Sky starts test on Optus 10

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#3329564 9-Jan-2025 13:55

I think I'm making a little progress, but it's still a little broken.

I found that if I change my LNB settings to 10750 high and low and set the switch to 11300 (I'm not sure if this is the right setting, though), I can access Optus 10. The odd thing is that if I have both D1 and Optus 10 configured on the same card, then it seems to only be able to access Optus 10.

I played with the DiSEqC settings, and none of the options seemed to do anything. The MediaPortal options are weird, though (None, SimpleA, SimpleB, Level1AA, Level1AB, Level1BA, Level1BB).

Since I had enough cards, I split them, with half using a switch setting of 0 and the other half using 11300, and pointed to the appropriate satellite.

This seems to work, but I can't change from a channel on one satellite to the other all that quickly. In fact, sometimes, when I try to switch, it fails to tune in to any channel for about a minute and then starts working again.

I guess this will at least mean that when the change comes, I can make it work, but this in-between time might be a real pain.

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#3329571 9-Jan-2025 14:10

Switch setting should be that of a transponder frequency NOT an LNB frequency which is what 11300 is.

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Oblivian

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#3329576 9-Jan-2025 14:22

For a mental picture. Think of your LNB having an X inside the head. Straight on.

Because the head is close to 45deg

Sending it one current, makes the \ of That X active. Which at 45 is laying -

And the other enables the /. Which becomes | active.

Vertical. Horizontal. One or the other unless multiple cable capability.

Klathman

302 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 78

#3329578 9-Jan-2025 14:31

Spyware:

Switch setting should be that of a transponder frequency NOT an LNB frequency which is what 11300 is.

OK, so I changed the switch to 12285, which is lower than the lowest transponder on Optus 10. It can still tune into that satellite, but I still have problems switching between satellites. I'm guessing this is just a temporary limitation of switching between vertical and horizontal then?

rlevis

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#3329592 9-Jan-2025 15:09

Does anyone know if or when Optus will have a new satellite back at 160?

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#3329597 9-Jan-2025 15:26

rlevis:

Does anyone know if or when Optus will have a new satellite back at 160?

Optus 11 unconfirmed launch date is 2027.

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#3329601 9-Jan-2025 15:37

Klathman:

I played with the DiSEqC settings, and none of the options seemed to do anything. The MediaPortal options are weird, though (None, SimpleA, SimpleB, Level1AA, Level1AB, Level1BA, Level1BB).

Do you have a DiSEqC switch though?? The switch would be connected to a cable run for Optus D2, horizontal with no tone, and a cable run for Optus 10, vertical with 22 kHz.

Klathman

302 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 78

#3329607 9-Jan-2025 15:48

Spyware:
Klathman:

I played with the DiSEqC settings, and none of the options seemed to do anything. The MediaPortal options are weird, though (None, SimpleA, SimpleB, Level1AA, Level1AB, Level1BA, Level1BB).

Do you have a DiSEqC switch though?? The switch would be connected to a cable run for Optus D2, horizontal with no tone, and a cable run for Optus 10, vertical with 22 kHz.

I don’t believe so. I just wasn’t sure if that was integrated with the standard dual throated Sky dish and was required to generate the 22khz tone.

Since it’s tuning in without configuring this I imagine the answer is no.

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#3329608 9-Jan-2025 15:49

The LNBs dont function as DiSEqC switches.

RunningMan

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#3329613 9-Jan-2025 16:23

Klathman:

I think I'm making a little progress, but it's still a little broken.

I found that if I change my LNB settings to 10750 high and low and set the switch to 11300 (I'm not sure if this is the right setting, though),

You are inadvertently activating 22kHz with your switch settings. The High/Low LO settings with switch frequency are for Europe etc. where the bandwidth used is greater than NZ and you use and an LNB that switches between 2 LO frequencies, hence the 2 LO frequencies and the point you want it to switch between the 2.

This contrasts to Sky's setup where the 22kHz tone is used to switch between orbital positions.

Given you don't want to activate the switch for 160E, you need to keep it on the Low LO, so set the LO Low to 10750 and switch to say 19000, which is artificially high above any transponder frequency and will therefore never activate. LO High can be set to anything because it should never activate (because there is no transponder frequency above 19000).

For 156E, you do want the switch activated, because this is actually setting the second throat on the LNB. So set LO High to 10750, switch to say 1000 (below any known transponder frequency) so it always sends the 22kHz signal. LO Low is irrelevant and should never be used.

In terms of the signalling getting through a multiswitch that will depend on the switch. If you are just using a splitter with multiple outputs, then 22kHz on from any tuner will affect the output to every receiver.

GV27

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#3329616 9-Jan-2025 16:48

Guff:

Update: all sorted, Sky tech initially replaced the LNB but still couldn't get more than 11db so he moved the dish to the deck and we're getting 12-13db. Sky works all day and night now.

He said he was very busy lol 😆

This worries me because they attached my dish to my roof and I don't want them drilling any more holes in the steel and I sure as hell don't want them leaving exposed holes from where it currently is already. I hope they don't have to move it at all.

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fe31nz

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#3329804 10-Jan-2025 00:00

Klathman:

I think I'm making a little progress, but it's still a little broken.

I found that if I change my LNB settings to 10750 high and low and set the switch to 11300 (I'm not sure if this is the right setting, though), I can access Optus 10. The odd thing is that if I have both D1 and Optus 10 configured on the same card, then it seems to only be able to access Optus 10.

I played with the DiSEqC settings, and none of the options seemed to do anything. The MediaPortal options are weird, though (None, SimpleA, SimpleB, Level1AA, Level1AB, Level1BA, Level1BB).

Since I had enough cards, I split them, with half using a switch setting of 0 and the other half using 11300, and pointed to the appropriate satellite.

This seems to work, but I can't change from a channel on one satellite to the other all that quickly. In fact, sometimes, when I try to switch, it fails to tune in to any channel for about a minute and then starts working again.

I guess this will at least mean that when the change comes, I can make it work, but this in-between time might be a real pain.

If your Sky dish is anything like mine, there is no way to get both 160E and 156E at the same time. My dish has two throats, one pointed at 160E and one at 156E. For 160E, the 22 kHz tone has to be off, and for 156E it has to be on. Either way, only one throat will be active at at any given time. I am unsure if there are actually two LNBs, one per throat, or just one LNB and the throats are switched ahead of the LNB. But either way, there is only one LNB that is active at any one time feeding signal down the aerial cables. I have two sets of aerial cables, but 22 KHz on either of them switches the throat and both cables get signal from the currently selected throat.

To get Sky from 156E by turning on the 22 kHz tone, there is no standard LNB type that you can select in your software to do that. What works for me is to select the "Universal" LNB type (common in Europe). A true Universal LNB has two local oscillators (LOs), with different frequencies, and the LO being used can be switched from the low frequency one to the high frequency one by sending 22 kHz tone. On a standard Sky dish like mine, there is only one LO, and in my case it is a 10750 MHz one. It gets mixed with the incoming signal, so if you are trying to tune the Sky mux on 12267 MHz, the 10750 LO is mixed with that and you get two heterodyned signals at 12267+10750=23017 MHz and 12267-10750=1517 MHz. There is a filter that blocks all the high frequencies so the original 12267 MHz signal and the 23017 MHz signal are blocked and only the 1517 MHz signal is received on your DVB-S2 card. That is within the receiver range of DVB-S2 cards and it can be tuned to that signal to receive that multiplex. But the range of frequencies that your DVB-S2 card can receive is limited, and is less than the range of signals that are avaialble in many parts of the world. So with a "Universal" LNB, there is second (higher frequency) local oscillator that you can turn on using the 22 KHz tone (which will also turn off the lower frequency LO), and that then brings higher frequency signals from the satellite down into the range that a DVB-S2 card can receive. For a Sky dish, there is only one LO, and the 22 KHz signal switches the dish to the second throat pointing to 156E. But all the DVB-S(2) software out there does not have an LNB type that matches this, so you have to fool the software into doing what you want. By selecting a "Universal" type LNB, the software has settings for the low and high LO frequencies, and a "switch" setting that tells the software when to switch to using the high LO. When you ask the software to tune to a frequency, it will work out which LO frequency is needed to be able to receive that frequency and will turn on or off the 20 kHz tone as required.

For our purposes, there are two ways to use such software with Sky dishes. The method I am using is to set both LO frequencies to 10750 and change the switch frequency to turn on or off the 20 kHz tone. If the switch frequency is set very low (0), then the 20 Hz tone will be on, and if it is set very high (99999), the 20 kHz tone will be off. This is what I am doing at present - I change the command line LNB settings for my minisatip software from "-L 10750-10750-99999" to "-L 10750-10750-00000" to get 156E. To do that, I have to stop and restart minisatip, so that is not a good solution if you want the software playing or recording from Sky to be able to select between the two throats. I have not met any recording software that allows you to specify the 22 kHz tone signal on a per channel basis.

The other possible method would be to set the switch frequency to a number that is higher than the maximum Sky frequency on 160E, for example 12800 MHz. Then you would tune to the 160E frequencies to get those muxes, and tune to frequencies above 12800 MHz to get the 156E muxes. You would need to calculate the frequencies to get the 156E muxes based on the 12800 MHz switch frequency, and your recording software would have to use those "false" frequency numbers. I think that would work, but I have not tried it as I do not need to be able to select between the satellites in my MythTV software. When Sky tells us it is now changing over to 156E, I will just change the minisatip settings to use 156E and re-tune to the new mux frequencies.

One other possible way of controlling the 22 kHz tone is if you are using SAT>IP protocol with your tuners (as I am with minisatip running my DVB-S2 tuners). With SAT>IP, part of the URL you can add is to control pilot tones, which I think means the 22 kHz tone in our case. So you could manually add "plts=on" in the SAT>IP URL for a channel on 156E. But there would be no checking to ensure that "plts=on" URLs would not be use at the same time as "plts=off" URLs, so if any tuner was running with a "plts=off" URL and another tuner was started with a "plts=on" URL, the "plts=off" streams would stop as the throat got switched to the 156E throat and the 160E signal was lost. If you were doing this, you would set the LO switch frequency to 99999 so that the software always thought it was using the lower LO and would calculate the frequencies correctly - there would be no need to calculate "false" frequency numbers.

RunningMan

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#3330023 10-Jan-2025 14:47

fe31nz:

If your Sky dish is anything like mine, there is no way to get both 160E and 156E at the same time.

The only way to get both orbital positions at the same time is more than one output from the LNB (or more than one LNB), preferably fed into a multiswitch.

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#3330026 10-Jan-2025 15:07

A multiswitch/DiSEqC switch

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#3336543 28-Jan-2025 10:04

Article in today's NZ Herald claims replacement sat will be at same orbital location as D2.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/media-insider-sky-tv-satellite-headaches-growing-numbers-of-customers-left-frustrated-and-angry-by-outages/RAFQFMDLNVBIPOO3R7H5IOABGY/

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