Satellite

For quite some time now I have been interested in the reception of Satellite signals, normally for TV and Radio. There is such a wealth of media out there that most people are completely unaware of. When I met Ylenia, I realised very quickly that her father watches TV in Italian via Satellite. When we moved in I fitted my first dish pointing at Hotbird for the reception of European Satellite. That was it I was hooked, we get over 1600 channels and that is just from one Satellite, there are hundreds. A few months after we also hooked up an old sky dish that was already attached to our house, this coupled with a DISEqC switch gave us a further 1000 or so channels.

What is Hotbird?

Hotbird is the name given to the European satellite. In the UK we are covered by several satellites the most prevalent being the Astra group of satellites at 28.8. The Astra group broadcast our Freesat channels and Sky TV also use it for the UK delivery of their services. Hotbird is much the same but for Europe, luckily for any Europeans living within the UK the footprint of the Hotbird satellite was designed to overlap the UK as well. Hence by off-setting a dish from 28.2 East to 13 East you can pick up most of the European TV stations including things like the Italian stations run by RAI and MediaSet.

What is happening to Italian TV?

As some of you may have experienced Italian TV is suffering more and more black outs, during these times the content being broadcast is not suppose to leave the confines of Italy, hence anyone watching on satellite gets a blue screen with a message on. These programs are encrypted and will require the purchase of a "Tivusat" decoder. This is a new satellite receiver that is currently for sale in Italy, this decoder comes with a card which will decode the transmissions. There is no subscription for the card to work, you simply have to buy the box and card. These are starting to become available in the UK, however at the moment supply is a little limited. The transmissions are encrypted using an encryption standard called "Nagravision".

New Horizon Satellite Meter

Well my new satellite meter has finally arrived! It rocks without any shadow of doubt. I have already tested it and everything is working perfectly. The unit I have purchased is one of the Horizon Satellite Meters, which boasts an impressive line up of features, including the ability to be updated to recognise most of the satellites in the world. The display is much faster than I had expected, updating about once every 1/3rd second, which means that satellite dish alignment is now a very trivial matter. It also features an audible tone that changes as the signal / quality go up and down.



Yes it is that yellow in real life too!