When and where to scan?

[giovanni1]

I am new to FTA and am wondering if I can get some advice on when and where to find channels. I have a 36" motorized dish.

Do sporting events such as hockey, footbal (NFL or college), baseball etc.. get thrown in on a temporary feed? If so, when and where should I scan?

Any advice on where to scan for decent channels is appreciated!

 

[Mr Tony]

college is about the only thing right now. The rest are either fibred or on C-Band or scrambled

but the usual "feeds" sats are 72,74,79,85,91,105, and 123

 

[Auric]

Galaxy 17 was a hot satellite a couple months ago. You just never know. Iceberg gave you some good ones

 

[giovanni1]

So if I were looking for NFL football, games I would scan the sats Iceberg mentioned prior to 1pm on Sundays?
Would hockey games in the evening be similar, if any, prior to start.

 

[Lak7]

As noted above....

college is about the only thing right now.

Would hockey games in the evening be similar, if any, prior to start.

Very little Hockey, most Stadiums are Fiber.

 

[AcWxRadar]

So if I were looking for NFL football, games I would scan the sats Iceberg mentioned prior to 1pm on Sundays?
Would hockey games in the evening be similar, if any, prior to start.

Giovanni,

Walrus1957 has been working on a very nice list of channels for a Coolsat 5000 receiver. He has researched many feed channels and divided the satellites into groupings (created new satellite entries expressly for the feed TPs). So he would have one satellite selection for 79.0W AMC 5 (which contains TPs for the standard broadcasts) and another selection for 79.0W AMC 5 FEEDs (which only contains the TPs for the feed channels).

This works slick as the same TPs are often used over and over again by certain broadcasters/entities. If you learn this and set your system up in a similar manner, you can simply check these same TPs on the same satellites. Once they are logged into your system, they will remain there (even if not active all the time) and when the feed comes on line, it just pops in for you.

This is not a hard-set rule, but for many feeds it does play out this way and Walrus' scheme will avoid the need to continuously blind scan the satellites.

This is just an idea for you to experiment with when you really get into the hobby of seeking the wild feeds and backhauls.

I typically don't use this scheme as I am constantly changing things around and experimenting with different receivers and motors and dishes, so I usually just end up Blind Scanning for a feed.

Currently, I am dabbling with the AZBox Premium receiver which does not have a blind scan feature, so I have to reconnect my Coolsat in order to search for feeds. Once I find them with the Coolsat, I can enter the SAT, TP and channel data into the AZBox and scan the TP to pick it up.

I thought you might like some additional suggestions on what was possible in this regard. It may seem like a lot of additional work, but if you are treating it as a serious hobby it can be a lot of fun and it does work nicely.

As for your question that I quoted... Yes, there should usually be some sort of pregame discussion or a notice that a feed is going to come on line shortly. There might be some color bars and test tone displayed or you may see someone setting up cameras and doing mic checks and such. It varies.

One thing neat that I have found with the AZBox are the "plug-ins". These are mini programs compiled by individual users to do something special. Games like Sudoku or Chess can be downloaded. One of the plug-ins that I found was called "livefeeds". When you install and access this program, it pops up with all the current feed broadcasts that are currently active. It provides the end user with the satellite and TP and channel information and sometimes a small inset video frame. With this information, you can dial in that sat and enter the data and watch the feed in progress. Unfortunately, this program was developed by someone in the UK or Europe and has no benefit to North American satellite feed hunters. Maybe someday it will be implemented for us here - a plug-in for N.A. feeds.



RADAR

 

[BarneyBean]

AMC5 was good last year for football H.S. and college but but it wasnt the "big" games mostly alot of division 1 AA and H.S. I had to work the last two saturdays so I never got a chance to see what was on, and as far as the NFL they are few and far in between especially now that G18 has gone by the wayside.

 

[giovanni1]

I understand what you mean about punching in "new" sats in the receiver that have only the "feed" tp's, that is a good idea, but what do you mean about them popping in automatically?
Are you saying there is a way to set the receiver to scan those certain tp's automatically, and that you do not have to scan manually?

 

[Lak7]

There are usually 3 types of scans"
Blind / Power Scan - Find new, unlisted TPs
Manual / TP Scan - 1 Specific TP
Automatic / Sat Scan - All TPs already in List

 

[AcWxRadar]

I understand what you mean about punching in "new" sats in the receiver that have only the "feed" tp's, that is a good idea, but what do you mean about them popping in automatically?
Are you saying there is a way to set the receiver to scan those certain tp's automatically, and that you do not have to scan manually?

Hi Giovanni,

It appears that some broadcasters have an ongoing lease of "FEED TP" space. They seem to reuse the same channels on the same TP/SAT often. So if you have found their channel once, and assigned it a name, that channel will remain in your channel list until the next time it is active. Hence you don't need to rescan for it. You just park on that channel and watch a blank screen until the channel comes back on line. Often, they will put up a test signal (color bars and test tone) with a message... "Wait for your Feed" with a countdown clock or TP and channel information listed.

Other broadcasters may lease time and TP space in a more random scenario. These you have to blind scan to locate as a rule.

Of course, you have to have scanned it in at some point in time prior or entered the PID information manually or been given a channel list from someone else who has done the ground work already. A receiver with a good blind scan capability is a must for feed hunting. You also need a receiver that is easy to communicate with and has a good channel editor program to support it. The old Coolsat 4000, 5000 or 6000 receivers are very excellent examples. Although they won't work for HD or MPEG-4, DVB-S2 signals and such.

RADAR