Digital Breakup on 101 C Band

[fred555]

. I still haven't been able to locate a signal meter that locates satellite signals before a scan is done. I tried to use the signal meter in the satellite setup menu but it did not display a signal when I was looking for RETRO TV and some others.

You have to first manually program in at least one valid transponder.
In the satellite installation menu select the satellite, then click the recall button,
Add a transponder with the red button.
Next highlight the desired transponder, meter will show S and Q of highlighted transponder:

3720 H 8703 selected (transponder #8), its hard to see. (KRBK Mux on 99W C)

After you fiddle with the dish and tune the transponder, then hit recall again and blindscan the satellite.

 

[LocutusOfBorg]

Kaffeine is reporting an SNR of 27 for MeTV HD while other transponders are at 70 or better. It's interesting that religious channels are booming at 100 on all sats that they're on - I guess they get a lot of donations or commercial outfits want to make it harder for us to receive them. I'm using a 12 footer. Time for a 20+ footer?

 

[wvman]

I cheated a bit by hooking up my old receiver to locate a couple satellites since they were already programmed in on the old receiver. Once I located the satellite, I hooked up the V7 and did a blind scan. I ordered a Pansat actuator box from Rainer Satellite Monday. My wife had fits trying to find the other satellites, so I made it easy for her. The price for the stand alone box wasn't really that much different than when the BUD's were popular. I'm also looking at a DH 9 foot spun aluminum dish I found at a good price.

I still haven't figured out the problem with recording Shepherd's Chapel, unless it is a problem with the firmware. Strange though that it only does it on that particular channel. When I get the other receiver in, I'll do a firmware update on it and see if it does the same thing. If not, I'll tune it in on all the satellites and then do an update on the 1st one.

 

[Titanium]

Why buy a manual Pansat controller instead of continuing to use your old receiver? Doesn't seem like a step up. My wife would not use the BUD if she had to use a separate remote control to move the dish and another remote to change the channels. The Gbox, Vbox and ASC1 controllers support automatic dish positioning via the satellite receiver, but the Pansat does not.

DH builds a great spun alum. dish. Check the prices with DH sales. They sell direct from their factory to the end user and arrange delivery at considerable savings.

Update: Linkbox had a final clearance sale last month for resellers and slashed the wholesale prices on the remaining NOS Pansat AP-600 units, switches, LNBs, LNBFs, etc. They are clearing out the accessories and only be distributing receivers.

 

[KE4EST]

Started a response and then got side tracked by the kids(summer vacation). Anyway Brian beat me to it. Why would you want to get a controller that is manual only? The Pansat controller does not have DiSEqC decoding, so no way for automatic control from the receiver. You will have to use two remotes every time you change birds.

 

[wvman]

Why buy a manual Pansat controller instead of continuing to use your old receiver? Doesn't seem like a step up.

My old receiver with the motor drive in it is a Uniden Ultra. Can't see where the dish is going since the display only shows up when the receiver is hooked to the TV. We started installing BUD's back in 1980 when these things were dinosaurs. She cut her teeth on manual dish movers & polarity controls, so this is no big deal for her. She's actually the one who encouraged me to go with the Pansat. Since there's no way to know if these stations are planning on encrypting their signals, we didn't see the need to go all out on a receiver/mover combo.

We went down that road with C-Band years ago, and when you think about it, the programming available on FTA is more limited than it was in the BUD days. If we lose H&I, Movies, MeTV, Decades and a few others, there's not really much left that interest us. We're not big on sports, and the garbage aired on the network channels are of very little interest to us. We only switched to FTA to get Shepherd's Chapel, so the rest were a bonus for us. Before we did FTA, we streamed movies on NetFlix and watched what we were interested in on YouTube.

I like tinkering with this stuff and anything we get that grabs our interest is a plus. One nice thing about it is the low cost of equipment. I'll stick with it as long as there's something to watch and something new to play with.

 

[wvman]

Here's something I found that may help some of the less enlightened FTA enthusiast (Like Me). It's a document that explains how to interpret the satellite data on Lyngsat. It may already be in here somewhere, but if it is, I have never seen it.

 

[Titanium]

Understood why you would want to change to a different controller. For others reading this thread, I just wanted to clarify that you could have bought something with better compatibility for less money. Rick's Satellite sells the V-box II that is the high amperage model for less money ($54.99 with free shipping vs $99) and it can either be operated in a manual mode like the Pansat or controlled automatically via any FTA satellite receiver with the DiSEqC 1.2 motor control standard. Don't know of any receiver/mover combos anymore. All controllers are stand alone units that communicate via the coax cable connection.

I'm the same way as you, enjoy the finds on satellite almost more than watching programming! You might find sathint.com to provide more up to date and easier to use satellite listings than Lyngsat. The Lyngsat site has never been very accurate for North America, but it seems to be less so in the past few years.

Glad that you are getting everything working again!

 

[wvman]

I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to electronics. When I locate an unexpected find like a slew of channels I wasn't aware of, I have to play around. You are right about Lyngsat. The site you gave us is much better and a lot more detailed. Thanks for the heads up. It will come in handy.

I contacted DH Satellite about the dish I was interested in. Haven't heard anything back yet, but it's early. I looked at this dish on their website and you can tell just by looking at it that it's a quality dish. They claim the 9 footer delivers as much signal as a 10 foot mesh dish. I can believe that. Spun dishes are the way to go when it comes to signal gain. I watched the video on their website showing them making these dishes, and you could easily see they were running true on the machine.

Interesting process. Worth watching the video. I'll let you know what kind of a deal they cut me on the dish.

 

[wvman]

You have to first manually program in at least one valid transponder.
In the satellite installation menu select the satellite, then click the recall button,
Add a transponder with the red button.
Next highlight the desired transponder, meter will show S and Q of highlighted transponder:

3720 H 8703 selected (transponder #8), its hard to see. (KRBK Mux on 99W C)

View attachment 118136

After you fiddle with the dish and tune the transponder, then hit recall again and blindscan the satellite.

Thanks fred555, did as you suggested and it worked perfectly.

 

[wvman]

Titanium, I noticed something with the Freesat V7 that I don't remember seeing on the HDVR1200. When I push the "info" button on the remote, it shows the satellite, channel, etc. If I push it a second time, it shows what would normally be the program information. On the 1200, this screen showed the PID info instead of the program info. Back in the day of the BUD, this information never started showing up until right before they were getting ready to encrypt the channel so the viewer could bring up the program data. Is this a bad sign or just a perk in case these channels started transmitting the program information?

I was playing around last evening with Retro TV looking to see what was on and ran across a Hispanic channel out of Mexico. When I first went to the channel, the video was all messed up like the channel was scrambled, but then starting from left to right, the picture started clearing up as the vertical bar went across the screen. I changed the channel and went back several times, and it did it every time. It was almost like the receiver was unscrambling the video.The audio was present the whole time.

I know this receiver has settings for PowerVU and other encryption formats, but I was under the impression these setting were to be used to make the receivers compatible with the decoder in case you purchased a subscription to some of their services. I don't think these receivers are capable of receiving encrypted programming without the use of an external decoder, but thought I'd ask to see if you ever saw this on one of your receivers.

 

[Titanium]

Service PID information is only displayed differently on the two STBs. The 1200 shows more detailed information on a service screen in decimal format. The V7 displays minimal service information on the channel banner in hex format. The program info is the EPG and both receivers display EPG if the service includes it.

No idea about the channel you found from Mexico. By looking at the menu, it is obvious that the STB definitely is designed to steal via key sharing and not primarily designed to be used for subscription. I have no interest or desire to steal programming or support any product or reseller enabling theft of service. No keys were preprogrammed or loaded into my STB when I purchased it or populated since.

If the sellers are now pre programming units with decryption keys, the distributor is breaking the law! Enabling theft of service with preloaded keys is wrong and will ultimately damage our industry! I will personally report the units myself to EBay and Amazon if the v7 STBs are now being delivered with preprogrammed key to enable theft of service.

Anyone receiving their v7 units with preloaded keys? Does the latest firmware files provided by the manufacture site include preloaded keys? If so, are the keys valid? We must address this as we cannot be recommending or discussing a receiver with enabled TOS.

 

[FTA4PA]

If the sellers are now pre programming units with decryption keys, the distributor is breaking the law! Enabling theft of service with preloaded keys is wrong and will ultimately damage our industry! I will personally report the units myself to EBay and Amazon if the v7 STBs are now being delivered with preprogrammed key to enable theft of service.

Anyone receiving their v7 units with preloaded keys? Does the latest firmware files provided by the manufacture site include preloaded keys? If so, are the keys valid? We must address this as we cannot be recommending or discussing a receiver with enabled TOS.

I have barely got a chance to look at this box with everything that's been breaking here but just checked the one I received from Amazon. No pre-loaded keys.
H/W: V2.1.0
S/W: V2.19.67.236

 

[KE4EST]

Same here with the V7 I have. It was not pre-loaded with keys for TOS.
Very sad to know this could be the case.
We will not discuss piracy or TOS(Theft of Service) here at SatelliteGuys.
If it is found out that the V7 is starting to be shipped this way, they will be reported, and discussion of the V7 on SatelliteGuys will cease immediately!!!
Many, many receivers can be hacked for TOS. The discussion of this and how to do it will not be tolerated here at SatelliteGuys.

 

[armadillo_115]

On 83W? There is a Telemax music transponder that does that @ 3825 / V / 4034. (On my 9000i) Plays great with beautiful picture after that initial 'Scan bar' goes across.
Maybe something about how it is programmed?

 

[Titanium]

The SCPC on 83w 3825 is very low bitrate 1080i and it takes a while to gather enough data to display an image. On most receivers the screen stays blank until the image can be displayed.

Example: The microHD usually shows black for a few seconds before displaying the video, but sometimes the display is garbled and is refreshed as data is properly decoded.

 

[armadillo_115]

There is a photo effect in some Photo Editors that looks like you have added transparent silver plating over the picture...I forget the name. (Silver Plating?) Imagine that at 50% transparency ... and that is what Telemax looks like until it locks in correctly. It displays fine from then in. There's some good Latino Music on that channel.

 

[Titanium]

I am also seeing the video stutter with audio break-up on the NHRA HD feed on 83w and have also captured the HD decoding refresh from the 3825 TeleMax channel.

For a $26-$29 STB, it is a mixture of good and bad.... Wouldn't be rushing out to replace other STBs that work well on h.264 HD services!



The FreeSat V7 unit is:
S/W Version: V2.19.67.244 09/05/2016 (May 9, 2016)
H/W Version: V2.1.0 18/04/2016 (April 18, 2016)

 

[fred555]

No preloaded keys here either.
I am not in front of a V7 right now but there is a menu setting that deals with the speed the next channel is brought up or something as I remember. Set it for slow and maybe the Xcvr has a chance to get enough data together to bring up a solid picture, set it for fast and you may get some wondrous video effects on some channels?
Or maybe not.

 

[Titanium]

The only change that the Next Channel speed setting made was to display the decoding refresh on the 3825 transponder nearly each time the channel is tuned.