Yacht on the way to Turkey... what Sat would my guests like?

[Deepseadata]

Hi there,

As we get closer to turkey I'm starting to worry about what I'm going to do when we finally lose Sky (we're in Croatia at he moment). We've already lost all the movie channels and BBC.... but quite a few channels are still working!

My guests are from the UK and always watch news and sports. Sooner or later I'm going to lose those chans. I have sky boxes and a stack of other plain decoders.

Here's the question:

Can I just point the dishes at another sat and still use the sky boxes? Do I need to swap out those decoders and use the standard ones?

What Satellite do you think my guests would like? We won't be getting any subscriptions because we'll only be there for a week.

Thanks for all your help!

The quest for knowledge continues... I'm going to do some more reading.

 

[Topper]

That is tough to answer as it depends what your guests will tolerate. Certainly English TV is not available on any other satellite but English speaking films with subtitles will be available on some satellites. The Sky decoder is useless for any other satellite and without a subscription to services on other sats your options are limited. Your guests should just accept that UK TV is meant for the UK region

 

[aceb]

Not exactly what you are after but the Sky box should be OK to get BBC Worlds News and CNN on 19E, at least they'll get a fix of news and some sports news. Other than that you're going to need to get some more receivers that have better options on symbol rates then choose where to point the dish. 19 or 13E will give the greatest selection of channels but whether there's anything worth watching is another matter. It *might* be worth trying 26E to see if any of the footprints make it that far NW, there'll be plenty of sports, BBC World News and Middle East domestic stuff on that slot, much of which is subtitled US imports.

What size dish have you got and where are you heading too? I spent a summer living in Icmeler and working near Marmaris, love the south coast of Turkey and wish I could go back.

 

[Deepseadata]

Really excited to go to Turkey! You're lucky to have lived there though. The rest of the crew tells me it's a great place. We'll go to Bodrum, Istambul and surely a bunch of hard to reach spot inbetween.

I don't expect to get Sky - that's why I'm worried. I'm not worried about not having sky I'm worried about not having anything!

I'd take Al Jazeera.. ANYTHING in English. Just a news channel or two would be enough.

I have stabilized antennas. What I usually do is pop 26E in there, look at my LAT and LON, check a calculator that tells me my AZ and EL for where we are at the time. Then the pedestal tracks and tunes itself using signal AGC.

My problem is that I don't have enough experience with SAT TV to understand what I'm going to need to do to point it at another satellite now that Sky is out of the picture (nice little pun in there).

It sounds like even if I find the other sat my decoders aren't going to be able to view anything... I guess I'll have to install the 22 Samsung DSB-B350W's. We don't have any cards or cams for them though.

I do have a spectrum analyzer and I've already been using it to study for the day when we lose sky.

So once I install the decoders. I'm assuming I'll need to program a default transponder to get an EPG.

Do I need an EPG or can I just manually program the channels in there?

Is it starting to look obvious that I don't know very much?

 

[aceb]

If you set up for 19E then on the Sky box go to add extra channels, input 11597V, SR 22000 and FEC 5/6 That should get you BBC World News, 11778V 27500, 3/4 will give you CNN. _http://www.lyngsat.com/astra19.html for the full list. As it stands I doubt the Sky boxes will give you an EPG but I've never tried adding channels from anything other than Astra on 28E.

I presume there is some kind of controller for the auto tracking dish, the ones I used to see during new builds had a rack mount panel where you could set the satellite location and were connected to the GPS server but if you have a make/model of it I'll try googling for a manual to see if we can work out how to adjust it. Either that or get me a ticket and I'll bring one out

 

[Huevos]

Your easiest bet is 26ºE. You can't use a Sky box but there is a reasonable amount of stuff in English. You've got BBC News, NHK World News, France 24, Al Jazeera English, Euronews, Al Jazeera Sports 1/2, Al Jazeera Children, Fox Movies, Fox Series, Dhubi One, KBS World, MBC 2/3/4, MBC Action, MBC Persia, & MBC Max. All are FTA 24/7 in English and there are many others in English part time. There are also some basic FTA sports channels in English, and there is a similar line up of channels on 7ºW. All should be pretty easy on an 80cm dish anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean.

 

[Deepseadata]

Thanks, Huevos!

I like these options. One is to use the Sky boxes, change sats, add a couple channels to them. The other option is change boxes to Samsung, stay pointed at 26E.

My next fear will be trying to setup the Sammies! I better blow the dust off one and start playing with it. I think I've been spoiled by the EPG on SKY. Let me get something straight... EPG has nothing to do with channels working or not. It's just a channel guide that shows the TV programs (that people without an EPG do by just looking on the net manually?)

 

[Deepseadata]

Aceb - You are right. The dishes get position from GPS and heading from our gyro compass to keep the dish pointed at the sat (even under some pretty rough see).

I also have these settings I found in an old file on our server. I can't remember seeing the frequencies listed on any sites I've been reading. Do you know what it's for? I also read about INA... another acronym I don't get.

Here's the stuff:

	Astra South Beam		NileSAT 101
Satellite	332W		7W
Frequency	1607		1747
Baud Rate	27500		27500
Tone (ON = High)	ON
Volt	VERT		HORIZ
FEC	AUTO or 2/3		3/4
NID	0000

 

[aceb]

Well they're listing what I presume were a couple of transponders on 7W and 28E, interesting that it measures all the way round west from south to get to Astra though. They are out of date according to the latest Lyngsat listing, were these default transponders for the auto tracking system as you mentioned something about using a signal AGC? What contect was INA mentioned in, can't think what it might be unless it was lower case LNA?

 

[Deepseadata]

It looks like this is the Satellite IF (more jumbo I don't understand). Here a paste from the email.

Press:

SERVICES
4
0
1
SELECT

That will bring you in the hidden installer menu. There look up the default transponder and make it:
12207
Vertical High
27500
2/3
(The same as above, but this is a Sat frequency, the other IF (12207 – 10600 = 1607). 10600 is the local oscillator of the LNB.

The default transponder is just something you put into a Sky box to help it find the EPG listing. Not sure why that would have anything do with pointing the dish though. One thing I do know is that I see freq 1607 on the dish controller so it must do something! I better read a manual.. hehehe.

 

[Huevos]

Deepseadata, don't waste your time trying to get Sky receivers work on other satellites. It would be an act of desperation. Just use the other receivers you have and do a scan of 26ºE. There's probably more stuff in English on 26ºE and 7ºW than all the other satellites put together (apart from 28ºE of course).

 

[Analoguesat]

If you get stuck see if you can find some news channels on 13E - you should be able to keep them all the way along the Turkish coast easily.

 

[Robbo]

I think that 26E would be one of your best options too, I generally don't watch much else. Might even be an easier transition, as its right nest door to 28E.

Probably worth a play when no-one is going to be affected to try it out.

Also, as already said, forget the Sky boxes, they're only much cop for Sky UK, FTA receivers are usually pretty straight forward to sort out. If you can still pick up any FTA from 28E, you could give one a go.

 

[Deepseadata]

Thanks guys!
I usually need both dishes pointed at the same time while underway or on anchor because there's a shadow from the mast and when one dish loses signal it switches to the other one.

We just tied up to the dock so I'll point a dish at 26E and slap a test reciever in my office as a test and see what happens.

I never would have tried this without your advice.

Thanks again!

 

[Terryl]

I would have brought along a very large DVD library....

 

[Deepseadata]

We've got a 10 terrabyte Kaleidescape server. They just need to see the news. And one of the owners owns a premiere league soccer team and kinda likes to see if his team wins or loses.

The good thing is we've got internet and they can stream news if I fail to get anything up on the TV.

Alrighty. I better get crackin with that Samsung!

 

[Deepseadata]

It's wierd how only about 20% of my replies make it past the moderators... and then some go straight to press.

Anyway. I have succeeded in getting some channels working! I had 19E Astra 1 Transponder 12729 22ms 5/6 Vert which showed me CNN, Sky News, and Euro News!

I'll try 26E, 7E and 13E later on when the guests step off for dinner tonight. Thanks a lot for the help guys. I feel way less pressure now.

 

[Lazarus]

Not weird at all. New Members (I know you had a previous User Name, but the principle remains) are liable to have their Posts put into a Moderation Queue (especially if they contain certain key words) and are cleared manually by voluntary staff. This is to protect the Forum against undesirables (and boy do we get a fair few!).

You'll find in the not too distant future that all your Posts will go straight to press.




Anyway, well done on the progress so far

 

[Robbo]

7W not 7E, I think.


RE your posts, it is not the moderators that stop posts it is the forum software, we have to approve any that it catches but shouldn't have ;)

 

[Analoguesat]

We've got a 10 terrabyte Kaleidescape server. They just need to see the news. And one of the owners owns a premiere league soccer team and kinda likes to see if his team wins or loses.

!!!!

Any jobs going on your boat?? I know you need to keep the pointy end going forward..... That must make me a candidate for captain