Anyone understand satellites?

[laserblazer]

There's a big change with the Astra broadcast satellites, with Freesat moving to Astra 2F, which has a tighter UK spot beam meaning the peripheral coverage is nowhere near as good and reception in Southern Spain and Portugal deteriorating. I asked if it would help to realign the dish and was told it would make no difference. The old and new satellites can't be in the same location, so why shouldn't pointing the dish at the new one make a difference?

[Greenbeast]

surely if it's not broadcasting in that area anymore pointing it towards the satellite won't help?!
You won't be able to receive the signal

[laserblazer]

I don't know. If there is still a signal but it's weaker, then shouldn't pointing the dish directly at the new satellite make some improvement in the same way as it would with a terrestrial aerial? Some people are saying a 3 metre dish will help. It will be a real bummer for the sports bars that attract trade by showing football on big screens.

[sted]

the sneder on the satallite can be shaped to provide coverage over a more specific area (as wider coverage required more power etc) so when an old satellite is replaced with a newer more effecient one the shaping for the signal will be more refined so outside the area they actually want coverage you will have less signal to pick up

Now this is what ive read/seen somewhere so it may be wrong

[RabbieBurns]

yes you will need a bigger dish.

This website might help:

SatBeams - Satellite Coverage Maps - Sat Footprint Astra 1D / Astra 1N / Astra 2A / Astra 2B / Astra 2D / Astra 2F / Eutelsat 28A (E28A, Eurobird 1, Eutelsat W1R, Europesat 1) / Eutelsat 28B (Eutelsat 48B, E48B, W2M, Eutelsat W2M)

[nickbro]

The Astra Website Explains it



This is the new UK spot beam which most TV in the UK will use. As you can see it's a very tight beam that just covers the uk.

The Europe beam, which UK TV wouldn't use covers much more of the UK



By the looks, you'll get the same reception as the 1N Sat that's up at the moment.



More on the footprint at: Satellite Footprints - SES.com

The older sats didn't have spot beams, covering either north or south europe



King of Sat is another good website, their beam page will tell you the size of the dish you need to get what beam: Reception Reports - KingOfSat

Currently only 2xBBC One HD frequencies are transmitting on Astra 2F

[SteveBentley]

The reason that they're doing this is that by using the UK spot beam, they don't have to encrypt the signal. This is more convenient for the intended end users - particularly with Freesat which doesn't support encryption, and means that the broadcasters don't have to pay for the encryption services.

[Oaktech]

Big Dish, Big Dish! It's always cool to have Goonhilly Down on your roof!

[plexer]

If the beam doesn't cover where you are then no size of dish will pick up the signal it's as simple as that.

Ben

[CHR1S]

Even more reason to get a decent (for your country) internet connection, a VPN and get your streams on

[jinnantonnixx]

Nice graphcs, @nickbro

I wonder if this means we're due for more channels? Film4 HD would be nice.

I like Freesat, my unscientific A/B tests show that my picture is better than Freeview, possibly because my Humax box does a better job than the TV of upscaling SD channels. In any case, it does look better.

[laserblazer]

Even more reason to get a decent (for your country) internet connection, a VPN and get your streams on

I think there may be a real push in that direction. We can't justify the cost at present for the amount of time we spend out there.

[j17sparky]

I think there may be a real push in that direction. We can't justify the cost at present for the amount of time we spend out there.

£50 dm500 dreambox clone. Connect to your home router. Http/ts/zapstream in and away you go.
Will depend a lot on your Internet connection. And I've found the dm500 to be not great at streaming but it's certainly the cheapest option.

[Michael]

I suspect the additional 2F is for additional capacity, especially for HD channels. It is actually possible to receive signals out of the maps illustrated above. A combination of a very large dish and cooling the LNB can achieve interesting results.

I remember reading about a chap in USA/Mexico who has an 8 metre dish and a super cooled LNB. He was able to receive channels from Astra 19.2 at certain times of the day.

[RabbieBurns]

Aprenda a falar o português e apenas assistir a televisão local