PBS ANNOUNCES HIGH DEFINITION FEED FOR BACKYARD DISH USERS

[eurosport]

Makes me glad I have a 10 footer. PBS and DW both have a big signal here.
:up

 

[comfrey]

on a 7.5' dish, DW-TV and PBS both at Q=54 on the Azbox here on the wet coast... rain or shine.

 

[hd fan]

No signal here in Toronto with the 6 footer for PBS but perfect for DW so I will try setting the motor position for PBS instead.

BTW , you guys with the Azbox, are you getting the CC on PBS since I read on the prees releass posted by Scott that they mentioned digital close caption being used and I am yet to see analog cpations with the premium plus let along a channel using the digital ones.

 

[colbec]

I'm wondering why this would be the case, that two signals from the same satellite should appear to need a slight tweak to peak them individually? When conditions are ideal, during the day, evenings, dry air etc. both channels come in fine. Problem occurs say in very early morning when the air becomes foglious, ie is full of condensed water (as it is this time of year in this area, just had first fall frost on my clover). I give the dish (which is pretty new and has never suffered a ding) a slight nudge and PBS comes in sufficiently well there is no stuttering.

It seems to indicate that tuning response to signal strength is non linear. That in fact in some circumstances a stronger signal is detrimental. Maybe my dish is introducing some phase issues.

 

[1inabillion]

I found it back in August and posted it to thelist

SatelliteGuys.US_TheList - 103.0°W AMC 1 C

little weak with the 6 footer...

I found them in February of 2010 & posted them in WUT (02-01-2010, 08:13

PM)

Yeah real old news

lol:rant:

 

[B.J.]

I'm wondering why this would be the case, that two signals from the same satellite should appear to need a slight tweak to peak them individually? When conditions are ideal, during the day, evenings, dry air etc. both channels come in fine. Problem occurs say in very early morning when the air becomes foglious, ie is full of condensed water (as it is this time of year in this area, just had first fall frost on my clover). I give the dish (which is pretty new and has never suffered a ding) a slight nudge and PBS comes in sufficiently well there is no stuttering.

It seems to indicate that tuning response to signal strength is non linear. That in fact in some circumstances a stronger signal is detrimental. Maybe my dish is introducing some phase issues.

I ran into a wierd one on Monday. I've always had issues with the horizontal side of AMC21. For some unknown reason, vertical has always come in stronger than horizontal, actually on two different dishes. Well when I was digging with my backhoe near my Primestar, which is fixed on AMC21, the vibration (I'm sure I never touched the dish) must have affected the aim a bit, and when I got back in the house, I couldn't lock ANY of my vertical transponders, but the horizontal ones were coming in stronger than ever. Real strong signal on LPB and even got one of the weaker scrambled S2 muxes that had eluded me before. I went outside, and played with the aim a bit, and got back the vertical channels, and am still getting the horizontal, but it really seemed strange that apparently I did something that affected only the vertical channels???

 

[Davage]

I've got the PBS feeds tuned in on a 7.5 ft Sami dish here in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The Coolsat 8100 reports 75% signal quality.

These free PBS feeds I directly attribute to the efforts of the K-Sat/C-Sat (and maybe even Keith Lamonica) Satellite Radio crews back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. They fought long and hard for the backyard dish owner's rights to access to programming, and fought to keep PBS in the clear. I recall listening to them talking about how PBS had scrambled their programming using the Videocipher II using the explanation that Videocipher gave them the ability to provide digital quality audio. The listeners to K-Sat/C-Sat/Lamonica lobbied hard to force PBS to provide an in-the-clear transmission for backyard dish owners. 20 years later, their hard work is still paying off.

For anybody who may be interested, I have hundreds of hours of K-Sat in MP3 format that I'm willing to share. I'd love to hear from anybody who also has some of these shows recorded.

 

[colbec]

Here's a thought. If the lnb is bang in the centre of the mount but tilted slightly in one direction (as it can be if there is a bit of play in the mount and you only have one tightening bolt, for example), the opening of the lnb viewed from the dish will appear to be oval and not circular. It can only be off on one axis. How would this affect signal for various polarities?

 

[John Popper]

lol true, this feed @ 103 has been there at least since January, btw I concur with those saying its a weak one, with my 10ft I barely get it, if it's raining it's a no go

sad about the analog channel going bye bye though

 

[utah2]

Iceberg thanks for Info & welcome

Like I said great forum & Iceberg many thanks for info on FEC. BTW while talking about PBS's I try to view Nebraska NET PBS on 89.0W in DVB format . It scans as Husker Vision and I have very low Q I also receive on DSR905 with about a 40 Q which is watchable. However, over the past year I have received much higher Q both DVB & DSR DC11 on 905. I say this because IMHO that at times PBS NET maybe playing games with power level per transponder & that overall PBS may not want anyone viewing for free , but dare not say so based on public funds granted to PBS. afterall on fund drives pbs used to say they receive nothing from subscriber outfits DTV, Dish, cable etc. I may have missed PBS saying this recently, but I have not heard it lately.

Anyways just my opinion I think if pbs wanted to really service us FTa ers they would be on several of the most modern (newer) sats in orbit & at highest power & would encourage FTA viewing. Especially true in these tough eco times. It's like the same for CSPAN Wash Journal show every morning (over a years time) discusses every possible industry including exec wages, problems , consumer pricing structuring etc etc while never discussing the same issues for satellite /cable industry, I wonder why ?

 

[TRG]

I am in texas and I cannot get the PBS channels on AMC 103 C with a six footer. I get every other channel on that bird though.

Same here to the west of you in central New Mexico. I just spent a couple of hours with my birdog trying to get a little more signal out of my six footer. Everything else on that bird comes in nice and strong. The PBS transponder will not lock no matter what I do. I wrote a nice letter and sent it to the address in the original post. I explained that the PBS transponder has much less signal than the rest on 103W. I asked if there were any plans to turn the power up a bit. I'll let you all know what they say.

 

[coinmaster32]

I love how they called us a backyard dish user. I prefer the term "satellite downlink operator"

 

[whatchel1]

Shawn & gary

I've got the PBS feeds tuned in on a 7.5 ft Sami dish here in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The Coolsat 8100 reports 75% signal quality.

These free PBS feeds I directly attribute to the efforts of the K-Sat/C-Sat (and maybe even Keith Lamonica) Satellite Radio crews back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. They fought long and hard for the backyard dish owner's rights to access to programming, and fought to keep PBS in the clear. I recall listening to them talking about how PBS had scrambled their programming using the Videocipher II using the explanation that Videocipher gave them the ability to provide digital quality audio. The listeners to K-Sat/C-Sat/Lamonica lobbied hard to force PBS to provide an in-the-clear transmission for backyard dish owners. 20 years later, their hard work is still paying off.

For anybody who may be interested, I have hundreds of hours of K-Sat in MP3 format that I'm willing to share. I'd love to hear from anybody who also has some of these shows recorded.

You are forgetting Shawn Kenny & Gary B in those efforts. On the behave of BUD owners. At that time I had a C/Ku band sat biz. It was mostly commercial but I did do some home stuff.