Thread: 4dtv Icons

Today I decided to program AMC 2 into my 922. There was no problem finding it, but when I went to add an icon that's where my problems began. I decided to use A2, easy to remember, but when I programed A2 in the transponders were all horizontal polarity from 1 to 17 then went to vertical from 18 to 24. I went through all of the generic Ku icons before I settled on I2 because it was the only one that would change polarity every other TP. Is this normal? Would the others recognize a polarity change from TP to TP if I would have used them on a Ku satellite? Would a C band icon work on Ku? Also why isn't the I2 icon between the K9(AMC 9) and the W3(AMC 3) icons where AMC 2 is located?

Sorry, can't help you. But I just wanted to say I think it's a great question. I've seen sats where the polarity jumped around strangely and wasn't odd/even....never knew why or what it meant.

Originally Posted by JerryK

Sorry, can't help you. But I just wanted to say I think it's a great question. I've seen sats where the polarity jumped around strangely and wasn't odd/even....never knew why or what it meant.

Yea, never had anything like this with the old MTI systems unit. On it you used the east/west button until you found the satellite you wanted and then you punched in any name you wanted. It was a lot simpler.

Wonder why 4DTV uses "Old School" satellite abreviations? For example "C3" I guess that meant Satcom C3 back in the day, but maybe they should update the position abbreviations to accomodate the proper satellite name. Just a thought.

Originally Posted by truckracer

Wonder why 4DTV uses "Old School" satellite abreviations? For example "C3" I guess that meant Satcom C3 back in the day, but maybe they should update the position abbreviations to accomodate the proper satellite name. Just a thought.

Yea, I know what you mean. The Cs were for the Satcoms, W is for Westar, T is for Telstar. I had that MTI system from 1983 to 2003 and was surprised when I turned on the 922 for the first time and there were the same old IDs.

Originally Posted by Diamond Jim

Today I decided to program AMC 2 into my 922. There was no problem finding it, but when I went to add an icon that's where my problems began. I decided to use A2, easy to remember, but when I programed A2 in the transponders were all horizontal polarity from 1 to 17 then went to vertical from 18 to 24. I went through all of the generic Ku icons before I settled on I2 because it was the only one that would change polarity every other TP. Is this normal? Would the others recognize a polarity change from TP to TP if I would have used them on a Ku satellite? Would a C band icon work on Ku? Also why isn't the I2 icon between the K9(AMC 9) and the W3(AMC 3) icons where AMC 2 is located?

Jim I use W3, as that is what used to be there. And besides, I never deleted it or reprogrammed it for somewhere else, so it is already in place. Your FTA receiver should pick up both C and ku signals, regardless if it is a C or ku you are using. I know mine do, although you may have to bump it from time to time.

Al

Originally Posted by truckracer

Wonder why 4DTV uses "Old School" satellite abreviations? For example "C3" I guess that meant Satcom C3 back in the day, but maybe they should update the position abbreviations to accomodate the proper satellite name. Just a thought.

Guess what? Before C3, C4, they were F3 and F4. My original analog receiver, Drake, had these and others in it and they couldn't be changed. When I got my first descrambler, a Videocipher II unit, it connected to the Drake to descramble channels (analog). Then when I got my 920, it had these satellites you see now. As new sats came along, and they could easily change the names in the 920 and later 905 and then 922, they decided to keep the old names because to many people had other receivers that could not change the names. Not that it would matter to the other receivers, but the other guides, like Satellite TV Week and Onsat and Orbit would have a problem with complaints from subscribers with receivers that couldn't be changed. So, they went along (I think) to appease the guide people. Not to mention some people, like myself, had one of those subscriptions. If they had changed them and my IPG was listing Showtime on AMC 11/ch.101 and Onsat had it on C3/ch.101, I might get confused and complain to Onsat. They would probably say, tough luck pal, we have (at the time) a half a million people who would be confused and complain if we changed it to suite you.

Al