Orby Channels Active Again?

Leosat

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
May 8, 2008
15
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Don't ever post but thought this was interesting. Left my Orby system intact and attached to a TV (using it as a OTA tuner). Well recently I scanned through the channels, and guess what. 3 Orby channels are currently active - same 11940 MHz, same Orby receiver, same dish at Eutelsat 117A. What are they? Channel 102 is NRB TV, 103 is God TV-1, and 105 is Revival-2M. Did Orby donate equipment to a church? Anyway, check it out.
 
These channels also show up in the Orby program guide so I don't think its a lucky match to an Orby receiver. See attached pic
 

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Quite often an uplinker will retain the mux table build on a transponder and add / subtract customers on the prebuilt table. The Orby STBs channels auto update from this table. This is something that most FTA STBs are capable of doing.

Haven't looked at the mux, but aren't these channels received and associated EPG populating on an FTA STB?
 
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No guide....but does scan 3 chan....I scanned both scram and un scram and did not see any other ch on that transponder..this is on edision mio 4k plus with open vision..
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Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk
 
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So I'll be creative, since many of you suggest the Orby receiver is now simply an open 30000SR DVB S2 8PSK satellite receiver. I can take one of my Norsat 10 MHz external reference Ku LNB's and hook it to a signal generator, calculate the appropriate input frequency to reference and slightly change my 10 MHz input to make another input frequency look like 11940 MHz, I can now use my Orby as a regular satellite receiver, as long as the signal is 30000SR! A lot of work but fun to try. But another question. What happens if you hook up a new and never installed Orby receiver that was never activated to receive these channels? I don't have one of those or I would try.
 
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So I'll be creative, since many of you suggest the Orby receiver is now simply an open 30000SR DVB S2 8PSK satellite receiver. I can take one of my Norsat 10 MHz external reference Ku LNB's and hook it to a signal generator, calculate the appropriate input frequency to reference and slightly change my 10 MHz input to make another input frequency look like 11940 MHz, I can now use my Orby as a regular satellite receiver, as long as the signal is 30000SR! A lot of work but fun to try. But another question. What happens if you hook up a new and never installed Orby receiver that was never activated to receive these channels? I don't have one of those or I would try.
Sounds like an great project! Let us know the results if you give it a try. As to using a brand new Orby receiver I would think you will hit a roadblock since when these boot up for the first time they need to activate. As there is no Orby company now there is no way to do that. Be interesting to find out though if someone has a donor available. :)
 
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I tested my new out-of-the-box ORBY TV DVR satellite receiver. This is a new receiver that I purchased from Best Buy back in February 2021, and did not get around to getting it activated prior to ORBY TV’s shutdown at the end of that same month. I was able to complete the installation menus today, successfully locked on ORBY’s old satellite transponder at 116.8 degrees W. And my DVR is functioning now, without any previous activations from ORBY TV!
 
I tested my new out-of-the-box ORBY TV DVR satellite receiver. This is a new receiver that I purchased from Best Buy back in February 2021, and did not get around to getting it activated prior to ORBY TV’s shutdown at the end of that same month. I was able to complete the installation menus today, successfully locked on ORBY’s old satellite transponder at 116.8 degrees W. And my DVR is functioning now, without any previous activations from ORBY TV!
Welcome to Satellite Guys amstereo! Good info that you were able to use yours. It may have something to do with the channels that appeared recently as I swear others were unable to activate their new receivers just after Orby shut down. :)
 
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I also heard that special software was needed to get downloaded to get ORBY TV satellite receivers initially activated. This is apparently not true, as step seven moves to step eight, then finally step nine.
This satellite receiver located and displayed the signal strength and signal quality at screen six, then performs some kind of scan at step seven. Then the local off-air broadcast TV channels are scanned.
When the ORBY TV signal disappeared on March 1 this year, the unactivated receivers would not go past step seven, to get the receiver at least working on the local channels.
If anyone else has not discarded their new-in-the-box ORBY TV satellite receivers, please give this a try while those three FTA channels are available on one of ORBY’s old transponders.
I was quite surprised and happy today. My receiver still has the old software dated 2016, and it probably could use a newer software update. For example, the screen size setting does not save the 16:9, 1080i, and wide screen settings. Also, the displayed time is one hour behind, unless one of the time settings is changed in the menu. Otherwise, my ORBY TV receiver functions well.
I thought about returning it when I had the opportunity, though held onto it, hoping someone would get it activated, or ORBY TV would reorganize from their chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.