Technical changes for Saorsat, July 2020

StreetLight

From 1st July 2020 there will be technical alterations to Saorsat on Eutelsat KA Spot Beam 24. The frequency, symbol rate and forward error correction will all be changing.

Frequency: Currently 20190.0Mhz changing to 20192.5MHz
Symbol Rate: Currently 25000 changing to 12500
FEC: Currently 2/3 changing to 5/6

https://www.2rn.ie/broadcast/saorsat-digital-television/

The Cush

Capacity on Ka-Sat is very tight at the moment, especially due to Covid and WFH, probably related. The Ireland spot beam is only taking business customers right now.

2rn in conjunction with our capacity provider Eutelsat are making necessary changes to the technical parameters of our transmissions on Spot Beam 24 on KA Sat.

These changes are necessary in order to make more efficient use of available spectrum and capacity on the satellite. The change will happen at 06:00 on Wednesday July 1st 2020.

Eutelsat has already launched it's next generation satellite, Konnect, which will reduce the load on Ka-Sat as customers should be able to migrate over. The only issue might be the new satellite's final position may be elsewhere, 13/16 degrees east(?) and existing customer dishes may have to be realigned if they are offered and decide to move sats.

Due to go into service this autumn, delayed due to covid and earth station issues I believe.

Irish_peppa

Hmmmm could this be why one of my tvs saorsat start acting up about 2 weeks ago. first both tvs all my saorsat channels became intermittent, then TV 1 went back to normal after a few days but tv still is better but still very patchy signal rte1 almost unwatchable frequently garbled. (i tried auto retune yesterday but to no avail)
1 tv fine other bad. Yet both signals coming from same dish

marclt

What will the impact on coverage be?

The Cush

marclt wrote: »

What will the impact on coverage be?

I wonder how the change in FEC will affect fringe area reception in NI or Wales?

marclt

The Cush wrote: »

I wonder how the change in FEC will affect fringe area reception in NI or Wales?

I'm sure someone will be able to tell us next week.

The change in frequency will mean a retune for non-saorsat boxes, but tuning on a standard box often used a false frequency to fool the box into receiving the channels. Anyone got any ideas on that will now be from next week? I think it was 10770MHz.

The Cush

marclt wrote: »

The change in frequency will mean a retune for non-saorsat boxes, but tuning on a standard box often used a false frequency to fool the box into receiving the channels. Anyone got any ideas on that will now be from next week? I think it was 10770MHz.

Correct my maths if I'm wrong here, using Inverto Twin Ka Circular Dual polarity 19.7-20.2GHz (LO212O GHz)

Existing parameters
Freq: 20190 Mhz
LOF: 21200 MHz
I.F. = 1010 MHz

1010 + 9750 (Ku LOF) = 10760 MHz (Ku)

New parameters
Freq: 20192.5 Mhz
LOF: 21200 MHz
I.F. = 1007.5 MHz

1007.5 + 9750 (Ku LOF) = 10757.5 MHz (Ku)

marclt

The Cush wrote: »

Correct my maths if I'm wrong here, using Inverto Twin Ka Circular Dual polarity 19.7-20.2GHz (LO212O GHz)

Existing parameters
Freq: 20190 Mhz
LOF: 21200 MHz
I.F. = 1010 MHz

1010 + 9750 (Ku LOF) = 10760 MHz (Ku)

New parameters
Freq: 20192.5 Mhz
LOF: 21200 MHz
I.F. = 1007.5 MHz

1007.5 + 9750 (Ku LOF) = 10757.5 MHz (Ku)

Bit of a faffy change tbh. Still wondering if the parameter changes were called by Eutelsat or 2RN. Didn’t the FEC used to be 1/2 at the beginning?

Quite a bit of artefacting on RTE1 tonight. Hope the pic quality doesn’t degrade any further.

But thanks for the calculation, much appreciated!

The Cush

marclt wrote: »

Still wondering if the parameter changes were called by Eutelsat or 2RN. Didn’t the FEC used to be 1/2 at the beginning?

Don't remember the initial FEC, probably in the original thread. Will we ever know who requested the change?

All we know for sure is the capacity on the sat is scarce.

Apogee

marclt wrote: »

Bit of a faffy change tbh. Still wondering if the parameter changes were called by Eutelsat or 2RN. Didn’t the FEC used to be 1/2 at the beginning?

Yes, at the time of the original tests, the FEC was 1/2. It was changed to 2/3 in 2014.

mackersdublin

Would someone who has Saorsat, please PM me the current line up along with the SIDs for each channel

I found this link but it's out of date https://www.astra2sat.com/ireland/saorsat/

Many thanks

The Cush

This one appears up to date but without the parameters - https://www.tvchannellists.com/List_of_channels_on_Saorsat_(Ireland)

marclt

mackersdublin wrote: »

Would someone who has Saorsat, please PM me the current line up along with the SIDs for each channel
Many thanks

DM’d you

bigVee

The Cush wrote: »

I wonder how the change in FEC will affect fringe area reception in NI or Wales?

Reception here about 5 miles south of Larne, County Antrim with 80cm dish was not a problem except in heavy rain. Since the recent changes the signal is unusable. I have Saorview from Clermont Carn and the NI mux from Divis so RTE not a problem although CC signal strength has reduced since channel moves to accomodate 5G.

baz1080p

At the start of the month I noticed the Saorsat not working but I put it down to the weather as it is glitchy in the heavy rain but I realise now they changed the frequencies :-(

I live outside Belfast as was able to get Saorsat no problem on my 110cm dish so fair play to "bigVee" about 10-15 miles North of me and able to get it on a wee 80cm dish.

I tried entering the frequencies below and still had no luck getting a signal.
I have a Zgemma Star 2S setup as follows:

Tuner B: AVL6211 (DVB-S2)
Type of scan: User defined transponder
System: DVB-S
Satellite: 9.0E Eutelsat 9B & Ka-Sat 9A
Frequency: 10757
Inversion: Auto
Symbol rate: 12500
Polarisation: Circular Left
FEC: 5/6

Can someone check if I have the correct settings in as I do not want to start moving the dish as it is very difficult to setup the correct position of the dish even if you know the correct frequencies. The 110cm dish alinged to 9E Eutelsat has the correct LNB on it and no other feed off it so a direct link into my Zgemma with Astra on tuner A.

Any help in getting this working again would be appreciated.

marclt

baz1080p wrote: »

At the start of the month I noticed the Saorsat not working but I put it down to the weather as it is glitchy in the heavy rain but I realise now they changed the frequencies :-(

.

What sort of signal strength / quality were you getting and how does it fare now? Do you have good LoS to the transmitter.

From first glance, those details look correct.

Maybe the signal is not performing so well further north with these new settings.

baz1080p

Hi marclt,
The signal strength was about 36% at best. Very difficult to get it to that high a %. Worked fine but in very heavy rain it would drop below 10% and glitchy.
At the moment it is 0%.
Perfect line of sight with no trees or obstructions in the way.

That is one possibility that the new frequencies are not performing as well this far North :-(

If I knew I had the correct settings in the Zgemma then it would be a matter of slightly moving the dish on the off chance it moved a few mm during a storm.

Below is the order of resolving the issue with least hassle:
1) Frequencies,
2) Dish Alignment
3) Equipment.


Would be interested to know if anyone this far North (Belfast) is still able to get Saorsat after the frequencies.

Has anyone noticed a loss in signal strength with the new frequencies?

pegasuspub

Hi i have retuned a few systems here in west cork and found the signal to be about the same as before but all of these were 1 meter dishes with the ka band lnb at the prime focus, i found early on that dishes of 80 cms were too small here in wet weather and the ka band lnb has to be at the prime focus, whether the signal is as robust with the new settings in wet weather i still cant say, i called to someone after the signal change who had the ka band lnb and an astra lnb on a triax arm on the front of his 80 cm dish it was raining heavily when i called and my meter would not lock onto the signal as it was too low, he did tell me that he frequently lost ka band signals due to rain even before the signal change, since the upgrade to 1 meter i have not had any complaints, just a word on ka band lnbs i have had 2 units that seemed to loose quality and went very noisey, changing them improved signals, hope this may help someone,

Apogee

baz1080p wrote: »

Any help in getting this working again would be appreciated.

It's worth trying a scan on Circular Left and a separate scan on Circular Right with the same parameters.

marclt

Keep us posted on how you get on...

Just a reminder of the footprint.

marcmcw

System: dvb-s2
Frequency: 10758
Inversion: on
Symbol: 12500
Polarisation:vertical
Fec: 5/6
Modulation: qpsk
Roll-off 0.20
Pilot : auto

marclt

Some wild weather here today. Heavy rain and lightning been having some impacts on the Saorsat signal.

Even when it wasn't raining at ground level, the signal was intermittent and lost totally for a spell when the rain came down.

Pretty sure others will have had similar problems.

Quickpip

baz1080p wrote: »

Hi marclt,
The signal strength was about 36% at best. Very difficult to get it to that high a %. Worked fine but in very heavy rain it would drop below 10% and glitchy.
At the moment it is 0%.
Perfect line of sight with no trees or obstructions in the way.

That is one possibility that the new frequencies are not performing as well this far North :-(

If I knew I had the correct settings in the Zgemma then it would be a matter of slightly moving the dish on the off chance it moved a few mm during a storm.

Below is the order of resolving the issue with least hassle:
1) Frequencies,
2) Dish Alignment
3) Equipment.


Would be interested to know if anyone this far North (Belfast) is still able to get Saorsat after the frequencies.

Has anyone noticed a loss in signal strength with the new frequencies?

We live not far from Kilkeel and had a pretty good saorsat signal strength with an 80cm dish before the change. Since the change, signal strength has dropped dramatically and it has pretty much become unwatchable.

The Cush

Just a quick update on this, Eutelsat has sold its 51% stake in KA-Sat to US satellite operator ViaSat for €140 million, following the successful entry into service of its new Konnect satellite at 7° East.

https://www.lightreading.com/opticalip/viasat-seizes-control-of-destiny-in-europe/d/d-id/765591

Viasat provided both the KA-Sat communications payload and subscriber terminals. Eutelsat uses Hughes Networks and Systems (HNS) Jupiter 2 system for its new Konnect satellite. Viasat will operate KA-SAT at its current location although the orbital slot will revert to Eutelsat at the end of the satellite’s life.

Due to Covid and WFH capacity on KA-Sat will continue to be an issue unless users decide to migrate to the new Konnect satellite 2° to the east.

Eutelsat Konnect has 92 spot beams, 64 for Africa and 28 for Europe. Spot beam EU02 covers the Rep of Ireland - https://www.satbeams.com/footprints?beam=10806