Astra 1N chat - January 2012

[Pietclock]

@pipino: I do not think so... 2F will have a much tighter spot, I take any bet. This 1N beam was not intented for the UK, it is designed for 1N's actual position at 19.2°E.
Anyone not from Western Europe near the UK should keep his huge dishes ...just in case...

 

[Lazarus]

Interesting point, Andrew.

It is undeniable that they have had reasonable access over the past few years, but I don't know if this was fortuitous or by design.

If we wait long enough, someone will know!

 

[pipino]

@pipino: I do not think so... 2F will have a much tighter spot, I take any bet. This 1N beam was not intented for the UK, it is designed for 1N's actual position at 19.2°E.
Anyone not from Western Europe near the UK should keep his huge dishes ...just in case...

in that case even 2.40 dishes will be useless so fooked anyway

 

[pipino]

since when does the uk have to server gibralter the last tiem i checked it doesnt

if someone has asoure that states it does pleae post it i am seriously interested.

just in case anyoen thinks i am agianst gibralter i aint jsut dnt think they have to be served as there techincally uk owned but there other places that are techincally uk owned that dnt get uk tv channels

sorry m8 i dont want to get political but astra 2D was always very easy to receive in gibraltar specialy ...i wonder why ..

 

[smoggy07]

I`m not sure if this is the correct post to add this to but somethings happening on monday

I got this through the post today

 

[Pietclock]

sorry m8 i dont want to get political but astra 2D was always very easy to receive in gibraltar specialy ...i wonder why ..

This was pure coincidence ! Astra 2D's beam was never intended to be a spot beam to exclude certain areas, it's antenna is a simple unshaped reflector. Astra 2D's beam was so tight to focus the low TWTA power to the UK. Same was done with the same satellite type for Germany - Astra 3A. Both are the same type of satellite.
The simple design of those satellites produces sidelobes... they are not intended or planned.
The new satellites like 1N or 2F will use shaped reflectors...

 

[humaxboy1]

@Pietclock

I give you right. BBC will switch to Astra 1N at the last possible moment, because they don't want to be follow in Europe (we in south Europe can be very happy if they do it :-worship). And if I remember well, one of the Astra sat which was intended for 28,2 E failed at start or had a failure and that why they are force to switch to 1N before switching to upcoming Astra 2F which is planned to launch at the end of 2012. And don't forget this year's London's Olympic and Paralympic Games Games which are excellent commercial for BBC and if they are going to do profesionally as always a lot of people will remember that. After that, we can forget BBC&Co (read : tighter spot) or they are going to scramble their signals. Simple as that...

Humaxboy

 

[C0re]

As far as I know only the orbiting of the Astra 1K (19.2 E) failed in 2002 - was later replaced by the Astra 1KR - and the Astra 5A (Sirius 2) failed at 31.5 E in 2009. I haven't heard of a satellite failure that was intended for the 28.2 position?

 

[Pietclock]

BBC will switch to Astra 1N at the last possible moment, because they don't want to be follow in Europe

I do not think so. It doesn't matter if the switching is being done now or will be in a few weeks. What happens these days is at the discretion of SES Astra. They simply switch off the old 2D satellite, which has reached its end of life for commercial use. If the spot beam was of such importance, the BBC would have demanded a tighter spot in any case. They didn't. They also haven't moved their interactive TP to 1N, it's still on a Pan-European beam.

 

[humaxboy1]

You are right COre !! I've just checked...

But this is a fact : Astra 1N was originally designed to provide digital television and radio broadcast services across Europe from the Astra 19.2°E position and is expected to be moved to that orbital position when the first of Astra 2E, Astra 2F and Astra 2G come into service.
@pitlock

If the spot beam was of such importance, the BBC would have demanded a tighter spot in any case.

Are you sure ? I think that at the moment SES is not capable of providing any tigher spot with any active satellite and the Astra 1N is the best choice at the moment.
Astra 2F, 2G and 2E will do the right job.

Humaxboy


[warning] Please do not post live links especially to material not connected with the thread [/warning]

 

[terryashbyash]

As far as I am aware BBC have not and will not scramble their channels, I suspect the satellites currently in postion at 28.2(not 28.5) are approaching the end of their useful life quicker than expected otherwise why would they have put astra 1n in position. Whilst my temporary gain of channels means others are losing them, I hope we all end up with something to watch. For free iptv I have used myiplayer for a year( I downloaded the desktop player for windows only), a quick search for this on google should provide some respite for our friends in cyprus etc until things get better. Lets hope the uk spot aerials fall off of 2e,f and g.

 

[Pietclock]

Let's look on the bright side of life, the new satellite with whatever beam won't be there before December. Good news for all who are interested in the BBC's Olympics coverage.

 

[BLUEPLATINUM]

I`m not sure if this is the correct post to add this to but somethings happening on monday

I got this through the post today

I suspect this is connected with the removal of some of the ITV micro regions.

 

[smoggy07]

I suspect this is connected with the removal of some of the ITV micro regions.

Reading the link on the post card _http://sky.com/itvrecordings it says it is going to happen on different dates for different areas

Not all Sky customers will be affected by these changes. If you are, you’ll receive a postcard between 16 February and 28 February 2012 telling you the specific date that will affect you, and what you’l l need to do to ensure the programmes record as normal.

it also says

Will these changes affect any of the ITV shows I watch?

No. The only difference you may notice on ITV1+1 is a change in some regional programming such as the local news, but this will be from 1st March. Apart from that, you’ll be able watch all the usual programmes. If you want to find out more about changes to the regional programming, you can email ITV Viewer Services on viewerservices @ itv . com or call them on 0844 88 14150.

 

[woborny]

So all that's left on 2D are the BBC channels so I reckon they will be gone by Saturday?

Well it looks like they did not move over last night...they are still on 2d this morning.

 

[Huevos]

Well I am getting them 24/7 on my 80cm dish, where as before some of the channels (Film4 for example) were going off at 7pm on my 1.8m dish!

Mind you , the C4 on 10714 h does seem to be a bit weak mid afternoon, with a bit of pixelation for about an hour or so.

80cm (measured horizontally) is too small for that satellite. In the section between 10950 and 11200 it works ok and returns about 10dB MER, but in the section between 10700 and 10950 an 80cm dish is not big enough to filter off the noise from 26E and 30E and that results in a drop in MER to 7.5dB and worse on certain transponders at certain times of day. Personally I'd recommend a 100cm dish as the absolute minimum for this area.

 

[woborny]

80cm (measured horizontally) is too small for that satellite. In the section between 10950 and 11200 it works ok and returns about 10dB MER, but in the section between 10700 and 10950 an 80cm dish is not big enough to filter off the noise from 26E and 30E and that results in a drop in MER to 7.5dB and worse on certain transponders at certain times of day. Personally I'd recommend a 100cm dish as the absolute minimum for this area.

The dish is 80cm horizontally.
And has a 5 year old 0.3 LNB on it.
With a small nudge on its motor the other day it has been fine on all channels on all frequencies since i posted.
And has been fine at that time of day even on a Silvercrest receiver I have (as a doorstop!).

But agree that where you are a slightly bigger dish may be better, but where I am its working fine.

 

[welshman234]

Trying to catch up with everything since my back Op which was a success. I can walk again without pain!!!!! I am amazed at how quickly things are now moving.Signal quality of all itv variants is over 90 % for me. Still got that awful nagging in the back of my head which is Astra 2F etc.....I bet anyone here and now I will need a dish upgrade next year to at least 1.2m

 

[solly]

ses astra not public footprint of astra 2f maybe it secrect for now

 

[M60]

ses astra not public footprint of astra 2f maybe it secrect for now

Yep, all secret I guess for now! As we saw with 1N though, I guess SES will give us an insight with some preliminary footprints prior to the Satellite's launch in Q4 this year.