only finely adjust the antenna mount andhorizontal position (on the mast itself) for maximum signal. If the initial southern setting was slightly off, it would now be corrected. Once the first satellite is perfectly set, all the other satellites in thearc would also be automatically set as soon as the orbital position of these additional satellites is entered into the receiver.

Without USALS, the alignment of the antenna system is somewhat more difficult. DiSEqC 1.2 drives the antenna to the selected satel-lite position in almost the same way. But since the local geographical data is missing, the motor drives to a satellite position based on the prime meridian and the equator.

Therefore, when aligning the motor for the first time – and thenagain later on with all the other satellite positions – alignment with the actual satellite position has to be achieved with the motor com-mands “move east/west”. Because of these difficulties, manufactur-ers of these motors make available helpful software on their web sites that enable you to easily calculate the true position of a satellite. TELE-satellite has also made a version of this tool (“USPOS”) avail-able for download at www.TELE-satellite.com/Uspos.exe

Motorized Systems

Setting Up a Motorized AntennaHeinz Koppitz

Every satellite antenna that is only able to receive one satellite and is thus fixed on only thatsingle satellite can be upgraded to a motorized antenna giving you access to numerous additional satellites. The antenna itself doesn’t change, nor does the attached LNB. The antenna motor is the only extra part that you will need since most modern receivers already come with the required DiSEqC 1.2 protocol. Some boxes make this even easier with the USALS protocol, also called DiSEqC 1.3 or GoTo X.

FEATUREIPTV

17www.TELE-satellite.com — TELE-satellite International

From Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia: "IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) describes a system where a digital television serv-ice is delivered to subscribing consumers using the Internet Protocol over a broadband connection."

Competition or partnership for satellite TVAlberto Boselli

level it's necessary to ensure enough band-width for every connected user; this means investments for maintenance and upgrading of the infrastructure. For this reason, each IPTV service cannot avoid to be geographi-cally limited, be it to a country, a region or a big city area.

Another key difference between Inter-net television and IPTV is the programming content. To be appealing for the paying cus-tomers, the service has to be comparable to "traditional" cable or satellite providers already present in the same area. So, the channel selection must be as wide as pos-sible, with many available packages to fulfillany kind of family requirements. Programs should be enjoyed not only on a small PC screen, but on the big TV in the living-room too, with a good video and audio quality, a remote control to change channels, browse EPG, program recordings and so on. This means an hopefully easy-to-use IPTV set-top-box connected to the network, rather than to a satellite dish, from where it gets and sends data and delivering its output to the TV set.

Satellite CompetitorYou'll agree that all this sounds terribly

similar to digital satellite TV, at least from

If you read carefully the above statement, you should immediately understand that IPTV is not the TV broadcasted over the Internet. IPTV just takes advantage of some of the protocols developed and used by the public Internet to stream digital video and audio contents, but in a completely different context.

IPTV Vs. Internet videoThe end user approach to Internet tel-

evision is similar to that towards any other kind of information available in the Internet: search, try, discover and share the results. Also from the content provider's point of view, it follows the same model used for con-ventional ways of Web publishing, such as HTML pages or PDF files: the content is madeavailable to everyone, regardless of where the consumer lives, how he is connected

to the Internet, what kind of PC he's run-ning (with some limitations), in which room he likes to watch TV and so on. In a word: it's an open, diversified and dynamic model,where both the great traditional broadcaster and the individual with niche audience could distribute their programs worldwide in the web. But the free Internet is not a suitable environment for a reliable, standard and easy-to-use service: watching Internet video requires at least a basic PC knowledge and a certain amount of time to install, configure,etc. and not everyone is able and/or wants to spend his time this way.

IPTV is another world. At present stage of its development - we shouldn't forget that it's relatively young compared to satellite and cable broadcasting - it's a much more closed system. The service is usually provided by telecom companies owning also the physi-cal infrastructure, that is the network (either the Internet or a private closed one) where data is transmitted. To offer a certain service

Remote control for IPTV operation

IPTV set-top-box (back) – Note the Ethernet ports (LAN + WAN) and high quality video outputs (YPbPr + S-Video)

FEATURE IPTV


the point of view of a common end user who would like to sit down on his sofa and surf among the available channels to findsomething to watch. And this is the reason why IPTV services are often considered as competitors for satellite TV services. Fur-thermore, the IPTV has some value-added applications compared with the older and much more consolidated satellite reception.

The first is interactivity. The user set-top-box is permanently connected to the provider servers and this allows a continuous two-way exchange of information. The often adver-tised Video-on-Demand feature, in practice achieved by satellite pay-tv operators using multiple channels broadcasting the same movie at different starting times, can much more easily carried out by IPTV. The user can browse the list of available movies or shows and press OK when he's ready to watch his favorite one, regardless of the time of the day. It's like a video rental but without having to move from home.

The younger age of this technology allows it to quickly take advantage of newer solutions without having to worry about the existing installations. So, while the traditional satel-lite world still haven't decided what standard (either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) to adopt for HDTV transmissions, thanks to the always increas-ing broadband capacity and the recently approved compression algorithms, some of them expressly designed for streaming data over a network, IPTV is actually ready for the High Definition.

Satellite partnerThe infrastructure is the critical point

of the IPTV. Telecom companies operating fixed lines, whose profits are threatened bymobile operators, offers the so-called "triple play" (phone, data and video on a single sub-

scription) to make the most of the available bandwidth. But only in regions where they estimate there will be enough customers to repay their huge investments for the infra-structure. In remote areas, where sometimes neither a plain telephone line is available, any telecom operator would never establish an IPTV service.

So, we're back to the satellite technology. Its ability to broadcast a signal over entire continents reaching millions of people at the same time can be the solution that allows IPTV providers to offer their services to a potential endless audience at a relative low cost.

Yes, some of the above mentioned benefitswould be lost: the two-way satellite commu-nication is reserved to business applications due to its high costs, so the return path from the end user to the provider would become either unavailable or very limited, but a con-ventional dial-up modem connection could be enough for ordering a VOD movie that will be delivered via a high-capacity satellite, with-out having to keep the connection active. On the contrary, other IPTV advantages such as newest compression formats suitable for HDTV, will still be available in a satellite net-work topology too.

The reduced investments required to start an IPTV via satellite service compared to one based on a fixed network would certainly leadto the appearance of free IPTV channels. This step would require additional efforts by the industry to have standard set-top-boxes able to “tune” and to display channels coming from different providers, rather than closed proprietary boxes factory programmed to accept only data from a specific source.

This is exactly what happened in the recent past of digital satellite TV, where fist camethe Pay-tv operators and then thousands of free to air channels, isn't it?

Satellite dish

Network cable

Network infrastructure (cables) to be maintained

TEST REPORT

Pixx Event


Twin tuner PVR with CI slots and Blind ScanThe first Blind Scan receivers introduced a couple of years ago were very basic boxes, because this new feature was enough to make them appealing for the DXer. In parallel, there were receivers designed for common end users with PVR functions, CI slot, easiness of use and so on.

and a DVD player. The user manual contains the codes to emulate hundreds of different brands.

InstallationThe user manual, unfortunately avail-

able in German only, contains very detailed instructions with pictures for connecting the Pixx Event receiver to TV, VCR, satellite dishes and terrestrial antenna. At the firstactivation of the box, the user can choose the language for the menu among English, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turk-ish, Arabic and Russian. Then, the Main menu is displayed and the user is expected to select the Installation menu and the Antenna Setup. Here, each different satellite that can be received must be activated and all the antenna parameters for its reception can be entered.

On the right of the screen two graph bars show signal strength and quality for the firsttransponder of the satellite being setup, but a different reference transponder can be selected. A test tone to help the dish align-ment without having to watch the TV screen can be activated pressing the green button on the remote.

If a DiSEqC motor is in use, a specific submenu allows to enterall the necessary parameters and to control the motor. Unfor-

Today, these two lines of products are becoming convergent so that every user can take advantage of the Blind Scan feature not only to search for exotic signals, but simply to keep his receiver up-to-date without having to enter new transponders data either manu-ally or connecting to a PC. The digital satel-lite receiver Pixx Event introduced here is an example of a complete box: twin tuner PVR with Blind Scan feature and 2 CI slots for Pay-TV reception.

The standard size silver colored cabinet looks very elegant. In the middle of the front panel the green display shows either the cur-rent time or the active channel. The good news is that this receiver is able to store up to 10000 TV and radio channels. Below the display a long flap protects the 2 CI slots forpay-tv reception. On the left, three buttons and a round shaped one with the four arrows allow also the complete programming of the receiver, except when a number (frequency, symbolrate, etc.) has to be entered.

The stand-by on/off button is located near the display, while the main power supply switch can be found on the back panel. Here is also a full set of connections: two satellite IF inputs

with corresponding looped-through outputs, two Scart connectors for TV and VCR, three RCA jacks for analog audio and video out-puts and a fourth RCA for the programmable 0/12 volt output. For a better video and audio quality a S-Video connector and an optical S/PDIF output are available too. Via the RS-232 interface new software can be uploaded either from a PC or from another receiver. The PC can also be reached via the USB 2.0 port. The UHF modulator output with the cor-responding terrestrial antenna input com-pletes the well equipped rear panel.

The silver colored remote control is light and comfortable to hold in hand, but there are too many buttons and most of them are too small. Except for the arrows keys, the OK button among them and the on/off button that lights up every time a command is trans-mitted, all the other keys are almost unrec-ognizable in the dark, especially those for the HDD control that are very small and too close to each other. However, the remote can be programmed to control also a TV-set, a VCR

Satellite Receiver

TEST REPORT


Satellite Receiver

tunately, some of the 54 preprogrammed satellites are associated to a fixed DiSEqCposition between 0 and 26, while user entered satellites can be assigned a position from 27 up to 49. This is a problem because the user could have different positions stored in his motor and there is no way to change prede-fined positions in the menu. The only solu-tion would be to rename existing satellites so that mandatory positions match those stored in the motor, delete their preprogrammed transponders and then use the blind scan to search for actual frequencies and channels. Fortunately, USALS motor owners don't have to worry about this issue because the USALS protocol uses the satellite relative azimuth instead of fixed stored positions.

A separate menu called User Setup allows to enter all parameters for the connected equipment. A good idea is the warning mes-sage that pops up if the user selects NTSC output: “NTSC is the American type. Choos-ing it will create a picture rolling problem when using European PAL TV type set. Select NTSC TV type ONLY in the area where this TV type is used”. To confirm this choice the PINis required.

Channel scan and managementThe channel scan can be setup to search for

FTA-only-channels, Scrambled-only, FTA + Scrambled or FTA + Scrambled + Data chan-nels. This setting is not remembered each time the scan is started. There are several scan mode available: Satellite scan, Network Scan, Transponder Scan, Advanced Scan and Smart Search. The first three modes usethe transponder data already stored in the receiver memory. A Satellite Scan for FTA-only-channels over 101 transponders of the Hotbird satellites fleet took around 8 min-utes and found 786 TV and radio channels. During the scan signal level and quality for each scanned TP are shown and the chan-nels detected are separated between TV and radio lists.

The Advanced Scan allows the user to choose among stored transponder as well as to enter a new frequency with its sym-

bolrate and/or PID codes. The signal bars on the right allow to verify if there is a signal lock before starting the search. It would be nice to be able to use

right and left buttons to increase/decrease the frequency by 1 Mhz instead of having to key in all the 5 figures.

The last option is the Smart Search, that is how the Pixx Event names the feature more often known as Blind Scan. After selecting the satellite, the user can choose to scan both polarizations or one only, and whether to perform a search for all symbolrates, only symbolrate less than 5.6 Ms/sec or only those above 5.6 Ms/sec. This threshold value let a doubt raise: if I'm looking for feed sig-nals, which often has a symbolrate of 5632, which option should I choose? No problem, they are found in all cases regardless of the selected option. Unfortunately, it's not pos-sible to limit the scan within a frequency range.

We performed a Smart Search at the Hotbird position selecting both polariza-tions and symbolrate above 5.6 Ms/sec since these satellites host nearly no SCPC signals. After almost 10 minutes the screen listed 93 transponders, 6 of them not previ-ously stored in the database. A second test was performed on the PAS 12 satellite (still named as Eurostar 1 in the receiver menu) at 45° East. According to the coverage map, at our location we can receive only vertical transponders, so we selected this option together with ALL symbolrates. In 7 minutes the Pixx Event managed to find almost allfrequencies listed by SatcoDX, except the most difficult one: 11627 V with a symbol-

rate as low as 1.320 Ms/sec. Performing an Advanced Scan with these exact parameters, the receiver found the Mosaique channel and had no problem in keeping it locked, so we can confirm the manufacturer specificationof the symbolrate range 1-45 Ms/sec.

Unfortunately, the channel switching time is not very fast at about 1 second (a little more for different transponders and scram-bled channels). A very long interval is also required for switching between different audio subcarrieres.

Hard Disk operationThe unit we got for our tests didn't come

with the hard disk installed, so we mounted a standard 80 GB EIDE disk using the flat cableand the four screws included in the package. We recommend to let your dealer to install the hard disk because opening the receiver usually voids the warranty. Furthermore, the user manual doesn't contain specific instruc-tions even if this is not different than install-ing a hard disk into a PC.

The Pixx Event is able to record two pro-grams at the same time as well as to record a channel while playing a previously recorded program. Using the PIP (Picture in Picture) feature, it's possible to control what is being recorded while watching a different live pro-gram. Up to 60 recordings can be scheduled either manually or from the EPG. Stored pro-grams can be edited to cut off unwanted por-tions at the beginning and at the end of the recording. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to cut off commercials from the middle of a movie.

Like every PVR receiver, there is also the Time Shift function, but its behavior is some-

Alberto BoselliTELE-satellite

Test CenterItaly


Expert conclusion +The Pixx Event is a really complete receiver, suitable both for the

DXer with its powerful features and for the family usage thanks to its easy operation. We appreciate the way the Time-Shift function has been designed and the accuracy of the Blind Scan feature. A positive point is the absence of unnecessary frills such as videogames.

-The remote control has too many and very small buttons. The channel switching

time is somehow slow.

how different than usual. It doesn't need to be activated by the user pressing the Pause button, because the Pixx Event always starts to record the current channel after a few sec-onds of watching. So, it's always possible to jump back and forth, to watch in both direc-tions at increased or reduced speed and to pause within the recorded section. Pressing the stop button you are back at the live pro-gram (either in full screen or in PIP mode), while the receiver continues to record it in the background.

It's a very good solution that allows in every moment to watch again an important scene that has been missed for any reason. It's important to remember that this is not a standard recording, but it's stored in a reserved portion of the hard disk that can be up to 10% of its size and it's deleted as soon as a different channel is selected to start the whole process again. Of course, pressing the REC button the current channel can be recorded (and the recording is kept) in the standard way.

Connecting the receiver to a PC via the USB port, the hard disk is visible from the PC as a removable storage device in the Windows Explorer (Windows 2000 or later required). With usual drag & drop a new firmware version can be uploaded intoa specific directory of the hard disk fromwhere the receiver will read and install it. In the same way, stored recordings as well as MP3 songs can be copied from/to the PC. The only drawback is that the hard disk can

be in use either by the receiver or by the PC, but not by both of them at the same time.

Other features include a built-in teletext decoder, a MP3 player and the multipicture features. It shows on the screen 4, 9 or 16 different channels, but it's very slow to acti-vate (40 seconds to show 16 pictures) and of course only the selected one is advancing, while all the others are freezed.

TECHNICALDATA

Distributor WISAT GmbH Sat-Grosshandel Bürgermeister-Berger-Str. 6 a 92436 Bruck – GermanyInternet http://www.wisat-gmbh.de/ Phone +49 09434 202913Fax +49 09434 202929E-mail [email protected] Pixx EventFunction Digital Twin Tuner PVR with 2 CI and Blind ScanChannel Memory 10000Satellites 54 + othersSymbolrate 1-45 Ms/secDiSEqC 1.0 / 1.2USALS yesProgrammable 0/12 V output yesScart Connectors 2Video/Stereo Audio Output yesDigital Audio Output yes (optical)Color System PAL / NTSCS-VHS Output yesModulator yes, UHFPAL/NTSC compatible yesC/Ku-Band compatible yesSPCS compatible yesEPG yesTeletext yesUSB 2.0 Connector yesPicture-in-Picture yesMultipicture yes (4 – 9 – 16)Power Supply 90-250 VAC – 50/60 HzPower Consumption Max 55 WattsStandby Consumption Less than 8 Watts

TEST REPORT

Pixx EventDigital Twin Tuner with 2 CI and Blind Scan

Satellite Receiver Info-Box

SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

TES

TR

ES

ULT

Features

Channel Memory

Channel Scan Speed

Channel Switching Speed

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Tuner Sensitivity

Main menu

Smart Search (Blind Scan)

Info Box

EPG

HDD Interface

NTSC Warning


TEST REPORT

Topfield TF5000CIP


2 CI receiver with Positioner and USALSAs DiSEqC motors take over the motorized satellite world, it would be easy for those of us with the traditional 36 volt motors to feel a little jealous of all the new receivers that appear all the time. But while DiSEqC and USALS give us ease of installation, if we already have a motor of the older style, or a dish too big to make use of these new technologies, a receiver with 36V motor control is still a necessity unless we use a separate piece of electronics to convert DiSEqC commands into something our motor can understand. So it’s good to see this latest offering from Topfield giving us full control of a 36V motor in addition to multiple-switch DiSEqC configuration, DiSEqC 1.2 and USALS.

and LNB input and loopthrough connectors. An RS232 port is also available for connec-tion to a computer.

The menu system is well-designed and easy to read, in a yellow and blue style. While the colours are different, there are a lot of similarities between this receiver’s interface and that of the well-designed TF5000PVR Masterpiece we looked at recently. Menus are available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Russian, Polish, Farsi and Thai.

InstallationThe setup menu gives us plenty of options

for TV connection – the Scart output can be set to composite, RGB, S-Video or YUV. Wide-screen and 4:3 displays are fully catered for, including the often-forgotten option of scal-ing a 16:9 widescreen broadcast into either 4:3 or letterbox format for display on a 4:3 screen. The RF output can be set to PAL I, G and K variants, plus NTSC M. Teletext is available, both inside the receiver itself and by insertion into the signal sent to the TV. Choices of antenna connection cover just

Satellite Receiver

The TF5000CIP’s silver case with a cen-tral black area housing the display gives off the usual quality look and feel we’ve come to expect from Topfield, although the blackplastic remote control doesn’t quite match the rest of it. The remote is however nicely shaped and easy to use, and the buttons are mostly in the places you’d expect them – after a short time it becomes intuitive to use without searching for the required button each time.

The receiver’s front panel contains the expected standby, channel and volume con-trols, with an LED display showing the time or channel number. Under the flap there aretwo common interface slots – the card slots above them are blanked out.

At the back, there are the terminals to con-nect to the motor, plus two Scarts, audio and composite video outputs, S-video, S/PDIF digital audio, TV antenna in and out sockets,

about anything available. As well as the tra-ditional 36 volt terminals, DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 are supported along with USALS, also known as DiSEqC 1.3. Using DiSEqC 1.0 switches chained through a 1.1 switch, up to 16 LNBs can be connected to the single antenna input, thanks to separate 1.0 and

TEST REPORT

Andy MiddletonTELE-satellite

Test CenterUK


1.1 entries in the LNB menu. One thing that’s missing though is a 12V switch output.

The motorized setup works in the way we’d expect. After setting the east and west limits of the dish, the most easterly and westerly satellites are set, along with one in the middle. After this, the list of satellites in the receiver’s memory are displayed. After choosing the ones we wish to receive, a finalpress of the OK button tells the receiver to calculate the positions of the satellites between the selected positions. If additional satellites are needed that are not already in the list, these can be easily added later by entering the name and position of the satel-lite, plus at least one transponder.

Setting up using a DiSEqC motor and the USALS system is even more simple. All that is needed is your longitude and latitude and a reference satellite, and the receiver calcu-lates the rest.

Now that the positions are stored, we need to go to each one in turn to search for channels. Thankfully, with a large number of channels to scan if we have a motor-ized system, searching is impressively fast. Scanning the 93 pre-programmed trans-ponders on Hotbird takes just 2 minutes, 47 seconds. Including the network scan option adds a further 4 minutes to the scan, with a total of 104 transponders found.

Everyday useScanning through the channels with the

up and down keys is fast and responsive, and the channel list that’s brought up with the OK button is equally responsive. The remote’s volume buttons double as page up and down, making navigating a long list easy.

A sorting option is available that toggles the list between the default or alphabetical order, and a second button jumps through the list alphabetically. Further sorting, by satellite, encryption and favourites are available in the “Organizing Services” menu. Here, channels can be moved, renamed,

Satellite Receiver

deleted, locked or hidden from the list as required.

Five favourites lists are available with editable names. Adding channels to the favourites is easily done, and if five lists arenot enough for you, no problem - further lists can be added, up to a total of 30.

The EPG follows the rest of the design in being fast and easy to use. Two separate screens are available, with the red button used to switch between them. The first givesdata just on the current channel. Switching to the second, we get the familiar grid dis-play showing multiple channels.

While we don’t have any recording func-tions inside the receiver, it does include some quite flexible timer functions so thatwe can use it in conjunction with a VCR or DVD recorder. There’s no facility to add pro-grammes to the timer from the EPG, which is a shame. But setting them manually lets us schedule the timer for any date and time into the future, and with some useful repeat scheduling periods that even some PVRs forget, such as every weekday or every weekend. The timer can also be used as a wake-up timer, but there’s no sleep timer.

Over-the-air software updates are avail-able from the Astra 1 and Hotbird satellites. Software and/or channel data can also be transferred to another TF5000CIP via the RS232 port, or this can be done via a com-

Expert conclusion +The TF5000CIP doesn’t have any unique features or gimmicks.

But it includes everything most users will need, and does it all very well. The interface is logical and easy to use, everything is where you would expect it to be. Unlike most receivers, there don’t seem to be any quirks or problems that would become an annoyance in everyday use. All in all, it seems Topfield have made another excel-lent receiver.

-There’s no 12V switch output, which might be a problem for some users. A 5000

channel memory could be a little small for multi-satellite reception.

puter using software from the www.i-top-field.com site. In addition to these features,you’ll also find a powerful parental controlsystem, three games and a calendar.

Tuner sensitivity is good, and getting a lock on a channel never takes more than a second or two. Similar to the TF5000PVR Masterpiece, very low symbol rates seem to cause a few problems. There is an improve-ment from the Masterpiece though, the lowest symbol rate received in our tests is 1680, compared to 2098 in the Master-piece.

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer Topfield Co Ltd, Duksan Bldg. 260-4, Seohyeon-Dong, Bundang-Gu, Seongnam, Korea

Web Page www.topfield.co.kr

Fax +82-31-708-2607

Model TF5000CIP

Function Digital satellite receiver with 2 Common Interfaces and positioner

Channel Memory 5000

Satellites 90

Symbolrate 1 – 45 MS/s (lowest SR received in our test: 1.680)

DiSEqC 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3

USALS yes

Programmable 0/12 V Output no

S-VHS Output yes

Video/Stereo audio output yes, 3xRCA

Digital Audio Output S/PDIF (optical)

Color System PAL, NTSC

Modulator yes

C/Ku-Band Compatible yes

SCPC Compatible yes

EPG yes

Power Supply 90-250VAC, 50/60Hz

Power Consumption 230 watts max, 10W in standby

TEST REPORT

Topfield TF5000CIPDigital satellite receiver with 2 CI and posiitioner


SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

TES

TR

ES

ULT

Features

Channel Memory

Channel Scan Speed

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Tuner Sensitivity

Main menu

Installation menu

EPG

Search options

USALS setup

Internal teletext


TEST REPORT

Fortec Star FSIR-5400 NA


Power Scan, Embedded Irdeto and more…In the previous issue of TELE-satellite we introduced Fortec Star’s new model 5400 NA satel-

lite receiver. But since we only received it a few days before deadline, we did not have time

to thoroughly put it through its paces. But here it is now two months later, and as promised,

we’d like to give you a more detailed analysis of this receiver now that we have had some time

to play with it.

on a satellite receiver remote control plus a

set of four colored function buttons at the

bottom of the remote.

Everyday UseThis receiver is essentially ready to go right

out of the box. Simply connect the box to the

antenna, scan a satellite and watch TV. The

only thing you may need to do is change the

local oscillator frequency (LOF) setting for

Ku-band satellites since the default setting

is “universal” and most North American Ku-

band systems use a standard Ku-band LOF

(10.750 GHz) as opposed to the 9.750/10.600

combination found in universal LNB’s.

If English is not your first choice for menu

language (default setting), you can choose

from six other menu languages (Italian,

Turkish, French, German, Spanish or Greek).

Even more languages are available for the

audio subcarriers and subtitles. The receiver

comes preprogrammed with a very up-to-

date list of 48 North American satellites from

Satellite Receiver

As we mentioned in the previous issue, the

silver-colored receiver has a sleek design and

comes with five chrome-colored buttons on

the left side (On/Off, Channel Up/Down and

Volume Up/Down). The display window takes

up a good portion of the center of the front

panel and includes a number of status LED’s

along with the green four-digit display that

shows either the current channel number or

the time of day. The status LED’s indicate if

the receiver is locked on a signal or if it is in

standby mode.

The fold-down flap takes up a good portion

of the right side of the front panel. Behind

this flap is the SmartCard slot for the embed-

ded Irdeto encryption system. The rear panel

comes with almost everything you need. The

IF input comes with a looped-through output

and there’s a terrestrial antenna input with

corresponding modulator output that oper-

ates on either VHF channel 3 or 4. Video and

stereo audio are also available on a set of

three RCA jacks. If you crave even better

quality video and audio, you won’t be dis-

appointed thanks to the S-VHS and digital

audio outputs. The RS-232 interface serves

to upload new receiver software. And let’s

not forget the main power switch. This allows

you to easily disconnect power to the receiver

so that you can avoid having to reach down

behind the TV cabinet to unplug the receiver.

The silver-colored remote control sits com-

fortably in your hand and comes with all of

the standard buttons that would normally be

Ron RoesselTELE-satellite

Test CenterNorth America

TEST REPORT


the Echostar satellite at 148 west all the

way to Telstar 12 at 15 west. There’s even

enough room to add 16 more user-defined

satellites. Up to 4800 channels can be stored

in the 5400 NA. Using this box with a motor-

ized antenna is highly recommended so that

you can take full advantage of everything

this receiver has to offer. The receiver’s sup-

port of the DiSEqC 1.0 and 1.2 protocols as

well as the USALS protocol lets you connect

this box to a wide variety of antenna configu-

rations. For example, you could connect the

receiver to multiple fixed dishes via a DiSEqC

switch or you could go all the way and use a

STAB HH motor.

In the TV Settings submenu the Video

output can be set to NTSC, PAL or MULTI

mode and you can set the picture format to

either Full Screen or Letter Box. Here you

can also turn the S/PDIF digital audio output

on or off.

The automatic channel scan can be set to

search only for FTA channels or ALL chan-

nels and can be performed with the Network

function set on or off. You can also choose to

perform a Power Scan. This is Fortec Star’s

version of a Blind Scan. Fortec Star’s Power

Scan is a very powerful tool in that you can

customize the scan to your needs. For exam-

ple, not only can you scan for FTA or ALL

channels or scan one or both polarizations,

but you can also select the frequency range

you want to scan and also specify the fre-

quency steps the receiver should take during

a scan. We tested the Power Scan feature

on Intelsat Americas 5 at 97 west with the

frequency steps set at 4 MHz. The scan

required about 20 minutes to complete but in

return for your patience the receiver identi-

fied 23 transponders on that satellite.

But how does a standard scan stack up?

A complete automatic scan of the 23 trans-

ponders on the Intelsat Americas 5 satellite

was handled in just one minute and 45 sec-

onds. The time to switch between channels

was a brisk 0.5 seconds. At least with this

receiver you can have some fun channel surf-

ing.

Of course, some form of organization of all

these newly found channels will be needed so

that the task of finding a specific channel will

be much easier. This work is handled by the

Channel Manager. Channels that you intent

to watch more often can be moved into one

of the four Favorites lists so that they are

easier to get to. No doubt there will be chan-

nels that you don’t want your kids to get

to. Fortunately, Fortec Star also included a

parental lock feature that lets you pick and

choose what your kids can have access to.

An individual transponder scan can also

be performed. In Manual Scan mode trans-

ponders can be edited if needed, added or

deleted. A Network Search can also be acti-

vated in Manual Scan mode. The PID scan

lets you search for a channel with specific

PID data.

Fortec Star indicates that this receiver can

handle symbolrates anywhere from 2 to 45

Ms/sec. When we tested this box on a 1.279

Ms/sec. signal on Intelsat 805, we were

pleasantly surprised to find that this signal

was recognized and processed by the 5400

NA without any difficulties.

A push of the Info button on the remote

momentarily displays a banner at the bottom

of the screen with the channel name, chan-

nel number, encryption status and current

time. Pushing the Info button again while

this banner is still on the screen displays a

second banner at the top of the screen with

more details on the channel including satel-

lite name, transponder frequency, symbol-

rate, polarization, PID data as well as a signal

quality bar graph.

The Electronic Program Guide (EPG) can

be accessed with the push of a button. The

weekly programming information for all

the channels on the current transponder is

then shown. Pressing the green button on

the remote displays programming data on

the highlighted channel. The picture of the

current channel is displayed as a picture-in-

graphic (PIG). Pushing the yellow button

brings up detailed programming information

on the current channel. The 5400 NA also

comes with an eight-event timer so that you

won’t miss your favorite program if you need

to step out of the house. Simply highlight

the program you want to record in the EPG

and press the blue button on the remote.

The timer function will then turn the receiver

on at that appropriate time.

Should you ever get bored with what is

currently on TV or if you want something

to do while you’re waiting for those exceed-

ingly long commercials to come to an end,

you could pass some time with one of the

three available video games (Tetris, Snake or

Sokoban).

While most of the operation of this receiver

is self-explanatory, the detailed user-manual

(written in English, French and Spanish) will

help answer any questions that might arise.

Expert conclusion +The Fortec Star 5400 NA is an easy-to-use receiver that would be

perfect for use in anyone’s living room. It comes with a multitude of features including Power Scan, embedded Irdeto, fast channel scan-ning, fast channel switching, etc. Add to that its ability to handle extremely low symbolrates and you have a receiver that not only makes a good family receiver, but also one that would make an excel-lent tool for a DXer.

-Don’t lose the remote control! Its five buttons on the front panel do not provide

access to the receiver’s menu functions.

Satellite Receiver

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer Fortec Star Communications, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L4W 5A7

Fax + 1-905-602-5289

E-Mail [email protected]

Model FSIR-5400 NA

Function Digital Satellite Receiver with Embedded Irdeto

Channel Memory 4800

SCPC Compatible yes

Symbolrate 2-45 Ms/sec. (tested to 1.279 Ms/sec.)

DiSEqC 1.0, 1.2

USALS yes

S-VHS Output yes

A/V Outputs yes, 3 x RCA

Digital Audio Output yes, S/PDIF (optical)

Power Supply 90-240VAC, 50-60 Hz

Power Consumption 40W max

TEST REPORT

Fortec Star FSIR-5400 NADigital Satellite Receiver with Embedded Irdeto


SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

TES

TR

ES

ULT

Features

Channel Memory

Channel Scan Speed


Video Quality

Audio Quality

Tuner Sensitivity

Channel Info Bars

Main Menu

Channel Manager

Antenna Setup Menu


TEST REPORT

Global TEQ 6000PVR


Twin Tuner PVR with Blind ScanThe size of this receiver is quite a surprise! At just 23x20cm in size, it must be one of the smallest twin tuner PVRs available. One of the reasons the small size is possible is in the choice of hard drive. Instead of the 3.5 inch size as used by most desktop PCs that we are used to seeing inside PVRs, a notebook style 2.5 inch drive is used. This is easily accessible inside a removable cartridge located under the flap on the front panel. This makes changingor upgrading the disk much safer and easier – there is no need to open the receiver’s case and risk causing damage or invalidating the warranty. Our test receiver was supplied with a 40GB drive that allows around 20 hours of TV to be recorded. Drives of up to 100GB in size can be used.

After the satellites are set up, it’s time to run the initial scan. Searching is quite slow, a scan of the 95 preset transponders for Hotbird took 9.5 minutes. There doesn’t appear to be the usual network scan option where the receiver finds additional frequen-cies from all of those already in memory – instead it will scan the Network Infor-mation Table of only a single selected fre-quency. But this is not such a problem as it might usually be, as we have another option – blind scan!

Blind scanWith a few reservations, the 6000PVR’s

blind scan is a very nice addition. It’s very accurate: found frequencies and symbol rates are almost exactly right every time. For example, symbol rates of 27500 appear as either this or 27499, and lower symbol rates are just as accurate.

The scan can be made with either or both polarities, and with all symbol rates or just those above or below 5600. The disappoint-ment though is that no frequency range can be specified – the search always covers theentire band selected in the antenna setup menu. So if you’re using a universal LNB, the scan goes all the way from 10.700 up to 12.750. The scan does skip past unused

Satellite Receiver

The receiver’s front panel contains an LED display that displays the channel number when in use, and the clock when in standby. Buttons are available on the front to control the basic functions, and under the flap withthe hard drive cartridge are two Common Interface slots and a mini USB interface.

Around the back there’s the usual selection of two Scarts, TV antenna in and out ports, composite video and audio, an S/PDIF digital audio output, RS232, and the twin LNB inputs with their corresponding loop-throughs.

InstallationThe receiver’s menus are clear and easy

to navigate, available in English, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic and Russian. The initial setup options give us the usual choices when using two tuners. One or both tuners can be used inde-pendently or together. DiSEqC 1.0, 1.2 and USALS are available, making multi-satellite reception easy. 54 satellites are included in the receiver, with additional slots available to be set up manually if needed.

frequencies fairly quickly, but it’s still an annoyance when you only need to scan a portion of the band and have to wait for the whole scan to be completed.

The blind scan works in two parts. Firstly, frequencies are scanned as we’d expect,

TEST REPORT

Andy MiddletonTELE-satellite

Test CenterUK


with their frequencies and SRs displayed during scanning. After this, the found fre-quencies are looked at again to find thechannels contained inside them. Scanning Hotbird with the full SR range takes 13 minutes to blind scan, then a further 8 to obtain the channels within the transponders it found. As this satellite uses symbol rates exclusively in the range above 5600, select-ing this option gets us the same set of chan-nels with a time saving of 4 minutes. Moving over to a satellite carrying occasional serv-ices, Eutelsat W1 at 10 degrees east, a scan of the whole Ku band found just about eve-rything available, but in a total time of 17 minutes. This is a long time to wait for the impatient feedhunter, especially if what you are looking for is somewhere at the far end of the spectrum! At least you can press the exit button during the scan without losing the frequencies it already found.

Everyday useSo now we have the channels in memory,

finally! The OK button brings up the usuallist of channels to scroll through. There’s no sorting options here, but you can jump alphabetically through the channels using the coloured buttons on the remote. Data channels are included in the TV list, an annoyance that can be fixed by deleting orhiding them in the Channel Edit menu. Here, sorting and other editing options are also available. Radio channels have their own separate list, accessible from the TV/Radio button.

The EPG is fast, plus easy to read and navigate – an essential feature for a PVR. Programmes can be added to the 60-event timer by simply highlighting them in the grid and pressing the record button. Only one programme can be recorded at once using this method, even when both tuners are using the same satellite.

Manual recording is also available, simply by pressing record when viewing the desired programme. Strangely, manual recording does allow two channels to be recorded at the same time, so it’s just a software defi-ciency that doesn’t allow two programmes to be added from the EPG if their times clash.

Timer events can be set up manually, these have the VCR-style options of once-only, daily or weekly events. Again, this doesn’t allow two programmes to be sched-uled if their times clash. Sleep and wake-up timers are also available in a separate menu.

Recordings are accessed from the HDD button on the remote. These are saved by

Satellite Receiver

their channel name and time, rather than the name of the show, which could be con-fusing especially as the EPG data is not saved with it.

Playback while recording is available, although not when two recordings are in progress. Timeshifting live broadcasts is also possible, although it is not a permanent option as on some other PVRs. To enter this mode, you must first press the pausebutton. This starts the timeshift recording, inside which you can pause or move for-ward and back as needed. The PIP (picture in picture) button can be used here to view the live broadcast at the same time as the timeshift. A nice touch is being able to press the record button while in the timeshift mode. If you decide you want to record a programme you were already timeshifting, all that is needed is to rewind to the start and press record, but you must also remem-ber to press stop at the end! But if you do forget, you’ll be thankful of the editing func-tions which let you delete parts of a record-ing you don’t need to keep.

The PIP button is also available when viewing live programmes without the timeshift, or a recording. A recording plus a live broadcast, or two live channels can be viewed together, with a dedicated button used to switch the large and small pictures.

A multi-picture grid function is also avail-able, showing 4, 9 or 16 channels at once. The pictures are frozen except for the selected channel, but it is a nice function when used in conjunction with the blind scan

when searching for feeds, being quickly able to scroll through a set of channels found while waiting for them to change from the test card to something more interesting.

Computer connectionAfter using receivers with hard drives for

a short time I soon discovered Middleton’s Law of PVRs: the amount of recordings you want to keep is always greater than the amount of space you have available. The easily removable hard drive means that we could use more than one drive if needed, but a more elegant solution is to use the USB interface, helpfully located on the front of the receiver. Once this is connected, all we need to do is select “HDD Mode Change” in the main menu, and it appears on the computer (under Windows XP at least) as an extra drive. From here we can move the recordings to the computer to free space on the receiver’s hard drive. The drive can be accessed via the USB cable even when dis-connected from the receiver – so it could discover a second life as an external drive for a PC if space was also a problem there!

Whilst connected by the USB cable, MP3 files can be transferred for replay inthe receiver’s MP3 “Music Box”. Updated receiver software can also be given to the receiver in this way, in addition to the more usual RS232 port route. Receiver software and channel lists can even be transferred between two 6000PVR receivers via the RS232 port.

Expert conclusion +It’s quite an achievement to get all this into a small case. A blind

scan on top of the PVR options is nice to have and appeals to both TV viewers and enthusiasts.

-It’s a shame that all the hardware is in place which should allow

us to do all the things other twin tuner PVRs can do, all from a nice looking compact box. It seems only the internal software would need a little work to make it a lot nicer. Urgently needed would be improvements such as allowing two scheduled recordings at the same time, frequency range selection in the blind scan, and EPG details stored with recordings. A few small tweaks like these would turn this good receiver into a top class receiver.

TECHNICALDATA

Distributor Global Technologies Inc., 401 Kicox Venture Center B/D, 188-5 Kuro-Ku, Seoul, Korea

E-Mail [email protected]

Internet www.globalteq.com

Fax +82-2-6300-4112

Model 6000PVR

Function Twin Tuner PVR with removable cartridge hard drive and blind scan

Channel Memory 10000

Satellites 54

Symbolrate 1-45 Ms/sec

DiSEqC 1.0,1.2

USALS yes

Programmable 0/12 V Output no

S-VHS Output yes

Video/Stereo audio output yes, 3xRCA


Color System PAL, NTSC

Modulator Yes

C/Ku-Band Compatible Yes

SCPC Compatible Yes

EPG Yes

Power Supply 90-250VAC, 50/60Hz

Power Consumption 46 watts max

TEST REPORT

Global TEQ 6000PVRTwin Tuner PVR with removable cartridge HDD & Blind Scan


SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

TES

TR

ES

ULT

Features

Channel Memory

Channel Scan Speed


Video Quality

Audio Quality

Tuner Sensitivity

Antenna setup

Blind Scan options

Blind scanning

EPG

Multi channel grid

Main menu


TEST REPORT

Golden Interstar 9000CI PVR Premium


First-class PVR?In the previous issue of TELE-satellite a combined DVB-T/DVB-S receiver from Golden Inter-star was able to impress our testers by and large. This time a digital personal video recorder arrived at our test center and had to prove its worth.

factory-set language of the receiver. Contrary to many competitors' receivers, the Golden Interstar does not show a welcome screen asking you to select your preferred language before anything else, but starts with the main menu. But once this initial obstacle is over-come the box offers a whole universe of set-ting and configuration options, keeping upwith Golden Interstar's image in that respect. For a first-time user the installation menumay look confusing and 'too much too soon' at first, but the logical user interface allowsscanning a specific satellite without much fussafter clicking no more than two buttons. This makes the 9000CI a receiver that is perfectly suited for less experienced users as well.

The majority of our readers will of course want to dig deeper here, and the Golden Interstar DSR 9000CI will not disappoint them. While even the pre-programmed con-figurations are sure to meet most demands,the receiver nonetheless allows manually set-ting or adding almost anything you like. The options range from the list of pre-stored sat-ellites, which can be extended or edited, to the transponder list with manual editing fea-

tures and all the way to PID values that can be changed or added.

Aligning the antenna is made easy thanks to an exact signal strength and quality indica-

Satellite Receiver

The Golden Interstar DSR 9000CI PVR Premium is a digital satellite receiver with PVR as well as common interface and claims to be a premium product. Form the outside the 9000CI fits smoothly into the corporatedesign of the Golden Interstar receiver line: a silver case, a four digit display behind a black glass window covering more than half of the front panel, a crescent-shaped lineup of front buttons in the center and a flap on the rightside, behind which two smart card slots and the slots for two common interface modules are hidden. So far so good, there's nothing to criticize about the receiver's looks. It won't win a beauty pageant, but it will still be nice to look at after a couple of years.

Turn around the box by 180 degrees and you will discover an orderly and fully equipped rear panel featuring two LNB inputs with looped-through outputs, RCA outputs for stereo audio and video, an S-VHS output, an RS-232 interface, a USB connection, an opti-cal digital audio output, an antenna input plus modulator output as well as two scart euro-connectors for the TV and the VCR. All you need, right in front of you.

The remote control is nicely shaped and sits easily in your hand. The layout allows intuitive use of the control. Due to the PVR function of the box the number of buttons naturally is higher than with remotes for conventional receivers and the many buttons require pre-cise finger movements and exact positioning.More than once our finger landed on the 'stop'button instead of the 'play' button after fast forward, with the result that the playback was stopped and had to be started again from the very beginning. Petite female hands and fin-gers are at an advantage here.

As with the previously tested 8300CI we would have liked to see a dedicated pair of

buttons for volume adjustment on the remote control to make sure all four ring keys are exclusively used for navi-gation between and within menus and lists. This minor issue, however, does in no way impair the generally good usability of this receiver.

The initial installation does not pose any problems, provided that you understand the

TEST REPORT

Armin GottwaldTELE-satellite

Test CenterAustria


tor, and motorized systems can be set up in a whizz using the integrated DiSEqC protocols up to 1.3 and USALS.

When we tested the other Golden Interstar box for the previous issue we gave special praise to the oscilloscope display showing the signal strength and quality over a certain time span, much like a spreadsheet chart. With this feature activated all signal changes can easily be traced. The same is true for this model as well. By the way: press 0 on the remote con-trol and the oscilloscope will pop up cover half the screen at any time, giving you a detailed look at the state of the signal and allowing you to fine-tune the antenna alignment any timethe need arises.

Scanning for channels is always a very quick affair with Golden Interstar receiv-ers, and the DSR 9000CI PVR Premium is no exception. Thanks to the timing clock in the lower right corner of the screen during the scan, it looks like the box thinks this is an Olympic discipline. In fact, the box scanned the major European ASTRA position at 19.2° East in just over three minutes, with activated network search!

Unfortunately, the athletic stamina of the channel scan does not extend to channel switching: more than one second goes by before the selected channel will appear on the screen. If you switch to an encrypted channel which has to go through the inserted common interface module and smartcard the switching time is even longer than that. While it is true that there are slower model on the market, it is nonetheless a fact that the channel switch-ing time is not one of this receiver's unique selling points, and even the different switch-ing modes like an elegant fading out and in cannot completely disguise this.

The channel list is one of the most interest-ing features of the DSR 9000CI PVR Premium: rather than being displayed as a single-column list of tens or hundreds of channels, the chan-nels are either shown as thumbnails (like the miniature images on many websites) or as three columns filling the whole screen. Weparticularly liked the three-column display, as it allows navigating horizontally as well as ver-tically to the desired channel much faster than with almost any other design, even if many hundreds of channels are listed.

The EPG has a smart design and loads the required information reasonably fast. Espe-cially for marking certain events for recording the EPG is a very useful feature.

Unfortunately we did not succeed in set-ting the time in a way that the current time display, the starting times in the EPG and the Now/Next times in the info bar all showed the correct time. Neither the automatic time setup using information from the data stream

Satellite Receiver

nor a manual setting did seem to do the trick. Particularly for setting up recording using the EPG this may lead to some disappointment or even anger. However, the manufacturer has already announced a software update which will fix this bug.

Let's talk about the PVR now, as this will be the number one reason for many buyers to select the Golden Interstar DSR 9000CI PVR Premium. The 80GB harddisk is hidden inside the box and an upgrade with a larger hard-disk might be a risky undertaking, especially since the receiver's casing is sealed on the rear panel and a broken seal will invalidate the warranty of the product.

The exact recording bit rate is shown nei-ther in the on-screen menu nor in the user's manual, but the quality of the recording does not leave anything to be desired and even a close look will hardly reveal any differences between a live picture and a recording. Con-trary to many other PVRs the 9000CI does 'only' two simultaneous recordings at any one time, which can be from two different trans-ponders if the antenna setup and cabling per-mits, as the receiver features two individual tuners. In everyday use you will hardly ever need more than two recordings at the same time, and the Golden Interstar box takes care of these two recordings very thoroughly and delivers much better results than most PVRs with 4 or 8 channel recording capacity, where recordings more often than not are of inferior quality.

During our tests we did not come across any problems regarding recording, and play-back surprised us with an above average audio and video quality. Very rarely – and especially after excessive use of fast forward or reverse – the image froze for a moment every couple of seconds and the video/audio synchrony

was lost. However, pausing for a moment and then going back to playback always resulted in everything being just perfect again. A soft-ware update will ultimately make this a thing of the past, anyway.

Organizing the individual recordings is child's play thanks to a simple and clearly arranged menu which allows renaming or deleting recordings. It is not possible to cut out commercial breaks or to edit recordings that are too long. The same menu also lists radio recordings or MP3s that have been transferred from a PC.

All this makes the PVR a feature of the 9000CI you wouldn't want to miss even after a very short time. If we were allowed to draw up a wish list regarding the PVR's features, it would certainly include a manual selection of the recording quality as well as an option to record all audio tracks (multilingual sound-tracks, Dolby Digital audio…) and a quicker fast forward mode. But even without these features this Golden Interstar receiver is a technologically sound and reliable PVR whose quality gives no rise to criticism.

Of course it has become a conditio sine qua non for most manufacturers to take into account the play instinct of its customers: to this end the Golden Interstar DSR 9000CI PVR Premium offers a variety of games to kill time during commercial breaks as well as a very powerful zoom mode, which – unfortunately – does not work with recordings.

Yet, these goodies are not really needed to make this receiver more attractive. With its combination of ease of use and the many manual setting options it can be recom-mended equally to families with children and satellite enthusiasts with a motorized antenna system. After all, the receiver's 9000 channel memory is virtually desperate for multifeed reception.

Expert conclusion +Timeless design coupled with reliable software and a wide range

of functions. The tuning configuration is characterized by numerousmanual setting options and a really fast channel search. Various dis-play modes for signal strength and quality assist greatly in aligning the antenna. The PVR is easy to operate and works flawlessly.

-Because of the colorful design of the OSD some texts are difficult to read. The

program name is not shown in the standard info bar. The recording quality of the PVR cannot be adjusted.

TECHNICALDATA

Hersteller Golden Interstar GmbH Stuttgarter Str. 36 73635 Rudersberg, Germany

Fax +49 7183 30594 20

Email [email protected]

Internet www.golden-interstar.com

Model DSR 9000CI PVR Premium

Function Digital FTA + CI satellite receiver and PVR

Channel memory 9000

Satellites 83 pre-programmed, total memory for 120 satellites

Symbol rate 1 ~ 45 Ms/sec

DiSEqC 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.2

USALS Yes

Programmable 0/12 V No


Scart connectors 2

Video/Stereo Audio Output 3 x RCA

Colour system PAL, NTSC

S-VHS Output No

Modulator Yes

SCPC compatible Yes

EPG Yes

Teletext Yes (OSD und VBI)

Power Supply 100 –250 VAC

Power Consumption 50 W max.

TEST REPORT

Golden Interstar 9000CI PVR PremiumDigital FTA+CI satellite receiver and PVR


SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

TES

TR

ES

ULT

Features

Channel Memory

Channel Scan Speed


Video Quality

Audio Quality

Tuner Sensitivity

Main Menu

Info

Channel list

Multi pictures

TP setup

Signal




3D TV via SatelliteAlberto Boselli

The idea behind 3D is “to cheat” our brain using two different images of the same scene, like our eyes were actually watch-ing that scene. To achieve this effect, one eye have to see an image while the other eye sees the second image. The brain will receive both impulses and compose them into a single three dimensional picture. This technique is as old as the cinema itself, and in the last century we had several examples of 3D movies that required glasses having a red lens over the left eye and a blue/green lens on the right (called “anaglyph”).

The 3D technology developed by 3DSwitch is based on the same optical principle. It supports both Standard and High DefinitionTV and it's a complete solution covering all steps of the process, starting from video production up to end user vision. Special 3D professional cameras allows to generate a 3D video source, otherwise two frames coming from two standard television cameras placed side by side are combined together by the 3DSYNC post-production software. Video and audio are then encoded according to the 3DSwitch proprietary protocol (an extension

At the recent satellite exhibition SAT Expo in Vicenza, Italy, visitors had the opportunity to watch the first European 3D (three dimensional)satellite transmission. This service was provided by the Italian company 3DSwitch in cooperation with the satellite operator Eutelsat and the Teles-pazio space center located at Fucino, Italy.

3DSwitch’s stand at SatExpo. To see the transmissin in 3D special glasses are needed

of DVB) and broadcasted as a satellite, cable or terrestrial digital signal.

At reception side special displays are required, such as LCD screens, DLP projec-tors or rear projection systems (depending on the required picture size) with a resolu-tion up to 1600x1200 pixels. Spectators have to wear special glasses with polarized lenses. These very light glasses have been designed according to ergonomics principles and don't make any difficult their usage fora long time.

One of the first application of this technol-ogy is telemedicine, where three dimensional pictures allow the surgeon to have a precise perception of organs volumes, while HDTV gives a sharper and full detailed image. At Sat Expo a team of doctors and surgeons performed a demonstration of a successful surgical operation using a 3D HDTV trans-mission. Also remote control (productions lines, facilities, etc.) is a suitable application for 3D and it can take full advantage of the satellite link.

For the future, the “3DSwitch Three-Dimensional TV” project is planned to start within next year and it will offer regular pro-gramming contents directly to end users. 3D special displays will be available for consum-ers at costs comparable to those of present medium level TV set, but these devices will be able to receive both the traditional and 3D High Definition signals, without any kindof conflict.

The satellite test transmission is available (but probably it won't be any longer when you'll read this page) from Hotbird 1 at 13° East, frequency 11,534 GHz Vertical, sym-bolrate 27.5 Ms/sec. More information can be found at http://www.3dswitch.tv/

3D transmission of a surgeon’s operation

3 Dimension TV

TEST REPORT

Pansat 3500S


Conax Embedded Plus SD Memory Card SlotPanarex Electronics has been in existence since 1983. They offer a complete line of sat-ellite equipment including digital MPEG-2 DVB receivers, antennas, LNB’s and LNBF’s, feed-horns, positioners, DiSEqC motors and switches. One of their newest receiver models, the 3500S, found its way into our test labs. At first glance it looks no different than many otherreceivers available on the market today. But once we took a closer look at it, we discovered that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

a optical digital audio output, an S-VHS output and even a main power switch. But there is also a set of quick-clamp connectors that can be used to connect this receiver to a servomotor on your LNB. Even more interesting are the component Y, Pb and Pr outputs! Last but not least is the UHF jack that can be used with an optional UHF remote control.

The standard silver-colored remote con-trol is long and narrow thus making is easy to grip. It comes with all the functions you’d expect plus a number of extras including four colored function buttons. It is a uni-versal remote control allowing it to be used with other major brands of electronic equip-ment such as TV’s, VCR’s, DVD players, etc. Even though it is narrow, most of the but-tons are spaced far enough apart for your thumb.

Everyday UseWhen you turn on the 3500S for the first

time, you naturally want to choose a proper

Satellite Receiver

The box has a rather simple-looking silver-colored front panel with a small square-shaped display located in the center. This display shows either one of the 5000 possible channels or the current time. The receiver has a built-in real time clock – a very unique feature for a satellite receiver. Eight control buttons are on the right side allowing you to completely control this receiver from the front panel even if you should have a prob-lem with the remote control.

It’s only when the flap on the left side isopened that we discover the first surprise. In addition to a SmartCard slot for the embedded Conax encryption system, there’s

a second, smaller slot just underneath the Conax slot. This slot can accommodate an SD memory card – a feature you won’t findon every receiver.

The rear panel comes with all of the typi-cal connectors you’d expect to find in a NorthAmerican box plus there are a number of extras that are very interesting. For start-ers, there’s the IF input with corresponding looped-through output, a terrestrial antenna input with modulator output, a switch to select the modulator output between VHF Channel 3 or 4, an RS-232 interface for new software uploads, a set of three RCA jacks that provide video and stereo audio outputs,

TEST REPORT




language so that you can “talk” with this box. By pressing the “Menu” button on the remote, the “Main Menu” page appears on the screen from which you can select from a number of Sub Menus. Simply go to the “User Setup” menu where you have your choice of English, German, French, Portu-guese, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic. Here you can also select the desired Aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9), TV Type (NTSC, PAL or AUTO), set the current time, set the transparency of the OSD and initiate a software transfer.

The next logical step would be setting up the satellites you want to receive. This is taken care of in the “Installation” menu. Accessing the “Installation” menu requires you to enter a four-digit password. While having this feature is not a bad idea, there is unfortunately no obvious way to turn it off. A password must be entered every time you access the “Installation” menu.

The list consists of over 80 Ku-band and C-band satellites from the western hemi-sphere. Keep in mind that combined C/Ku-band satellites such as Intelsat Americas 5 or AMC 4 are listed as two separate satel-lites, one C-band and one Ku-band. The cur-rent settings for a highlighted satellite are shown on the right side of the screen. From here a DiSEqC switch can be set up,

A number of preset local oscillator fre-quency (LOF) settings are available but if the LOF you need is not preset, you can easily enter any LOF value that you need manu-ally. The receiver supports both the DiSEqC 1.0 and 1.2 protocols as well as the USALS protocol. This allows you to use the 3500S in almost any configuration. Signal strengthand quality bar graphs are also displayed during installation to help optimize antenna alignment.

By far the most popular type of chan-nel scan is the Blind Scan. More and more manufacturers are including this feature in their receivers. Called “Smart Search” by Pansat, this feature lets you scan an entire satellite for digital signals without knowing ahead of time any of the signal parameters.

Satellite Receiver

Is the transponder list for a particular satel-lite obsolete? No problem. Where before you had to enter transponder data manu-ally (and this was only data that you knew about!), now just let Smart Search do the work for you. It will identify any DVB signals that are on a satellite, tell you the trans-ponder frequency, symbolrate and auto-matically scan all the transponders that it found. It’s an incredible time saver!

Unfortunately, other than selecting an FTA or ALL scan or selecting between all polarities or just one, no other parameters could be adjusted. You could not select a low or high symbolrate limitation nor could you scan a specific frequency range. Also,when the box was looking for channels on the transponders that it found, it would occasionally get stuck on some transpond-ers for quite some time requiring in some cases minutes for the channels to be identi-fied.

But let’s get back to the standard channel scan. The time to complete a full scan of Intelsat Americas 5 was about two minutes and thirty seconds during which a total of 182 TV channels and 98 radio channels were found. Simply press the OK button to display a complete list of the channels stored in the receiver. Press the OK button a second time to switch to the selected channel. Oddly enough, the channel list does not disappear until the OK button is pressed again.

The time to switch between channels is a good one second. Thus, channel surfingis not all that much fun. A push of the Info button displays PID data for the current channel. The Electronic Program Guide can be called up by pushing the “Guide” button. It displays detailed programming informa-tion on the current channel.

The manufacturer specifies a symbolraterange of 1-45 Ms/sec. Once all the channels have been stored, the “Channel Edit” menu can be used to organize everything that was found. Accessing this menu also requires a password.

So, what’s this extra slot on the front panel all about? It’s designed to accept an SD memory card and gives this receiver a number of extra capabilities. For example, MP3 files stored on the memory card can beplayed back through the receiver. Even new receiver software can be uploaded into the receiver via the SD memory card. The SD card slot can be accessed directly through the Main Menu. The data on the SD card is then shown on the screen in a format that closely resembles the old MS DOS filesystem.

The optional UHF remote control system consists of the remote control and a UHF interface box that plugs into the back of the 3500S. This lets you control the receiver from almost any room in the house.

Expert conclusion +The Pansat 3500S is a very versatile satellite receiver. It comes with a

wide variety of features including Smart Search, component video out-puts, servo motor control and an embedded Conax system. As many as 5000 TV and radio channels can be stored. The SD memory card slot lets you play back MP3 files or upload new receiver software.

-During a channel scan, the receiver occasionally got hung up for several minutes

on some transponders adding to the total scan time. Passwords are needed to get into some of the menu functions. While this is good, for those users that don’t have to worry about unwanted access, this feature unfortunately cannot be turned off.

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer Panarex Electronics, Sun Valley, California, USA

Fax +1-818-768-5191

E-mail [email protected]

Model 3500S

Function Digital Satellite Receiver with Embedded Conax

Channel Memory 5000

Satellites 80+

Symbolrate 1-45 Ms/sec.

SCPC Compatible yes

SD memory Card Slot yes

USALS yes

DiSEqC 1.0 and 1.2

A/V Outputs yes, 3 x RCA

S-VHS Output yes

Digital Audio Output yes, optical

Power Supply 90-250 VAC, 50/60 Hz

TEST REPORT

Pansat 3500SDigital Satellite Receiver with Embedded Conax


SATELLITE

INTERNATIONAL

TELE

TES

TR

ES

ULT

Features

Channel Memory

Channel Scan Speed


Video Quality

Audio Quality

Tuner Sensitivity

Channel List

Main Menu

Antenna Setup Menu

Info Bar

SD Memory Card Menu


www.tele-satellite.info TSI Team


UK free view channels availability

I live in an area of the UK with very poor TV reception. In order to boost the signal I have a Sky dish. I only really want the UK Free to air channels and currently this is costing £15 per month (and I still do not have access to all of them). Is it possible to get the free to air channels if I bought a different satellite receiver?

UK channels on satellite operating in Sky Dig-ital’s network use slightly confusing similar terms – free to air (FTA) and free to view (FTV). FTA channels are genuinely free and can be viewed with any digital receiver, and the BBC’s channels are the most sought-after among these. The other “free” channels such as ITV and Channel 4 are scrambled and require a card to view them. For these “FTV” channels, you don’t need to pay Sky a subscription - an expired card will continue to work on these channels, or you can get one for the non-sub-scription channels. The BBC used to operate a service where anyone with a TV license could request a free card, this unfortunately ceased some time ago. A similar system is now avail-able through Sky (see www.freesatfromsky.com), with a once-only charge of £20.While some of these channels remain view-able only with a card, you’ll need to continue to use the Sky receiver to see them. There are

however rumours that ITV and Channel 4 will follow the BBC’s lead and switch to being truly FTA, which would allow viewers to use any digital receiver of their choice.

Satellite dishes not allowed

I’ve rented a flat in London and I intend toinstall a satellite dish so that I can receive Nova Greece. The problem is that the block of flats that I will be staying doesn’t acceptsatellite dishes. I was wondering whether it is possible to install the satellite dish on my own somewhere that will not be visible from the outside, for example on the flour of the balconyor inside the flat. The satellite that I want toreceive is Hotbird located at 13 degrees east. What is your opinion? My first opinion is that it’s sad that the short-sighted owners of these flats don’t allow theirtenants to have access to the 21st century digital world! A dish on a balcony would be no problem as long as you had a clear view to the satellite in the sky.

Locating it indoors is more of a problem, but not impossible. If you have a window that looks out in the right direction to the satellite, it could be possible to use a dish from inside the window. The type of glass, whether it is single or double-glazed, and even the angle that signal passes through the glass contribute to success or failure. If you can get an analogue receiver this would be very helpful for you to experiment with – you should be able to findone for next to no cost as the UK has almost completely forgotten about analogue satellite channels. With this you’ll be able to find thesatellite much easier and be able to judge the signal level – thankfully there are still some analogue channels on Hotbird.

Multiple receivers on a single dish

I have 4 receivers in my house. I am receiv-ing three signals from three different dishes (Hotbird, Arabsat, Nilesat), do I need to install three different systems for the three remaining receivers, or there is a way to connect the four receivers to the same DiSEqC switch through a mixer/distributor?I think the easiest way to do this would be to use some multiple-output LNBs and some DiSEqC switches. Switches are inexpensive and 4-output LNBs are getting cheaper all the time – at least for Ku band. This would mean you could use the existing cables, with only one going to each receiver (you’d need one more cable and switch if you wanted all four receivers connected). At the dish end, a switch would be used for each receiver, with an output connected to each LNB. It sounds complicated, but is really quite simple. Instal-lation and later maintenance can be made easier by using some coloured tape to colour-code the ends of the cables.

Coffee beans and satellite beams

I am an Ethiopian living in Addis Ababa. Some years back I bought a digital receiver with a small Gulf Star dish. It was not possible to find asatellite and I was forced to buy a bigger Euros-tar dish. What is the problem with the small dish? How can I find a satellite with this smalldish? My wife wants to use the dish for tradi-tional coffee roasting. Unless I get a solution for this I am going to permit my wife to use it. Would you please help me on how to find a satellitewith this dish before I decide on its fate?Some freshly roasted coffee sounds very tempting, but let’s give the little dish one last chance. The problem with your location is that at least an 80cm dish is needed to receive anything, it’s out of the centre of most cover-age areas. The most likely satellites you could receive are Arabsat 3A and the middle-east beams of Hellas Sat, Panamsat 12, Intelsat 10-02 and NSS 6. Have a look at the SatcoDX charts to get the frequencies, the SatcoDX World of Satellites software can also tell you the azimuth and elevation numbers that will help you find the satellites. The larger the dishis, the more chance you have of success. Try frequencies with larger symbol rates as these are usually easier to find. And remember if allelse fails, you’ll still have a big dish to use and some quality coffee to drink!

English language channels in Ireland

I have installed a 57 cm dish for digital recep-tion. I want to receive BBC and ITV and other English language programmes. At present I get Eurosport in German - can I receive this in English? I am getting Sky News, CNN and BBC World in English OK.It sounds like at the moment your dish is point-ing at Astra 1 at 19 degrees east. If you moved it around to Astra 2 and Eurobird at 28E, you’d get all of these except Eurosport and BBC World, although to compensate this you’d have all the other BBC channels including BBC News 24. The only place to get Eurosport in English without a subscription is the analogue service on Astra 1 at 19E. To get ITV, you’d need to get a Freesat card registered to a UK address – or join the growing band of us who are hoping the rumours of ITV going FTA will become a reality - see the earlier question about this for details.

Andy Middleton

answers your questions

Your questions, our answers

Connecting multiple dishes and receivers with DiSEqC switches

FTA BBC on Astra 2

Eurosport in English for free on analogue

TEST REPORT

Vantage Multifeed


Four Satellites with One AntennaIf you’ve ever thought about expanding your satellite system

to receive more than one orbital position, you really only

have two possibilities: either you install a DiSEqC

motor or you utilize a multifeed construction.

the +/- 10° range of the antenna focal point,

this for the most part works without any

problems. But the further east or west you

go, the worse the reception becomes. The

receivable satellites are not positioned along

a straight line, as you might expect, instead

it is more of a curve as viewed from the sat-

ellite antenna. The southern-most satellite

from your position is at the highest eleva-

tion point and all the other satellites are on

a curve that runs from east to west. Thus,

Vantage manufactured their multifeed hold-

ers in such a way that they can be adjusted

vertically, horizontally and across. This lets

you adjust the position of each LNB for opti-

mal reception.

The workmanship of the individual pieces

is quite good and the assembly is easy. We

also liked the fact that it only weighed 343

gm (~3/4 pound). This multifeed solution

was ideally designed for use with Vantage

antennas although we had no trouble install-

ing this holder on other antennas (such as

Gibertini).

Multifeed Adaptor

Your unfriendly neighbors might not like the

idea of a DiSEqC motor since the noise from

one of these small motors could be somewhat

disturbing especially at night. This leaves

only the second choice available: multifeed.

Various manufacturers offer special anten-

nas with double-reflectors providing a recep-

tion range of roughly 60°. Vantage, based in

Germany, thought that it didn’t always have

to be this way and worked on a solution that

allowed multifeed reception using a stand-

ard antenna. The result was a multifeed rail

that at first glance looked rather simplistic

but after assembling the individual pieces

it became apparent that the manufacturer

spent quite a lot of time in its design.

Typical multifeed mounts are usually

installed on a rigid rail and the LNB holders

can only be moved to the east or the west. In

Mount

Thomas HaringTELE-satellite

Test CenterAustria

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer Vantage Digital, Amalienbadstr. 36, 76227 Karlsruhe

Tel.: +49 (0) 721 / 96 14 17-0

Fax: +49 (0) 721 / 96 14 17-9

E-Mail: [email protected]

Function: Multifeed Adaptor for up to 4 LNBs

TEST REPORT


In addition to the four holders for the

LNBs, the package also included the actual

multifeed rail as well as all the necessary

assembly hardware. Unfortunately, assem-

bly instructions were not included. Begin-

ners might therefore have some difficulties

putting this all together.

Everyday UseTwo screws are used to mount the multi-

feed rail in the spot on the antenna where

the LNB mount would have gone. Because

of the design of this rail, it is not possible to

install an LNB in the exact focal point of the

dish since the mount for the rail is in the way.

Before you start to install the LNBs and align

them, you must first decide what satellites

you want to receive since this will determine

which satellite will be roughly located in the

focal point and how the rail is to be installed

on the antenna.

For our tests we played around with a

number of different satellite combinations.

We started with Astra 19.2° east, Astra3A

23.5° east, Astra2 28.2° east and Turksat

42° east. In this case the Astra2 satellite

was aligned with the focal point of the dish

after which one LNB after the other was set

up and aligned. While reception of the three

Astra satellites was excellent (and this natu-

rally has to do with their high power output),

Turksat was receivable although there was

not all that much bad weather reserve.

Additional satellite combinations tested

were Astra 19.2° east, Hotbird 13° east,

Astra2 and Sirius 5° east as well as Hotbird

13° east, Sirus 5° east, Thor 1° west and

Amos1 4° west. We also went even further

west with Hispasat at 30° west, as well as

PAS 3R 43° west and PAS1R 45° west. The

design of the LNB holder permits reception of

satellites spaced only 3° apart allowing com-

binations such as Astra

19.2° east, EutelsatW2 16° east and also

Hotbird 13° east to be received without any

problems. In cases like this, make sure

that the LNBs used are narrow enough and

designed for reception of satellites only 3°

apart. As excited as we were with all of the

LNB holder alignment possibilities, it turned

out that the actual setup was rather tiresome.

Each LNB holder uses three screws, one to

secure the LNB and the other two for setting

the elevation and azimuth. And this is where

the problem is: once the LNB is mounted in

its holder, it becomes somewhat difficult to

loosen or tighten the two other screws. And

if two or more of the LNBs are to be mounted

with only 3° of separation, the entire affair

will be a test of patience.

While aligning the four LNBs, we unfor-

tunately could see how there are fewer

and fewer analog TV channels available; in

the range between 42° east and 30° west

it turned out to be just a mere 17 chan-

nels (not including Astra and Hotbird). This

makes it especially difficult for beginners

to properly align this multifeed rail with its

multiple adjustment settings without the

use of a spectrum analyzer. Even for more

experienced users it would help to have the

spectrum of the more critical satellites mem-

orized in order to speed things up.

And let’s not forget to mention that with

multifeed reception the LNB has to be

installed on the rail on the opposite side

compared to the position of the satellite. In

other words, if the satellites are positioned

on the east side of the antennas focal point,

the LNBs would need to be installed on the

rail on the west side of the focal point. And

vice versa, the LNBs for western satellites

would be mounted on the east side of the

rail.

Expert conclusion +The Vantage Multifeed Mount is solidly manufactured and offers

the first real multiple adjustment system allowing an expanded recep-tion range. The universal mount allows the rail to be installed not only on Vantage-manufactured antennas, but also on antennas from other makers.

-Unfortunately, the instruction manual was missing. It also needs to be pointed out

that the adjustment screws were very difficult to reach.

Multifeed Adaptor

Vantage Digital

TEST REPORT


Amplifiers andMultiswitches

In the previous issue of TELE-satellite we introduced the Vantage line of DiSEqC switches ranging from a simple DiSEqC A/B switch up to an eight-input/single-output DiSEqC switch. In addition to this product line, Vantage also has a wide variety of Multi-switches and amplifiers to complement theirDiSEqC switches. In this issue we want to take a closer look at their assortment of mul-tiswitches and amplifiers.

This report will focus on the following prod-ucts:

VT-AP 9/9-25 AmplifierVT-MS 5/12 TNT MultiswitchVT-MS 5/28 TNT MultiswitchVT-MS 9/16 TNT Multiswitch

The first device we looked at was a simple

VT-MS 5/12 TNTThe first multiswitch we tested was the VT-

MS 5/12 TNT. Of the three we looked at, this was the most basic switch with four satel-lite inputs, one terrestrial input and 12 inde-pendent outputs. This switch can be used with a Quattro Universal LNB or with two Twin LNB’s and can be connected to as many as 12 receivers. The first two satellite inputslabeled LNC A and LNC B are driven with 13 volts and 18 volts respectively while the LNC C and LNC D inputs are also driven by 13 and 18 volts but require a 22 kHz signal from the receiver in order to be accessed. The signal level of each of the satellite inputs is adjust-able by 15dB. There is no level adjustment for the terrestrial input.

The switch functioned as expected with only a slight reduction in signal quality as measured on the receiver. The same signal quality was observed on all 12 of the out-puts. Each of the outputs was sufficientlyisolated from the others so that no notice-able interference was observed between any of the outputs.

VT-MS 9/16 TNTThe next multiswitch we looked at was

the VT-MS 9/16 TNT. This switch is slightly

amplifier. The VT-AP 9/9-25 amplifies bothsatellite and terrestrial signals and is rated for a gain of 25dB for satellite signals and a gain of 35dB for terrestrial signals. The amplifier comes with eight satellite inputswith a corresponding group of eight outputs. There is a single terrestrial input with associ-ated output. The input frequency range of the terrestrial input is 40 to 862 MHz while the input range for the eight satellite inputs is from 950 to 2300 MHz. The gain for each of the inputs is individually adjustable by 15dB.

The next group of devices we looked at was a set of multiswitches. There are multi-switches available for almost any application from distributing a satellite signal to a few rooms all the way to signal distribution to an entire apartment building. Multiswitches take a number of satellite inputs and distribute them to any number of outputs. Each of these outputs function independently from each other. That is, although the multiswitch may have one or two satellite dishes connected to the inputs, each output behaves as if it were connected to its own satellite antenna. This

means, for example, that if a multiswitch has 16 outputs, you could connect 16 sat-ellite receivers to the multiswitch and each receiver would function as if it were con-nected to its own antenna.

Most multiswitches also come with a ter-restrial antenna input. The multiswitch takes the terrestrial signal and combines it with the satellite signal into a single output. At the receiver end you connect an appropri-ate signal splitter to split the terrestrial and satellite signals.

Amplifier & Multiswitch

TEST REPORT



TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer Vantage Digital, Karlsruhe, Germany


Fax +49 (0) 721 / 96 14 17-9

Model VT-MS 5/12 TNT VT-MS 9/16 TNT VT-MS 5/28 TNT

Function Multiswitch Multiswitch Multiswitch

Inputs 5 9 5

Outputs 12 16 28

Frequency Range Terrestrial: 40-862 MHz, Satellite: 950-2300 MHz

Insertion Loss 3 dB (40-862 MHz) 3 dB (40-862 MHz) 0 dB (40-862 MHz)

5 dB (950-2300 MHz) 4 dB (950-2300 MHz) 4 dB (950-2300 MHz)

Isolation 20 dB min. 30 dB typ. 20 dB min.

Power Consumption 45W max 45W max 45W max

Model VT-AP 9/9-25

Function Amplifier

Inputs 9

Outputs 9

Frequency Range Terrestrial: 40-862 MHz, Satellite: 950-2300 MHz

Gain 25 dB Typ. (950-2300 MHZ); 35 dB Typ. (40-862 MHz)

Isolation 30 dB Typ.

Power Consumption 45W max


larger in size compared to the 5/12 switch tested above and comes with 16 independ-ent outputs. It’s input frequency range is the same as the first switch. This switch alsocomes with a terrestrial input that is inter-nally combined with the satellite inputs and then routed to the 16 outputs. It has eight satellite inputs that give you greater flex-ibility in what you can connect to its inputs. Here, for example, you could install a pair of Quattro LNB’s on the eight satellite inputs or a Quattro LNB on one set of four inputs and two Twin LNB’s on the other four inputs. A set of four DIP switches is mounted just

to the left of the first satellite input andis used to turn on or off the 22 kHz signal needed for universal LNB’s. As with the firstswitch, here too the signal level is individu-ally adjustable (15dB range) for each of the satellite inputs.

This switch is also compatible with DiSEqC commands from the connected satellite receivers. These DiSEqC commands are used by the receivers to select between the firstset of four satellite inputs and the second set of four inputs.

The VT-MS 9/16 TNT behaved much the same as the first switch. A barely recogniz-able reduction in signal quality was observed from input to output with the same signal quality present on all 16 of the outputs.

VT-MS 5/28 TNTLast, but certainly not least, is the VT-MS

5/28 TNT. This switch is the same size as the 9/16 switch. As you can probably figureout by the model number, this multiswitch comes with five inputs (four satellite and oneterrestrial) and 28 independent outputs. The signal levels of all the inputs, including the terrestrial input, are individually adjustable (15dB range). The input frequency range is identical to the first two switches.

Amplifier & Multiswitch

As expected, this switch also performed flawlessly. An insignificant drop is signalquality was seen from input to output. The

signal quality observed at one output was the same for all the remaining outputs.

ConclusionIf you are looking to amplify and/or dis-

tribute satellite and terrestrial TV signals, then Vantage almost certainly has a prod-uct suitable for your needs All of Vantage’s amplifiers and switches are powered by110-250 VAC, 50/60 Hz so they could be used almost anywhere in the world. Whether you want to provide satellite TV to a few rooms in your house, to the rooms in a small Bed and Breakfast or if you’re look-ing to supply satellite TV to a larger apartment complex, Vantage has a multiswitch to do the job.

TEST REPORT

FAGOR MicroMATV pro 100


Swiss Army Knife for the Terrestrial Antenna SystemWhen writing about antenna systems here in TELE-satelite, we usually mean the satellite antenna systems. However, most of us who use the satellite receivers do not resign from the conventional terrestrial reception. After all, quite often an interesting channel is transmitted for free in your region via the terrestrial transmitter. This channel may be not available through satellite (for example local news channel) or be a part of a Pay-TV satellite package. New digital channels show up in the terrestrial TV what keeps it attractive.

Control function. To put it simply, a selective programmable amplifier enables us to con-nect a several antennae to one TV-set or to one distribution cable network.

We took a closer look at the MicroMATV pro 100 model. You can connect up to six dif-ferent antennae for various bands. You have the following inputs: FM (87.5-108 MHz0, BI (47-68 MHz), BIII/DAB (174-230 MHz) and 3 UHF inputs (470-862 MHz). Unfortunately the model we tested had no SAT IF input (950-2150 MHz). This input is available in models 200C and 300C. However, it had an auxil-iary input AUX (47-68, 130-862 MHz). Using this input and the additional device of Fagor Electronica called DISAT-4, you can connect a satellite dish to the system. Alternatively, the AUX input may be used for some other TV or radio signal (for example from another MicroMATV amplifier output or from an exist-ing cable TV network).

Programmable Selective Amplifier

Depending on the region you live, you can receive the terrestrial channels with either a single dipole/yagi antenna or you have to install a number of them pointing in differ-ent directions. In the latter case, it is always necessary to combine the signals from a few antennae into one signal and send it down to the TV-set. In the family house, such signal is usually distributed among many rooms. In the block of apartments – among many flats.

Combining the signal from different anten-nae was usually done with a mixture of ampli-fiers, multiplexers and filters (or traps). For a

regular mortal, it was a kind of black magic what kind of equipment should he or she use and how to interconnect all components. This kind of problem does not exist when you have a selective programmable amplifier fromSpanish company Fagor Electronica.

The first products from that companyappeared on the market already in 1992. The products offered now belong to the third gen-eration. Fagor Electronica designed and pro-duced a family of products called MicroMATV pro, models: 100, 100C, 200C and 300C. They differ in number of inputs and Automatic Gain

FAGOR MicroMATV pro 100

TEST REPORT


Figure 1 shows the exemplary antenna system that Fagor Electronica provide in their user manual. Not only can you con-nect a number of antennae to the amplifierbut also you have the possibility to adjust its amplification for different inputs. Andthat’s not all. In the UHF bands, you can set a number of filters so that to pass only a por-tion of the UHF frequency spectrum: 470-862 MHz. In this way, you filter out the part ofband in which the TV channels that you want to receive are transmitted.

For example: you may take channels


settings and a power cord for 230Vac supply. The unit itself is rather big and heavy and it is designed to be wall mounted in the indoors. It makes an impression of a very solid piece of equipment. Its workmanship leaves nothing to be desired. The user manual that we got along with the unit was prepared in Spanish, French and English. Apart from the specifica-tions, it includes the programming guide.

At first we were somewhat afraid that itmay be not that easy to enter all the neces-sary settings, but the reality was quite the

20-25, 36-37 and 55-60 from the first UHFantenna, channels 40-42 and 63-65 from the second UHF antenna and channels 29-32 from the third UHF antenna. You may set up to 10 different filters in UHF band. The filter’spass-through bandwidth can be individually set from a single channel (8 MHz) to six chan-nel (48 MHz).

MicroMATV pro 100 comes with an exter-nal control unit used to enter all necessary

opposite. The control unit with 2 line liquid crystal display and five buttons could not besimpler to operate! It takes rather seconds than minutes to understand its logic.

For our tests, we used the NG-281 noise generator and the Prolink-4C Premium spec-trum analyzer of PROMAX. Additionally, we checked the operation of the amplifier withthe real TV and radio signals of different fre-quencies.

We started with FM band. As you can see in figure 2, the filter amplitude response ispractically perfect. No passband ripple, and very steep rolloff of 25dB/8MHz. Filter covers exactly 87.5-108 MHz band. [Fig. 2.]

The gain can be adjusted in 25 steps. According to the specification, the adjust-ment range should be 25 dB. We measured that actually the range is somewhat bigger: 28 dB. One step is roughly 1 dB.

The difference between specification andactual adjustment range was even bigger in BI band (47-68 MHz). Instead of 25 dB adjustment range, the actual range was 35 dB. So, we got something between 1.5 and 1.7 dB per one step. While in practice, greater range and coarser resolution of the gain adjustment should not pose any problem, it is still a certain deviation from the published specification. The frequencyresponse for this input was as perfect as for the FM input. Rolloff was about 20dB/8MHz. See figure 3. [Fig. 3.]

BIII input (174-230 MHz) was better with respect to gain setting. For settings between 0 through 20 the actual changes were almost exactly 1 dB per step. For settings between 20 and 25 it was about 1.5 dB per step. Low ripple in the passband – see figure 4 but therolloff of 10dB/8MHz was not equally good as for the previous inputs. [Fig.4.]

Before dealing with the UHF bands, we quickly checked the auxiliary input (47-68, 130-862 MHz). The flatness of its frequencycharacteristics was a nice surprise – see figure 5. You should take into account thatour noise generator had ca. 5 dB decrease in amplitude at maximum frequency. So the amplifier itself introduce maybe 1 or 2 dBdifference in amplitude response over the entire band! [Fig. 5.]

When we moved to the most interesting inputs – UHF inputs, the first observation was

Fig. 1. Exemplary antenna system

Fig. 2. FM input frequency response Fig. 3. BI input frequency response Fig.4. BIII/DAB frequency response

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer Fagor Electronica, S.Coop., San Andres, Mondragon, Spain www.fagorelectronica.es


Phone +34 43 712526

Fax +34 43 712893

Model MicroMATV pro 100

Description Programmable Selective Amplifier

Inputs FM, BI, BIII/DAB, AUX, 3xUHF

Number of programmable 10amplifiers/filters in UHF band

Programmable filter bandwidth 8 - 48 MHz (1-6 channels)

Maximum gain 23-53 dB (depending on band)

Input adjustment 23-25 dB (depending on band)

Output adjustment 20-25 dB (depending on band)

Noise factor 6-8 dB (depending on band)

Output level 116 dBµV (DIM –35dBc) for FM 121 dBµV (DIM –60dBc) for other bands

Power supply 230 Vac ±15%

Ambient temperature 0-50ºC

Peter MillerTELE-satellite

Test CenterPoland

TEST REPORT


Expert conclusion +Very versatile, replaces big number of classical devices like ampli-

fiers, filters or multiplexers. Easy programming. AES function makesthe necessary adjustments very simple. Low noise. Flat frequency response of the AUX amplifier.

-Different sensitivity of gain setting (dB per step) on various bands.

The rolloff of the upper slope of UHF filters could be steeper.

Still more passband ripple resulted when we tried to achieve more than 6-channel wide bandwidth by setting 2 adjoining filters on oneUHF input. We set the first filter for channels21-26 (474-514 MHz) and the second filterfor channels 27-32 (522-562 MHz). In such configuration, one could expect a frequencyresponse more or less flat for channels 21-32 (474-562 MHz). As you can see in figure8, the frequency response was not perfectly flat. It had peaks and dips. Of course, thiswill result in lower and higher amplificationof different TV channels. Fortunately, the dif-ference was not great and it should not pose any problem for the TV-set to cope with such differences. [Fig. 8.]

The gain setting for the UHF bands turned out to be very linear. Every 5 step setting change resulted in almost exactly 5 dB change of the amplifier output. Apart fromthe frequency response and gain setting, we took a several measurements of signal to noise. All of them showed almost no degra-dation of S/N ratio between amplifier outputand input. MicroMATV pro 100 is really a low

noise amplifier! Also, all the practical testswith live TV signals showed absolutely no dis-tortion or noise in the output of the device.

The MicroMATV pro programmable selec-tive amplifiers have other practical featureslike Automatic Equalization System or Auto-matic Gain Control. AES when activated, measures the signal at all inputs and auto-matically sets the optimum gain setting for every band. This is extremely convenient! Without this feature, the installer should either use something like spectrum analyzer to check the output level for every channel or group of channels or do it by trial and error. AGC helps keeping the optimal output level when incoming signal changes in power, for example due to weather conditions.

The amplifiers can automatically recognizethe digital channels and keep their level 15 dB below the analog channel level. Thanks to this, DVB-T receivers or digital/analog TV-sets work properly. We can say that Fagor’s selective amplifiers are really readyfor today’s mixed analog/digital terrestrial transmissions.

Fig. 5. Auxiliary input frequency response

Fig. 6. UHF filter set to one channelbandwidth

Fig. 7. UHF filter set to six channelbandwidth

Fig. 8. Interaction between two adjoin-ing 6-channel wide filters

that the rolloff of the filter is slightly worsecompared to the previous fixed band inputs.Although we got quite good 17dB/8MHz for the lower slope but only 9dB/8MHz for the upper slope of the filter. When the filter wasset to one or two channel bandwidth, its fre-quency response looked quite good, but for the wider settings we observed a dip between 2 peaks in the passband. Figure 6 shows a filter set for 1 channel and figure 7 showsfilter set for 6 channels. [Fig. 6.] [Fig. 7.]


TEST REPORT

DVB-Shop TT Premium S2300 (Rev 2.3)


Satellite Afterburner for a PCMedia PC’s have been increasingly finding a home in many a living room. This continually

places new requirements on PC cards for satellite reception. The most important of these

requirements is that there should be absolutely no cooling fan noise in the living room.

The PC in our test labs is for the most part quiet but has obsolete hardware. A processor

equipped, hardware based MPEG-DVB-S card always has to face these two

arguments.

manual were pro-

vided on the CD. Instal-

lation of the card was actually

quite easy and even the occupied

expansion slot did not present any

problems. A disadvantage could be

the full height of the installed PC card

(also called full profile) since most living

room PC’s only come with a half-sized PCI

expansion slots. This mechanical hurdle

does not exist with most office and work-

room computers.

InstallationThe installation of the card’s drivers was

accomplished on our test PC (HP Pavillion

with 3 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM and

Windows XP Professional SP2) without any

difficulties. According to DVBShop, 80%

of these cards are built into HTPC’s; Linux

computers based on LinVDR (see also www.

vdr-portal.de). Set top box manufacturers

are also being shipped these cards from

DVBShop since under Linux a hardware

MPEG-2 card with a video output must be

available.

Back to our test PC: after the success-

ful installation of the drivers, we loaded the

software that was on the included DVD. On

the one hand this consisted of the applica-

tion “Digital TV” and on the other it was

“DVB data. “Digital TV” (we had version 2.19

with “Direct Show Filter) is not all that user-

friendly but, aside from the logo, is identical

to the Hauppauge Nexus-S software.

Technotrend cards are typically the first

choice in these scenarios - they don’t manu-

facture the NEXUS-S card for no reason.

Over the years however we saw the appear-

ance of the FBAS output as well as other

small inadequacies that, when used with

high-quality displays such as projection sys-

tems or large screen TV’s, didn’t really help

all that much. It was just a matter of time

before someone would take a satellite PC

card and modify it so that it meets today’s

requirements.

The Technotrend Premium S2300 (Rev 2.3)

“modified” is distributed exclusively by DVB-

Shop. The significant improvements to the

otherwise identical card to the NEXUS-S from

Hauppauge are summarized here: the Tech-

notrend Premium S2300 (Rev 2.3) “modified”

from DVBShop comes with a Crystal Audio

DAC as well as RGB/S-Video outputs via

Scart thanks to a modified J2 jumper block

(this is where the “modified” term comes

from). Even the LNB

power supply through

a rebuilt LNBP20 was

improved. The general

advantages of a satellite

PC card over a standard set

top box were discussed in a test

report in the previous issue. So,

if you’re thinking about using a PC as

a media server via a local network (UPnP

and wireless LAN, for example), you should

choose to use a robust satellite PC card such

as the Technotrend Premium S2300.

The CardThe PC card is supplied with a cable clus-

ter from which the audio output can be con-

nected to the Line-In of the soundcard as

long as the internal audio connector wasn’t

already connected to the card. Additionally,

the expansion of the J2 connector was also

available. The Windows drivers and a user

DVB-S PCI Satellite Card

„modified“

TEST REPORT

Reto JegerTELE-satellite

Test CenterSwitzerland


Expert conclusion

Watching TVWith the card in operational mode, only

3% of the system resources were in use. A

scan of the Eurobird 1 and Astra 2 positions

at 28.2° and 28.5° east was completed in

just about 15 minutes. It’s obvious that

this record speed might present a problem:

overlooked channels. But a comparison

with a list of all channels that are actually

available showed that there were no errors.

It’s interesting to note that the manual

comparison of the lists took roughly 45

minutes. Unfortunately, “Digital TV” only

supports Simple DiSEqC or DiSEqC 1.0 thus

limiting the number of active satellites to

four. An alternative for DiSEqC 1.2 is the

free ProgDVB software (www.progdvb.com)

allowing this card to also handle DiSEqC 1.2

signals. Especially noteworthy are the vari-

ous data formats that this card supports in

recording mode:

• PVA: Recording of data in PES audio/

video format

• MPG / MPEG-2

• PSV: PES video format (only video)

• MP2 audio format (only audio)

The highlight of TV Mode is without a

doubt the “Program Guide”, a compilation of

EPG data that is displayed in HTML format.

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer (with its

activated Javascript) is implied here – some-

thing that is not exactly modern anymore

and somewhat takes away from the other-

wise good impression we had. Alternative

software is readily available (www.dvbsoft.

net/content.php?article.11). The record-

ings that were selected via the EPG were

correctly executed.

Of course “Digital TV” also supports Time

Shift although actually using it might take

a little getting used to. It functions only

if Intervideo WinDVD is installed on the

system. For time-shifted recordings the

video is software decoded. Therefore the

use of the time-shift function requires a

Pentium III, 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM or higher

system.

DVB-S PCI Sat CardThe above-mentioned requirements don’t

sound all that much; the last time a Pen-

tium III 500 MHz machine could be found in

your local computer store was back in the

summer of 2005. It will be difficult not to

meet the minimum requirements for time-

shift recording. The picture quality of the

Technotrend Premium S2300 (Rev 2.3)

“modified” was tested on a 42” plasma TV.

We were not surprised with the results. The

difference between the composite signal

of a Hauppauge Nexus-S was not only

measurable, but also visible. According to

DVBShop, an expansion of the component

output is being worked on that will eventu-

ally allow connection to high-quality projec-

tion systems.

Data SoftwareThe “DVB Data” software that is also

included with the Premium S2300 naturally

supports Internet-via-Satellite and comes

already preconfigured with a number of

service profiles for Astra and Hotbird. IP

radio, IPTV as well as one-way Internet

services are also possible with this software.

By means of an automatic configuration

mechanism - based on the DVB specification

for radiating data via satellite (EN 301,192)

- according to the SES Astra "multi-trans-

ponder implementation guideline for IP

multicast of services", this can automati-

cally access the IP/MAC multicast stream,

which can be on one or more transponders.

Naturally this can take place via other net-

works if an IP/MAC Notification Table (INT)

is available. The official software and driv-

ers as well as tips on third-party applica-

tions plus additional links are available in

DVBShop’s Support forum (www.dvb-shop.

net/forum). There are plenty of supporters

for the Nexus-like cards in this forum and

also quite a bit of helpful information when

it comes to exotic configurations.

The FAQ’s are actively being kept up-

to-date by DVBShop; something that with

other manufacturers and dealers is more

the exception than the rule.

ConclusionIf the PC’s processor is running at less

than 1.2 GHz or if it’s questionable if the

Linux (VDR) operating system is in use or

if a projection system, flat screen TV or

AC3 receiver is to be used, then there’s no

getting past this card. And let’s not forget

that the picture quality of a digital signal is

not hinged on the tuner itself but rather on

the various filters and (MPEG-2) decoders.

Since the Technotrend Premium S2300 (Rev

2.3) “modified” is built around an MPEG-2

hardware decoder, it is relatively comforta-

ble in handling the moderately coded trans-

port streams of many smaller TV stations.

If you are interested in quality, trouble-free

satellite reception on your PC, you should

definitely take a closer look at the modified

version of the Technotrend Premium S2300

(Rev 2.3).

+As a hardware MPEG-2 DVB-S card, it is predestined for rigorous

work in media servers or for upgrading older PC’s. Outstanding RGB picture quality on plasma TV’s and projection systems.

-There might be a problem installing this “Full Profile” card in many

living room media PC’s. The TV application only supports DiSEqC 1.0 and Simple DiSEqC.

DVB-S PCI Satellite Card

TEST REPORT

TECHNICALDATA

Distributor DVB Shop

Website www.dvbshop.net

Model TT Premium S2300 v2.3 “modded”

Function Digital satellite tuner PCI card

System Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP, Requirements 500MHz PIII or above, 128MB RAM or above, VGA Card with at least 16MB Memory

Input 950~2150 MHzfrequency range

Symbol rate 2~45Msps

SCPC compatible yes

C-band compatible yes

DiSEqC 1.0

IP multicast yes, EN 301 192

Teletext yes

EPG yes

Channel memory unlimited

DVB-S PCI Satellite Card Info-Box

DVB-Shop TT PremiumS2300 v2.3 „modded“DVB-S PCI-card



Digisat Pro



RTL Switzerland via satellite?Besides the German version of RTL, there is also RTL Austria available via satellite. Recently I was on vacation in Switzerland and I was able to receive another version of RTL there. For hours I tried to tune into this station when I was back home, but I failed. I called RTL, but they told me that this special and localized version of RTL Switzerland is just available via cable networks. I‘m pretty sure that I received the channel via satellite while I was there. Can you help to solve this mystery?

RTL Switzerland can be received via satellite but not on the usual European satellite plat-form Astra 19.2° east but via Hotbird 13° east 11054H SR 27500 FEC 3/4. You can receive Astra and Hotbird with just one dish (at least 85-90cm in diameter) but you need to add a second LNC respectively a DiseqC switch or to use a Monoblock LNC.

American Hockey league in EuropeI‘m a big hockey fan and I would love to watch the games of the American and Canadian league here in Europe. To get this done, I would need access to American and Cana-dian TV stations like OLN, NBC, CBC, RDS or TSN. Can you please tell me, if I can receive these channels in Europe and which satellites I would have to use?

I‘m sorry to tell you, but you can‘t receive neither one of these channels in Europe. All of them are broadcasting on satellites, which are fare below the horizon in Europe and furthermore their spot beams are directed to North America. Anyway, there is an alter-native for you: The North American Sports Network NASN is broadcasting in Europe via

the Sky Digital platform www.sky.com and via Kabel Deutschland in Germany. So if you can receive any of these two PayTV provid-ers, you should get all the games you want. A second way to get American and Canadian hockey would be to look for feeds, which can be found e.g. on the Atlantic Bird1 12.5° West.

Astra reception in BrazilI‘m the owner of a hotel in southern Brazil and I would love to offer my German costumers their own German TV channels, while they are here on vacation. Is there a satellite in the southern hemisphere carrying German TV or do you know some way to get them over the Internet?

TELE-satellite reader Klaus Schumacher from Brazil managed to get the analogue Astra channels with a self-made 8m dish, but I‘m pretty sure that‘s an effort you don‘t want to take. Furthermore there is no guarantee that the exact same dish would work at your location, we are talking of real out of footprint reception here. As far as I know, there is also no way to get German TV via Internet (at least not the major networks), so your costumers will have to abandon German TV, at least for the duration of their vacation.

Indian and Pakistani TV in EuropeI would like to receive Indian or Pakistani TV channels here in Europe. I currently use a dish, pointed to Astra1 19.2° east, Hotbird 13° east and Astra2 28.2° east. Can I get any of those channels via these three satellites or can you tell me of any other available satel-lites?

There are a few Indian channels via Hotbird and Astra2, e.g. Aastha International, B4U and SET Max via Astra2 and KTV, Lords TV and Sun TV via Hotbird. Unfortunately there is only one Pakistani channel available, Geo TV UK via Eurobird1 28.5° east. If you want to receiver further programs, you will need to upgrade your dish to at least 2,4 or even better 3m and then you can receive Paksat 38° East or PAS10 68,5° East in C-band with a lot of Indian and Pakistani channels.

US-TV in SwitzerlandCan I receive any US-TV stations over here in Switzerland?

Unfortunately, earth is not a plate, so all US-satellites are far below the horizon and

their spot beams are also directed to North America. Anyway, there are a few possibili-ties how to get, at least a glimpse, of US-TV in Europe. First of all you could sign a sub-scription to Sky Digital or Orbit. They broad-cast a variety of US movies, TV series and news programs. Alternatively you can try to receive the MBC channels via Arabsat and Nilesat, which is not quite difficult and with adish of about 1,2m you are part of it. These channels also show American movies, series and news programs, but they are for free. The third and last way to get your desired chan-nels is to look for feeds. A lot of them can be found on EutelsatW2 16° east, Atlantic Bird1 12,5° west, Telstar12 15° west, Intelsat901 18° west and PAS3R 43° west.

Satellite gauge for a reasonable priceThere are more and more digital TV stations and by loosing one analogue channel after the other, it‘s getting harder and harder to correctly adjust and install a dish. I‘m looking now for satellite gauge, which helps me doing this, but since I‘m not a professional, I can‘t pay thousands of Euros for it. Do you have any advice for me?

There are a few cheaper alternatives to pro-fessional gauges. First of all, there is the Digisat Pro, which offers good quality help for a cheap price. A little bit more expensive is the Satlook Micro from Swedish manufac-turer Emitor, but it offers a lot of additional features. With the Satlook and Combolook we are entering the area of about 1000€, but for that money you get a nearly professional gauge with spectrum analyzer.

Thomas Haring


Eishockey Feed on Atlantic Bird1 12,5° West

ABC7 Feed onTelstar12 15° West

TEST REPORT

MTI AK541-XT2BL

Unicable LNB


Movement in the Right Direction…Albeit Slowly…Just about six months ago TELE-satellite first discussed the subject Unicable and since

then there have been a few developments. More and more manufacturers are integrating this

protocol into their receivers. Even a leading LNB manufacturer, MTI in Taiwan, has begun to

produce and sell Unicable LNB’s.

ent receivers on one cable. Therefore, in

each Unicable-compatible LNB you will find

the SaTCR-1 chip developed by ST Microelec-

tronics. Simply put, this chip does nothing

more than take the requested frequency

and shift it to a fixed preassigned carrier

frequency for each of the maximum of eight

connected receivers. Each receiver would

be assigned one of these carrier frequencies

and would then simply tell the LNB what fre-

quency should be shifted over to its carrier

frequency. This sounds much more compli-

cated in theory than it really is in practice

since for the end user nothing really changes

at all with Unicable. You just have to make

sure that each receiver operates with its own

carrier frequency. This takes place very

simply, in that each receiver is assigned a

number from one to four or one to eight in

the LNB settings.

If two receivers were given the same car-

rier frequency, they would interfere with

each other and reliable reception would not

be possible. Since the number of available

carrier frequencies is limited, so too is the

number of connected receivers limited to

eight. Before some of you get all red-faced

with anger because you just recently spent

megabucks on a brand new PVR receiver that

does not support the Unicable technology, we

want to point out that every receiver has the

capability to support this new standard. Just

a small software update is necessary as well

as good intentions from the manufacturer.

We tested the MTI AK541-XT2BL with

four Lemon 030-CI receivers. After running

a cable from the LNB to the first receiver

and then a cable from there to the second

receiver, and then to the third, etc., and then

assigning each receiver with its own carrier

frequency (from 1 to 4), there was no longer

anything in the way of TV and radio recep-

From the outside, this LNB, that found its

way into our test labs shortly before press

time, doesn’t look all that much different

than its similar brothers; it is slightly heavier

than a standard universal LNB. MTI’s work-

manship is, as expected, very good. The

“F” connector is protected from moisture by

a plastic cap and the feed itself is also per-

fectly protected by a stable plastic cap. Its

standard 40mm size makes it easy to install

on almost any offset antenna. As is normal

with a Ku-band LNB, the reception frequency

range lies between 10.7 and 11.7 GHz in the

low band and from 11.7 to 12.75 GHz in the

high band. The AK541-XT2BL LNB that we

tested can be simultaneously connected to

four different receivers requiring the use of

carrier frequencies in the range of 1180 to

2060 MHz. According to the manufacturer,

maximum gain is at about 60dB.

Everyday UseIf you’re asking yourself right

now what Unicable is all about and

what kind of technology this is, then

we would like to take a moment and

briefly explain it. Up until now, if you

wanted to connect multiple receiv-

ers to a single LNB, you had to run a

dedicated cable from the LNB to each

receiver. On top of that, it was often

necessary to install expensive mul-

tiswitches to distribute the signal. With

Unicable technology, all of this is now a

thing of the past, since from now on, only the

first receiver needs to be connected directly

to the LNB. Any additional receivers would be

linked through each receivers looped-through

IF capability or through an inexpensive signal

splitter. If you’re somewhat familiar with

standard satellite technology, you might be

thinking there’s no way this can work consid-

ering that receivers only provide 14/18 volts

and a 22 KHz signal to switch the polarization

and band of the LNB. Normally, this state-

ment would be correct but this is where the

first big difference is between a Unicable LNB

and a standard LNB. In the Unicable system,

the receiver provides the power for the LNB

however polarization and band switching no

longer takes place because

of the control voltage and

the 22 KHz

signal. Instead, the

controlling signal is

now in digital form

using a modified

DiSEqC 1.0 proto-

col.

As new as this

approach is, it’s

still not enough

to operate four

or eight differ-

Unicable LNB

Thomas HaringTELE-satellite

Test CenterAustria

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer MTI, Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Fax +886-3-577-7127

E-Mail http://www.mti.com.tw/contact_us.htm

Modell AK541-XT2BL

Function Unicable LNB

Input Frequency Range 10,7~11,7 GHz/ 11,7~12,75 GHz

Output Frequency Range 1180-2060 MHz for 4 different receivers

Noise Figure 0.2db

Conversion Gain 60db

Output Connector Type 75 Ohm F Type (female.)

Operating Temperature Range -30°C to +60°C

TEST REPORT Unicable LNB

TEST REPORT

DSN GR 3250

LNBF


tion. While the first two receivers were each

programmed with a transponder in vertical

and horizontal polarization in the low band,

we were able to easily surf through all the

channels in the high band using the other two

receivers. Also, while switching channels on

one receiver, there were no signal interrup-

tions or picture distortions to be seen on the

other three boxes. Even turning off individ-

ual receivers could not disturb the rhythm of

the Unicable system.

In order to test this new system as realis-

tically as possible, we connected the receiv-

ers first with standard coax cable that you

might find anywhere and that is most likely

installed in most homes. We connected the

receivers a second time with double-shielded,

high quality coax cable that you might find in

a specialty store. We want to say up front

that Unicable is no more sensitive than the

previously used technology. If you are used

to various frequency conversions, where the

signals from two LNB’s are briefly carried on

one cable and then separated again at the

receiver end, in which high quality cable

needs to be used, Unicable does not have any

special demands. If problem-free reception

was possible before the installation of Uni-

cable, then the same problem-free reception

should be the case with a Unicable LNB.

We were also interested in the reception

properties of the MTI LNB. Multiple tests on

weak satellites such as the horizontal trans-

ponders on Nilesat or Arabsat 2D turned out

to be quite positive. Even the preliminary

values we obtained from our measurement

equipment supported the good reception

characteristics of this LNB. The manufac-

turer claims a noise figure of 0.2dB; our test

showed this value to be realistic.

Expert conclusion +Unicable technology offers fascinating new possibilities and

greatly reduces the overall installation cost. This new system seems perfectly suited for PVR receivers with more than one tuner.

-The only negative point of this new Unicable technology is that at

the moment there are very few manufacturers that actually support this new system. The ball is clearly in the court of the major receiver manufacturers. MTI and all the other LNB producers have done their work.

Practically every new model of an LNBF we are getting now for testing has a very low noise figure specified. Something not imaginable a few years ago – 0.3 dB, has become almost typi-cal these days. Headquartered in Greece, DSN Digital Devices Ltd. is just introducing a new model – GR 3250. This is a universal LNB for Ku-Band. As advertised, it is “proudly made in China”, has 2 years guarantee and features high quality and low price. Is this all true? That’s what we are here for, dear readers. We did a benchmarking test of the GR 3250 against 2 other LNB’s. All models were universal single LNBF’s.

Are all 0.3 dB LNBF’s identical

The other two devices we used were: 5 years old 0.8 dB LNB and the brand new 0.3 dB LNBF of Max Communication (model 801 described in the previous issue of TELE-satellite). Let us not reveal the brand of the

0.8 dB device. Its producer could regard it unfair to compare their old product with the newest devices of other manufacturers. However, we thought that it was a good idea to present you the measurement results of

an old device too. In this way, you can judge by yourself if it is reasonable to upgrade your receiving system.

All three LNBF’s were mounted in turns on

Peter MillerTELE-satellite

Test CenterPoland

TECHNICALDATA

Manufacturer/Distributor DSN Digital Devices Ltd., Volos, Greece, http://www.dsn.eu.com


Phone + 30 242 1095769

Fax + 30 242 1095729

Model GR 3250

Description Universal LNBF for Offset Dish

Noise Figure 0.3 dB (typ.)

LOF’s 9.750 and 10.600 GHz

TEST REPORT LNBF


the 60 cm (24”) dish. The dish was aligned to Sirius 2/3 at 5° East. We took the meas-urements in the center of Ku-Band at 11.766 GHz. The other transponders data: SR=27.5 Msps, FEC=3/4, polarization horizontal. The test signal was transmitted in the beam: Europe BSS, so it was not very strong in our location. Thank to this, it was easy to notice the difference between devices. Taking the measurements was a piece of cake because we had an excellent meter: Prolink-4C Pre-mium of PROMAX. By the way, we want to describe this meter in more detail in the next issue of TELE-satellite. Do not miss it!

Initially, the tested GR 3250 seemed to be very close in performance to MC-801. How-ever, we soon discovered that even a few minutes difference in measurements could significantly change the C/N or CBER values.The incoming signal was attenuated more or less by the clouds. So, we repeated the tests a number of times trying to keep the time interval between measurements of different LNBF’s as short as possible. The test results are shown in the table. These are the best values we were able to obtain.

C/N is the carrier to noise ratio - a param-eter similar to S/N (signal to noise ratio) for analog TV signal. The higher the C/N, the better. Channel power is the parameter cor-responding to the signal level. Provided that it is high enough, the difference of a few deci-bels makes no difference for your receiver. CBER or Channel Bit Error Rate corresponds to the quality of signal often shown by the satellite receivers in the form of a bar indica-

tor or percentage value. MER is a Modulation Error Ratio and this is also an indicator of the quality of signal. Finally, “I supply” is the cur-rent drawn by the device from a receiver. For all models, it is about 100 mA what makes no problem for any receiver.

XX 0.8dB MC 801 GR 3250

C/N dB 6.5 8 7.3

Channel Power dBµV 71.6 72.9 75.1

CBER ·10-4 13 0.8 0.8

MER dB 9.3 9.7 9.7

I supply mA 113 112 115

So, which parameters are the most impor-tant for us? Typically, in paper publication, the authors use C/N ratio to describe the quality of signal. However, the quality of video or audio will decrease in pace with the increase of the number of errors in the digital signal. As you can see in our table, GR 3250 has worse C/N ratio than MC-801 but their CBER is identical. This means that if your receiver has the front end of a similar performance as the Prolink-4C meter, you will get practi-cally the same amount of erroneous bits at the demodulator output and thus the same video/audio quality from both LNBF’s.

However, if your receiver’s front end

performs slightly worse, the 0.7 dB differ-ence in C/N can theoretically result in worse quality with GR 3250. Judging by the C/N ratio alone, GR 3250 should be marked as 0.5dB device rather than 0.3 dB. However, one must remember that the noise figure isalways specified only as “typical value”, sowe should not draw a final conclusion aftermeasuring only one sample. Moreover, the CBER and MER measurements show no dif-ference between the GR 3250 and MC-801. Evidently, noise at the GR 3250 output is of such nature that it can be easily rejected by the receiver front end circuit. Its advantage over the MC-801 is smaller size. It will be easier to mount it on the multifeed systems.

The quite evident and indisputable fact is much worse performance of the old 0.8 dB device. It can be clearly seen in all param-eters. If you have an old LNBF and want to receive weak signals, it is time to think about an upgrade. Of course, it is always recom-mended to increase the dish size if only pos-sible. When mounting the new LNBF, check the dish alignment (azimuth and elevation) and spend a moment to adjust the skew of an LNBF in its support. The skew as small as 5º may cause even 0.5 dB decrease in C/N ratio!

Expert conclusion +Small size. High output power. 2 years guarantee.

-Although the achievable MER and channel BER are comparable to

the other 0.3dB LNBF’s, the measured C/N ratio is worse by 0.7 dB.



CI Slot

What is a CI slot and what is the advantage for a receiver to have it? Thank you.The CI slot is a feature that gives a receiver the capability to receive PayTV channels. "CI" stands for "Common Interface". A receiver with one or two CI slots usually can decode a variety of different encryption systems (such as Nagravision, Viaccess, etc.) as long as the appropriate Conditional Access Module, or CAM, is inserted into the CI slot. The CAM that is used will determine what encryption system is to be decoded. In other words, if you want to watch Viaccess encrypted channels, you would need a Viaccess CAM. The SmartCard needed to authorize the reception of the PayTV channels would be inserted into the CAM.

A receiver can also have the CAM "embed-ded", or built into, the receiver. In this case you would only need the SmartCard. PayTV providers in the USA or Canada such as DishNetwork or Bell ExpressVu use receiv-ers with embedded Nagravision CAM's. Unfortunately, there really isn't much use for a receiver with a CI slot in the USA or Canada. Even though, for example, you can get a Nagravision CAM, it will not work with Dish or Bell ExpressVu signals. Only their own receivers work with their own signals. There are quite a few PayTV channels available on Intelsat Americas 5 at 97 deg west, but here too you would need to buy their receivers in order to get those channels.

Big Ugly Dish

I have a BUD and I am struggling right now with upgrading to 4dtv or just go to the small dish. I'd like to ask first which do you thinkis better? But my biggest question has been on my mind for a while now - What can you do with a BUD? Can I buy components and go on line with a BUD? Isn't there telephone service via satellite now? I sure hope the future of my BUD is not a very large birdbath. There has to be a use for it. There just has to be. It was an expensive investment in its day. Your input would be greatly appreciatedYes, your BUD still has uses. One of the big-gest advantages with going 4DTV and your BUD is that you have much better control over what channels you want to get. With the small dishes (DirecTV or DishNetwork) you are limited to the three or four packages that they offer. With a BUD you can pretty much pick and choose what channels you want to subscribe to. This typically ends up being cheaper than subscribing to Dish or DirecTV.

With the others you have to take the good with the bad.

With the little dishes you are able to get eve-rything on one or two satellites (sometimes three) and you usually only need a single dish. Just set it and forget it. With a BUD the channels you want might be scattered on a number of different satellites requiring you to possibly move the antenna from one satellite to another when you change channels. Since you already have the BUD, then the motor to move the dish is most likely already installed.Having a BUD brings with it a number of other advantages. You can watch things like news feeds, sports feeds, TV programming feeds and a host of other TV channels that you absolutely will not find on Dish or DirecTV. One example of this is Intelsat Americas 5. This satellite has a wide variety of foreign lan-guage programming as well as some English language channels that can't be seen any-where else. Raw news feeds on other satel-lites are sometimes very interesting to watch.

DirecTV and DishNetwork are really nothing more than wireless cable but in my opinion they are far better than cable. BUD's let you get most of the same cable channels, have generally greater flexibility in what you sub-scribe to and usually give it to you for a better price. Check with the providers to make sure. Keep in mind that not every cable channel is available in digital format as yet so you would still need to use your analog receiver for some of those channels. Also keep in mind that the Dish and DirecTV use the same signals that you would receive with your BUD and simply retransmit them to their own satellites. This means that some of those "digital" channels you get from Dish or DirecTV are really analog channels that they converted to digital. They don't tell you that part. Yes, every channel you get from them is digital, but some of those channels come to them in analog form so the digital picture you see is only as good as the analog signal they get.

FTA with a Globecast Receiver

I would like to know more about FTA satellite. Do I need a special receiver to receive these channels or will my Globecast receiver pick up these available FTA channels?Your Globecast receiver should work fine forFTA reception. If you have a Globecast dish and it happens to be pointed at Intelsat Ameri-cas 5, you should have no problems tuning in to the FTA channels on this satellite. You have to set up the receiver to scan for these chan-nels, but once they are found, these channels will be available to you. If I'm not mistaken, the Globecast dish is very much oval in shape so you may have better luck with channels on the horizontal beam than those on the vertical beam or vice versa.

Ron Roessel



Saleh Al-Wehaimod


Hotbird in Sudan?

I have a 90 cm dish. Is it possibe to receive Hotbird in Khartoum, Sudan?Unfortunately, signals are getting weaker as we head to the north in Africa, so you will need a dish bigger than 240 cm to receive the wide beams from Hotbird 2,3,4,6.

Only some Hotbird channels

I live in Omran, Yemen and I have a 360 cm dish to receive Hotbird satellites. I have problems receiving some frequencies that start with 11xxx. Why is that happening and is there any solution?You did not explain more about the frequen-cies start with 11xxx. However, it has to be known that some frequencies are hardly to be received in Yemen, such as frequencies from Hotbird 1. Also, some frequencies are impossible to be received even with much bigger dishes such as, frequencies in super beam. For the frequencies that are weak, the best solution is to make sure that the dish is tuned well and that you have a very good LNB.

Arabsat in Zanzibar

I am an Arabian Living in Zanzibar Island. I received the analogue channels from Arab-sat. I want to to know if it is possible to receive digital channels from Arabsat and Nilesat.It is hard to receive Arabsat and Nilesat in KU band in you area because their beams are focusing to the Middle East and some parts of Europe. However, you still can receive the digital channels from Arabsat in C Band. You can check the latest frequencies updated from http://www.satcodx.com

Coverage Area of NILSAT in KU band

www.tele-satellite.info TSI TeamNCC7 in C band

I live in Khartoum, Sudan. How can I receive NSS7, 22 west in C Band? How big the dish has to be?You can easily receive the east hemi from NSS7 with a minimum 120 cm dish.

Astra in Iraq

I live in Hilla, Iraq. I have 1.8 m dish and Humax f2 1002 with 0.3 dB lnbf. I receive some channels from Astra sats 19.2 east and some channels from Hispasats. Is it possible to receive Eurobird 1 and Hotbird Super Beam?It is nice that you receive some of these sat-ellites which some people in the Middle East have diffculties receiving them. Regarding Eurobird 1, it is also considered as one of the difficult receptions to pick in the MiddleEast. I would suggest to try the frequen-cies from steerable 2 beam, such as 12.607 H 27500 3/4. If you are not able to pick it up with same dish, then a bigger dish like 2.4M is needed. You also have to know that you will receive some frequencies from that satellite, not all of them. For Hotbird super

beams, it is hard to receive these beams even with bigger dishes.

Satellites in Egypt

How can I know the all the Satellite I can receive in Egypt and how can I know their transponders?Go to http://www.satcodx.com then check any satellite you want. You will find the cov-

erage map for each transponder. If your city is included then you can receive that trans-ponder.

Arabsat in Sydney

Is it possible to receive Arabsat satellite in Sydney. How can I receive more Arabic channels?All Arabsat satellites are beyond the hori-zon of Sydney; therefore, it is impossible to receive them in Sydney. However, there are a variety of Arabic channels at Telstar 10/Apstar IIR, 76.5 East provided by UBI World TV. Visit http://www.ubiworldtv.com/ if you are intersted in subscribing.

Big dish in Saudi Arabia

I live in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I receive Pan-amsat 10. I want to know if it is possible to receive Thaicom 3 and Insat 2E?If you asking about C band receptions, then yes both satellites are receiveable in Jeddah, but only the Global beams of each satellite. For the other beams, bigger dishes are necessary.


Coverage Area of Hotbird Super Beam

TELE Satellite 0601 Eng

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