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budfoot said:

Just got my AZBox and I see that a lot of the TP's in the pre-loaded lists are set up to cheat the Ku LO freq. IOW, the tp's are set up using the Universal LNB LO of 10600 instead of the normal 10750. This means that all the "real" listings of channels won't work alongside the pre-programmed tp's without translating the freq 150MHz. Has anyone got an uploadable list of TP's with the correct freqs? What a PITA that there is no 5150/10750 setting in the LNB list. Oh well, nothing's perfect, I guess.

TIA

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Just to add to what Radar said, the transponder freqs do not need changing. Except for possibly being out of date, which is true for ANY receiver, they ARE meant to be the real transponders, and any "real" channel list will work with them. There is no "translating the freq 150MHz" involved. The Azbox is not "set up to cheat the Ku LO freq". What Radar describes is just that the Azbox, like any other receiver, cannot know what kind of LNB you have. With ANY FTA receiver, you need to tell the receiver what LNB type and LO freq your equipment has. The receiver cannot know this. If you tell the receiver what hardware you have, then real channel lists will work. There is no cheating involved. The transponder lists and channel data are independent of the satellite data, so

Re the 5150/10750, again, like Radar said, you need to set up separate C and Ku satellites. In this case, you are right that "nothing's perfect", or at least almost nothing. Ie very few "receivers" are able to handle both C and Ku in one satellite definition. Actually I don't know of any STBs that do this, although I think I remember someone telling me of one once. Some software for PC receivers are capable of handling C and Ku in one definition, but for some reason this isn't the case with STBs. I think the reason is, that while you can set up the 5150/10750 LO thing easily enough, you generally have to also associate DiseqC or 22khz switch settings for C vs Ku, so that if you specify a C band freq it not only uses the appropriate LO freq, but also the appropriate switch setting. This is really no harder to accomplish via defining separate C and Ku "satellites" than it would be to do in a single C/Ku satellite setup.

Anyway, while there are a couple aspects of the Azbox that aren't quite as user friendly as I'd like, the features you are concerned about are really the way they should be.

B.J. said:

The Azbox, like any other receiver, cannot know what kind of LNB you have. With ANY FTA receiver, you need to tell the receiver what LNB type and LO freq your equipment has. The receiver cannot know this (on its own)..../

/.... If you tell the receiver what hardware you have, then real channel lists will work. There is no cheating involved.

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Thanks B.J.

You stated it better than I was able to earlier. Hopefully, this information will click for Budfoot.

Budfoot, do our explanations make sense for you? If you think that we don't understand you properly or you don't understand what we are saying, please give it another go around. We'll make our best effort to make it seem more understandable, if need be. We do like and wish to help you as much as we can, so don't worry about asking for more information or asking us to clarify what we say. That helps us and others as much as it helps you, so everyone benefits in the end.

RADAR

I guess I haven't made myself very clear. For the record, I do understand the LO frequencies. What I am referring to is the default list of satellites and tps that came in my AZBox from the guys in FL. An example of what I am talking about is Al Jazeera English on what they called Galaxy 25 North America but is really now Galaxy 19. They have that sat set up with a "Universal" lnb, the high band LO freq being 10600. They have the tp that Al Jazeera lives on set up as 11998 MHz, which gives an L band freq of 11998 - 10600 or 1398 MHz. The actual tp freq for that mux is 12152MHz which, with an LO freq of 10750, gives an L band freq of 1402MHz. Same mux within the margin of error for the lnb freq. According to Lyngsat, 11998 isn't even an extant mux on that bird.

The "cheating" I am referring to is the fact that the tp lists in the AZBox default set that I received are set up, at least in some cases, with frequencies that will produce the right L band freq when calculated with the 10600 Universal lnb LO freq while actually being received by a 10750 Ku lnb. While this works just fine in the receiver, it means that the numbers that are actually stored as tp freq's are not the correct numbers. Makes entering new tps on that sat a bit of a PITA.

I was just looking for a set of files with the LO and tp freqs being the correct ones for a 10750 Ku lnb. I actually think that the satellites.xml generator is going to put me on the right track.

Thanks for your time on this. FWIW, the IT912S ALMOST manages to deal with 5150/10750 on the same sat. You can have both sets of tps on the same sat definition and just pick the "antenna" to scan when looking for channels. Once it's found the channel, it always does the right thing and knows how to set up DiSEqC, 22kHz, and 12V switches to receive the channel. OTOH, it doesn't do DVB S2 or 4:2:2 so we're back to "nothing's perfect"

Regards

Budfoot

budfoot said:

I guess I haven't made myself very clear. For the record, I do understand the LO frequencies. What I am referring to is the default list of satellites and tps that came in my AZBox from the guys in FL. An example of what I am talking about is Al Jazeera English on what they called Galaxy 25 North America but is really now Galaxy 19. They have that sat set up with a "Universal" lnb, the high band LO freq being 10600. They have the tp that Al Jazeera lives on set up as 11998 MHz, which gives an L band freq of 11998 - 10600 or 1398 MHz. The actual tp freq for that mux is 12152MHz which, with an LO freq of 10750, gives an L band freq of 1402MHz. Same mux within the margin of error for the lnb freq. According to Lyngsat, 11998 isn't even an extant mux on that bird.

Click to expand...

There used to be an 11998 transponder. Perhaps the transponder list is just old.

budfoot said:

The "cheating" I am referring to is the fact that the tp lists in the AZBox default set that I received are set up, at least in some cases, with frequencies that will produce the right L band freq when calculated with the 10600 Universal lnb LO freq while actually being received by a 10750 Ku lnb. While this works just fine in the receiver, it means that the numbers that are actually stored as tp freq's are not the correct numbers. Makes entering new tps on that sat a bit of a PITA.

I was just looking for a set of files with the LO and tp freqs being the correct ones for a 10750 Ku lnb. I actually think that the satellites.xml generator is going to put me on the right track.

Click to expand...

Again, it might be that the transponder list is just old. I can't imagine why they would do that, there isn't any reason I can think of. Are you saying that there are transponder freqs for that sat that are below 11700? If so, that's strange.
However you're right about the .xml approach. I got my box from the Florida guys too. I don't remember the transponders being off like you say, but I didn't look very long. It was pretty obvious that the satellite list that came with the box was corrupted (and I'm not the only one who's observed this), so I quickly used the .xml files to give me a new sat list with more up to date transponders. I don't think I've ever used the default transponder list on ANY receiver I've ever owned. They are always obsolete.

budfoot said:

Thanks for your time on this. FWIW, the IT912S ALMOST manages to deal with 5150/10750 on the same sat. You can have both sets of tps on the same sat definition and just pick the "antenna" to scan when looking for channels. Once it's found the channel, it always does the right thing and knows how to set up DiSEqC, 22kHz, and 12V switches to receive the channel. OTOH, it doesn't do DVB S2 or 4:2:2 so we're back to "nothing's perfect"

Regards

Budfoot

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TSREADER comes close to doing the 5150/10750 thing correctly too, however I've never used it, as my PC receivers are all slaved anyway. But it will select the proper switch and LO freq from a list with both C and Ku freqs.

budfoot said:

I guess I haven't made myself very clear. For the record, I do understand the LO frequencies. What I am referring to is the default list of satellites and tps that came in my AZBox from the guys in FL. An example of what I am talking about is Al Jazeera English on what they called Galaxy 25 North America but is really now Galaxy 19. They have that sat set up with a "Universal" lnb, the high band LO freq being 10600. They have the tp that Al Jazeera lives on set up as 11998 MHz, which gives an L band freq of 11998 - 10600 or 1398 MHz. The actual tp freq for that mux is 12152MHz which, with an LO freq of 10750, gives an L band freq of 1402MHz. Same mux within the margin of error for the lnb freq. According to Lyngsat, 11998 isn't even an extant mux on that bird.

The "cheating" I am referring to is the fact that the tp lists in the AZBox default set that I received are set up, at least in some cases, with frequencies that will produce the right L band freq when calculated with the 10600 Universal lnb LO freq while actually being received by a 10750 Ku lnb. While this works just fine in the receiver, it means that the numbers that are actually stored as tp freq's are not the correct numbers. Makes entering new tps on that sat a bit of a PITA.

I was just looking for a set of files with the LO and tp freqs being the correct ones for a 10750 Ku lnb. I actually think that the satellites.xml generator is going to put me on the right track.

Thanks for your time on this. FWIW, the IT912S ALMOST manages to deal with 5150/10750 on the same sat. You can have both sets of tps on the same sat definition and just pick the "antenna" to scan when looking for channels. Once it's found the channel, it always does the right thing and knows how to set up DiSEqC, 22kHz, and 12V switches to receive the channel. OTOH, it doesn't do DVB S2 or 4:2:2 so we're back to "nothing's perfect"

Regards

Budfoot

Click to expand...

Budfoot,

I can understand the problem with the TP that carried the Al Jazeera news channel. That was only recently changed.

In the FTA world, satellites and TPs change often and we have to keep up with this through manual updates. The FTA receivers that we buy, can only be as accurate as their "born on date" so to speak.

DN, DirecTV and Bell Express subscribing customers don't need to fiddle with these updates manually. They service their customers during the times that their receivers are idle (usually at night when the receiver is in standby mode) and they automatically update the customers receiver with the TP or satellite changes.

For us FTA hobbyists, we don't have that luxury. We have to research the changes ourselves and make the updates manually. There is a pro and con to this. The pro part is that we understand more about what we are doing overall, the con is that we have to do more work to keep up and it isn't always that easy.

I am sure that your being here, on this site, is validation enough that you understand all of this already.

If you wish, I will provide my own channel data from my AZBox for you to experiement with. You understand the risks involved? I make no guarantees regarding exchanging files this way, but you can decide on your own. My channel list itself is quite up to date, so you can trust 99% of the data.

I use a DG-380 motor with USALS for all satellites except 30.0W because that is beyond the limits of USALS for my longitude. My latitude and longitude entries will be incorrect for your location, so you will have to change these to match your coordinates, of course.

I also use an Invacom QPH-031 LNBF, so the local oscillator frequency is set at 10750, which should match your setup.

I use one switch (a 4x1 DiSEqC switch) with linear satellites on port #1 and any circular satellites on port #4 (I think). You will have to change this to fit your system configuration as well.

I will post my backup files here, if you want to experiment with them. They are from the DISK2 folder within the AZBox. I uploaded them from my AZBox either today or yesterday.

Good luck and have fun (just be sure to use these files at your own risk).

RADAR

Thanks Radar

I'll definitely take a look at those files. I went back and looked at the original sat definitions that came in the box and you were right about them just being old. It looks like the Al Jazeera thing was just a coincidence. It was just a fluke that the current tp is 150MHz above that old one on 11998. It looks like the only real problem with their sat definitions is that they were set up to work with universal lnbs.

All better now.


Budfoot