Astra 2F General Chat

[Huevos]

Reports also at the time were that it couldnt be received in Vienna on a 240cm and in Hannover on a 180cm ...................it was a swine....

Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. Vienna is only 0.5º from the beam centre. Even if the satellite we're carrying a 3m aerial for that beam the roll off for that is still only 6dB. 6dB is just weather margin. That means the same dish should work fine 0.5º away from beam centre, just with no weather margin. How do these stories get started?

Hanover on a 1.8m is more believable. It's just over 1º off axis, which with a 2m spot beam aerial would make it about 15dB down on the beam centre.

 

[welshman234]

Just r

Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me. Vienna is only 0.5º from the beam centre. Even if the satellite we're carrying a 3m aerial for that beam the roll off for that is still only 6dB. 6dB is just weather margin. That means the same dish should work fine 0.5º away from beam centre, just with no weather margin. How do these stories get started?

Hanover on a 1.8m is more believable. It's just over 1º off axis, which with a 2m spot beam aerial would make it about 15dB down on the beam centre.

Just reporting what i read on German forums at the time ...if you think its nonsense then thats fine

 

[timo_w2s]

Just reporting what i read on German forums at the time ...if you think its nonsense then thats fine

It does seem a bit odd. In Helsinki the Polish spot was significantly stronger than any of the normal Astra transponders at the time using a 45cm dish and we were supposedly on the edge of reception (although it was to the north east so the drop off wouldn't have been so fast).

 

[Huevos]

if you think its nonsense then thats fine

The official footprint has Vienna within the 70cm zone.

Helsinki Too by the looks of it.

 

[joddle]

I see we are all waiting - twiddle twiddle - yawn yawn - how long will it be before she fires up and this thread gets some real info to print I wonder!

 

[zeeteefje]

if Sky are serious about misuse they could enforce the phoneline connection for all users at all times... like multi room. Problem solved never mind about a spotbeam....

Any router with VOIP can solve this. Just plug the skybox phoneline in the router and assign it to a UK phone number.

 

[welshman234]

The official footprint has Vienna within the 70cm zone.

Helsinki Too by the looks of it.

Cheers you just won me a bottle of whisky!!!!!!

 

[Huevos]

Any router with VOIP can solve this. Just plug the skybox phoneline in the router and assign it to a UK phone number.

Have you tried it? Only some VoIP services work. Many need a prefix to be added before the telephone number to allow quality sufficient for a fax/modem to work properly. As it is not possible to add a prefix on a Sky receiver these service don't work for the Sky receiver to phone home.

_https://support.vonage.co.uk/app/answers/detail/a_id/655/~/can-i-use-vonage-with-my-sky-or-sky%2B-box%3F

 

[Huevos]

Cheers you just won me a bottle of whisky!!!!!!

Hope it's a good one. What was the bet?

 

[techguy]

Just been reading, I take it 2F is likely to also replace 2D?

 

[tothbros]

Only some VoIP services work.

does sipgate work?

 

[buckshee]

I use Sipgate, for phone, fax, so I see no reason why not.
Standard Telefonica modem, running to a ATA box set up with Sipgate.

 

[timo_w2s]

Regarding my earlier comment on UK spots being cheaper, having re-read the BBC blog post by Alix Pryde she says "I’m afraid European-beam transponders are not cost effective for us" which at the time I took to mean the UK spots are now cheaper, but I suspect what Alix meant by that is that having a European-beam transponder means they can't put some UK only channels on it, so it's not an effective use of bandwidth for the BBC now they don't have multiple feeds, so this is why they swapped it for another UK spot transponder.

 

[Satellite74]

Just been reading, I take it 2F is likely to also replace 2D?

2D??

that bird is defunct pretty much since the 1N switchover a year ago. According to Wikipedia, it stopped transmitting in February of this year.

 

[Huevos]

I see we are all waiting - twiddle twiddle - yawn yawn - how long [...]

Not long now. It's already passed the 29th meridian.

 

[techguy]

2D??

that bird is defunct pretty much since the 1N switchover a year ago. According to Wikipedia, it stopped transmitting in February of this year.

Forgive my apparent ignorance on the subject, I looked into it briefly just before I got freesat installed at the beginning of 2011 but other more important things took over during that year which meant I couldn't keep up with SES' launch and decommissioning schedule.

 

[PaulR]

Regarding my earlier comment on UK spots being cheaper, having re-read the BBC blog post by Alix Pryde she says "I’m afraid European-beam transponders are not cost effective for us" which at the time I took to mean the UK spots are now cheaper...

It may also mean it's cheaper because they don't have to pay extra to the programme content providers for European distribution rights.

 

[gonzobaby]

Today evening i made a RF-Scan from Astra 1N on 28.2°E to compare the signals later with 2F when the bird is online with the same frequencies.
Here is the result (by the way you can see the 11008V is very loud here)

 

[joddle]

Not long now. It's already passed the 29th meridian.

Yup - I expect I will wake up tomorrow and not be able to get the BBC1 news :-crying

 

[Lazarus]

I think you might have a couple more days yet ..................... Can't see it going Operational first day on station.