SC down South...way south!

cheebs

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Oct 15, 2005
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For some time now I've been curious about SC. I'm down in Guatemala and before Anik F1R went into service, it was pretty easy to pull F1 in down here. Since then I haven't been able to experiment, and from reading all the posts, there seems to be little hope of getting that bird down here.

Anyone have any experience or anecdotal information about this situation? I have several 1.8m dishes, and if necessary access to 2.4's. I read everything I could at Mike Kohl's site, but there's still a big blank where Central America and F1R is concerned.

I've had D* for years, but now with the DTV8 changes we lost most odd xponders, plus all the stuff coming in the future, I'm not very optimistic that it will last much longer for us.
 
Hey thanks! By what I read, it seems that 1.8's will do.

If it weren't for the lack of HD content, GLA from Puerto Rico could be a viable option, but I'm addicted now and couldn't think of going back to SD. :D
 
I have not received any reports of successful F1R reception that far south on ANY sized antenna, but at worst case, you could set up an F2-only antenna (it's actually stronger than F1 was before October), and get your HD fix.
Present HD offerings from Star Choice include
ABC-NBC-CBS-FOX-PBS from Detroit
NBC-CBS-FOX from Seattle (maybe the other 2 soon?)
CTV and CBC HD from Toronto
TSN Sports HD and Sportsnet HD.
(It would be hard to justify a movie subscription just to get one HD channel from either TMN or Movie Central, should you end up with F2 only).

Test overall signal level on Ch 298 for F2 or
Ch 299 for F1....either will work if a receiver has been previously authorized for SC reception

Other network possibilities---test with a 10-12 foot C-band system and MPEG-2 FTA receiver:
Six channels from Alaska on 137 West.
ABC, WB Puerto Rico & NBC, CBS US Virgin Islands-99 W.
 
SC in southern california

Do I need a larger dish to receive SC in Southern California?

Can I receive all channels or is it like BEV where one of the sats (Nimiq 3?) does not cover my area?
 
StarChoice covers the continental US so you should be fine in SoCal

All of the English channels are on one satellite (F1R at 107.3) and French/ethnic/HD is on F2 (111.1)...both accessible from SoCal :)
 
The 75 cm Elliptical antenna is recommended for SC reception in California. Don't attempt it with the smaller 60 cm model, or you will find some things on F1R very marginal, and perhaps unusable with even a moderate rain.
 
mikekohl said:
Other network possibilities---test with a 10-12 foot C-band system and MPEG-2 FTA receiver:
Six channels from Alaska on 137 West.
.
remember? scrambled, your words: Satellite news in the last week. It looks pretty official. The six Anchorage TV stations on the C-band AMC-7 satellite at 137 West appear to be permanently scrambled. Idiot sports fanatics talking too much in the wrong places about how they were getting around sports blackouts and especially watching FOX football coverage from the Anchorage affiliate are mostly to blame. This unwanted publicity became known to a number of local TV stations around the country, who complained to their networks, who went to GCI in Alaska---the cable company sending these signals to remote locations around Alaska, and complained to them. GCI's officials were apparently quite miffed that people were using THEIR signals that THEY had paid to put on satellite for THEIR customers, to have other time shifting options than their local stations. It was a great party that lasted almost three years! Just wished that I had not wasted my time putting up that elevated dish on Labor Day weekend, which put my back out of commission for most of September---only to see it go away the first day that it snowed here.
source: http://www.global-cm.net/news&views.html
by the way great read.:D

Would a 10 or 12 with a ku feed horn help his problem and F1R making it into Central America ???
 
Well I got my receiver (Thanks Me-At-Work!) and will do some tests this week. We'll be using a round offset 1.8m dish for the tests.

Is it still necessary to adjust the LNBF skew with round dishes? Is it easier to skew the dish itself or the LNBF?

I sure hope we can get F1R down here.

All help is much apppreciated! :D
 
Hey Cheebs glad you got the receiver!

I would think that for aiming at a single satellite, adjusting the skew would be easiest at the LNB. I just remember back to the old Alphastar days (1M dish min. here in Canada) and when Expressvu first started, they had an LNB bracket with hash marks on it to rotate the LNB. Anyway, good luck.

Me-At-Work:)
 
Thanks for the help guys :D

I'll be running the tests tomorrow, hope we can get both sats!
 
I wanted to report that we got a 97 (!) signal strength on 111.1. (1.8m dish, Invacom 0.3db LNBF)

Now comes the tough test: 107.3... wish me luck guys!

EDIT: GOOD NEWS! we got signal from 107.3!!! Now, the problem is we only get partial signal. Is there a way to fine tune for the separate xponders?
 
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Argh... since we're using separate dishes I forgot I only had one LNBF! LOL

Well, it seems to work ok, looks like *C has been moving some channels around the sats, and that was mostly the cause for the confusion. I was using the lyngsat chan list and obviously (what else is new) it's wrong.

What gave it away was when we started seeing chans on the 111 that were supposed to be on the 107 (specifically NBC Detroit and a couple of others, while CBS was still on the 107)

I'll tie the whole thing together with a 22khz multiswitch tomorrow or wednesday to see if the whole shebang works. Great alternative to D* for less money and only two dishes! (as compared to three needed down here to get D* 101, 110 and 119)
 
cheebs said:
Argh... since we're using separate dishes I forgot I only had one LNBF! LOL
Well, it seems to work ok, looks like *C has been moving some channels around the sats, and that was mostly the cause for the confusion. I was using the lyngsat chan list and obviously (what else is new) it's wrong.
What gave it away was when we started seeing chans on the 111 that were supposed to be on the 107 (specifically NBC Detroit and a couple of others, while CBS was still on the 107)
I'll tie the whole thing together with a 22khz multiswitch tomorrow or wednesday to see if the whole shebang works. Great alternative to D* for less money and only two dishes! (as compared to three needed down here to get D* 101, 110 and 119)

HD American affiliates and some HD Canadian feeds are on F2 (111). Look at the list again.