Signal Finder Transponder Services List?

[ArloG]

Just some idle chatter.
Yeah. I'm as eager as a 3rd grader trying to learn calculus. EB, you posted links to the code. All of the keywords are there. So, you're right. Absolutely. One wrong nix application installed can and has crashed the whole system. Windows is a disaster on phones. No matter how they try. Unix, Linux prevails.
I use programs to recover and re program USB flash drives. Windows only. 32 bit Windows. 32 bit Windows XP. I keep an XP box handy for that. Trying the programs on anything higher, that is still 32 bit, just doesn't work. But trying the programs out doesn't kill the system
And where the hell are those Linux apps you install? At least in Windows you know where the executable is. Even if you have to poke around a bit.
"So you wanna' be a Linux programmer?". Well so far I haven't even gotten past Hello World. I did do a bit of BASIC way back. I know the importance of loops and jumping to subroutines and returning to the loop....and stuff. I'll leave the programming to you fellows.
Although Arduino and pi programming is very cool. You can make things do "stuff".

I know everyone here would love me to use TNAP. 4.2 is in a slot on my mio. I've been using ViX a little more and more and leaving ATV aside since my OP here.
I think the TP service list is extremely handy. Like in the case of a TP blindscan on 55W.
I also like how it learns that it's going to take 1.7 seconds per degree to go from one sat to another in a high arc and 2.4 or so seconds per degree in another part of the arc.
I took the blindscan results and plugged them into my Satellites.xml. Which was way outdated from what was included in the flash installer.
And while at it. I don't need every single satellite that reaches into the depths of BFE. So I trimmed the file down to the ones I can receive in the 43W-131W arc.
Makes clicking through tuner setup and scanning so much easier. And the glitch that sometimes you can go forward but not back in a satellite list is less of a pain. Seriously!

Craploads of plugins. What sucks is some don't have a GUI and usage is another dive into terminal nightmare. Documentation assumes you're a seasoned Linux/DVBTV user.
My delve into the NOAAPORT tp on 89W had to take a vacation.
I got credentials from NOAA to access the library. I actually downloaded and have installed and working the CAVE package.
I was able to DVBSnoop the different data channels and see it in Wireshark, DVBSnoop.
Multicasting and the understanding of it put the brakes on, but big time.
A cool programmer on satuniverse took interest and gave so many tips and procedures to try. He's usually kind of arrogant to others. For some reason he really was cool to me.
I had to pm him and let him know I needed a break. Hey. When you're ready to start again, I'll be here. That was his reply.
I downloaded the various plugins hinting that making multicasting was possible. AND easy setup on my mio would be a breeze. Yeah, right!

I came to the resolution that using a cheap Twinhan DVB card or TBS card would enable me to grab and manipulate sat data much more easily.
I saw the different dedicated Novra receivers on eBay for a "decent" price. The ones I see are ones replaced because the specifications for NOAAPORT have changed. SO it makes no sense to get one of those. And the ones that are up to par are astronomically expensive.
I contacted a guy who took interest at IDC in Canada. He knows I'm an experimenter. He put out some tips of their receivers (They make the Novra receivers) used in the cable industry out there that would do the same thing and more. Lots more. In a world that now is getting rid of cable boxes and using Android and Roku boxes to receive cable TV content. Sat data receivers are the hot ticket.
Wait. I see them on eBay. The ones he suggested that are affordable pulls from headends.
I ask the seller if he can power one up and get into the config menu. Reply? "It asks for a password".
A bit of conversation with my IDC guy and I get that the password can't be reset. And resetting the receiver requires getting into the menu. I'm SOL.
I asked nicely if there was another way. I got (eventually after being very nice) that his boss told him that he could help me. That it would require me to allow remote access into the receiver.
So. Sometimes things that can't be done. Can. If you go about it the right way.

Oh which reminds me too of a mandatory software upgrade on the machinery I used to maintain.
I had glitching on one machine. Just one. I collected data logs. FTP through a VPN the info to the headquarters in Texas. Multiple times in different scenarios of operation.
I waited. Got replies from the tech's. Installed patches. More patches. Ruled out every possibility of what could cause the glitch. Reverted to the previous version. It worked perfect.
Updated to the new version. No joy.
So. During the confusion I was contacted by a soft spoken guy with a heavy Texan accent. I heard of his name before. He was the guy in R&D and software dev. that worked behind the concrete door with a steel door in front of it, inside of a concrete bunker. So to speak. Nobody got to speak to him directly except for the technicians. And that was usually by email.
He asked a pile of questions and asked me if later on when production went home if we could troubleshoot together.
So. Later on we did. He called me on my cell. When everyone was home having a hot dinner and watching Married with Children reruns....
He was a bit confused trying to decipher the data logs and relate them to the glitches. He was at home in his recliner with his laptop. Waiting for my logs.
I asked him if he wanted to just log into the machine and run it himself. He sounded a bit confused, confounded.
He had never used VNC or a remote access application ever. I was connected VPN to his place.
He sounded amazed. He must have been 60-something. When he saw my machine console he was in awe. I was like, really?
I remember this vividly. He found fast that a module in the software was interacting with the main program. And the module had nothing to do with my particular model of machine.
He did a bit of coding. I went to eat. I came back and he had already planted the software mod in the machine and was operating it from La-Z-Boy, Texas!
I ran it live and it ran perfectly.
And that led to future software distribs. being model specific. Not one DVD fits all like previously.

Moral to the story? You catch more flies with sugar than....battery acid. But battery acid sure is more funner.

[el bandido]

Find an enigma2 image that has the features that you want and be happy with it! I don't think anyone cares whether you use ATV, VIX, or TNAP. Just be happy with what you do use. Forget about trying to modify or change any code, and please forget about even trying to run Linux! Keep life simple for yourself and enjoy it.

It does help top understand what a receiver does and doesn't do though.
Enigma2 receivers do not calculate rotor speed. The rotor speed is set by the user as shown below. There are speed settings for both vertical and horizontal transponders because this feature was designed for ku motors. Most users will have a hard time getting complete accuracy with this feature because the motor will run slower when the dish or antenna load is high. Having a decent power supply for the actuator helps, but the only way to get 36 volts at 5 amps (180 watts) is to modify your dish mover. All of the consumer dish movers I tested drop way down int the 20 volt range when a decent load is applied to them which makes the dish run slow.

Also, I don't think you will find any consumer fta receiver that can receive the satellite beacons, and correctly identify which satellite you are aimed at. The reason for this is simple: Satellite beacons cannot be received using the DVB-S/S2 tuner. Would be nice if such a receiver existed. Satellite identifying in consumer fta receivers has always been done by checking for signal on a list of DVB-S/S2 transponders. Receiving the satellite beacon with a DVB-S/S2 tuner could probably be compared to receiving AM radio stations using a FM receiver. A basic understanding of how these things work makes life simpler and cuts down on confusion. Watch tv and enjoy!

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[ArloG]

Find an enigma2 image that has the features that you want and be happy with it! I don't think anyone cares whether you use ATV, VIX, or TNAP. Just be happy with what you do use. Forget about trying to modify or change any code, and please forget about even trying to run Linux! Keep life simple for yourself and enjoy it.

I remember killing the...KDE, or was it Gnome... GUI once. Surprised the running program was actually text based and just decorated with the GUI. Nah I have a nix and hackintosh box for bench diagnostics. Basically a stack of selectable boot drives. Things like ALSA. After all these years it's still text based.

It does help to understand what a receiver does and doesn't do though.
Enigma2 receivers do not calculate rotor speed. The rotor speed is set by the user as shown below. There are speed settings for both vertical and horizontal transponders because this feature was designed for ku motors. Most users will have a hard time getting complete accuracy with this feature because the motor will run slower when the dish or antenna load is high. Having a decent power supply for the actuator helps, but the only way to get 36 volts at 5 amps (180 watts) is to modify your dish mover. All of the consumer dish movers I tested drop way down int the 20 volt range when a decent load is applied to them which makes the dish run slow.

No actual mods needed really. Just a little crafty install of an external power supply with the oomph. I got a decent voltage drop with an ASC1. A 10A Meanwell ps with adjustable output let me compensate for voltage and current drop. And a few SSR's. My reed switch has been gone for a long time with a fabricated hall sensor with 12 (I think) neodymium magnets glued and embedded in epoxy to an old VCR gear. The problem is. Once you get that motor really wheeling there is a chance that it will coast down and overshoot your target. So in comes another relay with a braking resistor that shorts the motor terminals when the actuator kills the motor. Sounds complicated but not so much with an industrial automation background. Really.

Also, I don't think you will find any consumer fta receiver that can receive the satellite beacons, and correctly identify which satellite you are aimed at. The reason for this is simple: Satellite beacons cannot be received using the DVB-S/S2 tuner. Would be nice if such a receiver existed. Satellite identifying in consumer fta receivers has always been done by checking for signal on a list of DVB-S/S2 transponders. Receiving the satellite beacon with a DVB-S/S2 tuner could probably be compared to receiving AM radio stations using a FM receiver. A basic understanding of how these things work makes life simpler and cuts down on confusion. Watch tv and enjoy!

Wow. How many times I hear this. Tell me something? Not being an ass at all. I have a Dreamlink T5. If a pair of satellites share the same transponder and you have the receiver tuned to let's say 125W. It displays clearly on the TV 125W and the sat name. Do nothing. Nothing at all. Twist the dish over to....let's say 105W. Don't do anything at all to the receiver. It will display 105W and the sat name. Absolutely, positively. So some magic mahamba jamba is happening that apparently nobody in the E2 world has figured out. Darned cheap chinaboxes anyhow. I do watch TV. Feed hunting is a bit fun.
But man. I love making things better. The worn out bronze sleeve bearings in the dish pivots have been swapped out with pillow blocks and stainless hardware. I modded the dish actuator geometry to kill the sudden over the center dish flop. And put a spring to counteract the tendency to flop when it does go over center. Inserted a zerk fitting in the actuator tube and pumped in super low temp snotty grease. 10-20 below? Pfft. No mas sensor error like before. I got some stuff over on sat guys.

[el bandido]

For my dish system, I chose to change the power supply instead of externally connecting the thing to the power leads of the positioner. Figured this was both simpler and neater, especially since the + & - reverses for direction changes. I also thought about using a 10 amp supply, but the actuator only needs 5 amps at 36 volts (180 watts), so using a good 5 amp supply rated at 240 watts peak is more than enough.

That is a very interesting amount of work that you have done on your actuator, but if the dish moving system has a coasting problem, then the actuator probably needs to be replaced. The dish should come to a sudden complete stop at full speed without losing counts and should not overshoot or undershoot a particular satellite. This is a hobby and most of the homeowner dish systems were wore out years ago. If the polar mount is not loose and does not have great amounts of play, then the last thing on the hardware list would be the actuator. A good, heavy duty 36" ball screw actuator rated at 1500 pounds will cost around five hundred dollars. Most satellite hobbyists do not want to pay that much money, but you do get what you pay for when trying to move a heavy commercial dish.

The Dreamlink T5 HD FTA Satellite Receiver by Link Dream was not much of a fta receiver because DVB-S/S2 blindscan was not included. This receiver used a nit scan as was common on many fta receiver that were made around 2013. This receiver has no capability of receiving the satellite beacons because the DVB-S/S2 tuner was not designed for such a task. So this receiver most likely identified the satellites using polling of the transponder frequency signal.

Using transponder polling for satellite identification can be accurate if the satellite polling list is regularly updated. Polling multiple transponders or selecting unique transponders can increase satellite identification accuracy. The satellite identification feature works exceptionally well in Europe because there is a group of people that keep the European satellite information updated on sites such as Lyngsat. These updates are regularly available for download into the enigma2 receiver, thus eliminating most of the need for blindscan and creating an accurate satellite identification tool.

For North America, you have few if any dedicated groups of users updating a satellite list. This is one reason why North America needs blindscan and also the main reason satellite identification by transponder polling is not very accurate. On this side of the pond, people want stuff, but they want others to do the work for them that is needed to get it.

Shown below is a partial lists of DVB satellite beacons that was updated about a month ago. It would be super cool to have a consumer DVB-S/S2 receiver that could receive these frequencies, but as you can see, these beacon frequencies are much narrower than satellite tv and contain no symbol rate. There are commercial receivers that you can buy that uses these frequencies to lock on a satellite. If one of these receivers was installed into a consumer type dish system correctly, then you would not have to worry too much about counts or coasting.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

[ArloG]

I kind of have fuzzy logic of the ASC1. Almost everything I've ever had with hardware holding the covers have come off for a peek inside.
To be honest I had the screws out of mine. It's so nice I didn't want to pry and spudge it open. So except for a few internal photos on sat guys that's about it.

Referring to your mention of the motor not coasting. Like one of those race cars you scrubbed in the floor when a kid that spun up a flywheel through a geartrain.
Yeah. You get a nicely operating actuator and motor and get that armature spinning fast enough. You're going to get coast. And I do. Or did. Before adding braking.

One. I don't know the real algorithm of the controller. But I do know that once the relays close. Full pixies to the motor.
Just like throwing the keys to your 'bird to your chickie. Gas blows through and brakes wear out. Lol.
At least with a stick you get engine braking unlike a "slushbox".

Two. I don't know if the pulse sensor becomes active exactly when the relays are energized and is shut off when the contacts open.
I know right now If I were to go outside and turn the encoder wheel. I get no counter increments inside.
I mean let's face it. If the encoder had only 2 pulses 180 degrees apart of the output shaft that couples to the actuator arm. Your resolution would suck.
Not so bad back in the analog days. Right?
As for me with many more divisions on the encoder wheel. If the counter shut off and the gears didn't immediately cease motion. Errors would and did accumulate. Make sense?
There is no "slop" in my actuator. Even if it is a supercrap 36" with it's second motor carefully botched by Tek. which required a trip to my friends mill to bore out the coupler housing.
Tums. Back in a sec. Thx Tek!
Yeah. The actuator always has pressure on it. If I spin the input shaft a touch either direction. The dish moves. With the spring pulling on it when it goes over center. The dish doesn't suddenly pull the shaft. When it did. Sure. reversing the motor to pull it back introduced a touch of lag due to a bit of slack. But. None at all since the "Ai Springala" trik.

Three. Dammit I wish the ASC1 were in kit form. There aren't many options these days for a dish mover. I have a few Heathkit and Eico pieces here. I'm pretty equipped for SMD repairs. My description of the external power supply and relay setup may sound too complicted. Not so much really. It's pretty much buried behind the entertainment center all nice and neat. And I mean the motor outside gets 36 VDC. With current compensation. When it gets cold and the old Ford grunts when you turn the key. I can move my dish.
I don't have a Ford. But you get it.
I'd die to get my hands on a worn out Stab. I don't really get how USALS can actually put a dish exactly where it needs to be. I suspect not actually.

Four. This Signal Finder Services option is turning out to be pretty cool. I scanned a bunch of sats to find new transponders and updated my XML.
Usually if i see a sat with TP, polarity, and SID. It was a crap shoot. Kind of like the NASA channels. Sat charts suck. New TP's were a try it and see thing.
But at least usually now ones that are DC2+ and such show up as no channels on them. But ones mixed with FTA channels are candidates. Much better than it was before.
Don't forget to turn background scanning off. It's time once again to tweak in the declination as it gets colder and colder at night. I hate winter.

[el bandido]

The ASC1 operates basically the same as other positioners such as Vbox, Gbox, SuperJack...etc.

Actuator movement is tracked by counting small pulses. The way the pulses are counted can vary with different makes/models of actuators.
Satellite positions are stored in the positioner by the user. When a position is called that is different from the current position, power is applied to the motor relays which starts the dish moving. Once the desired position is reached, power to the motor relays is removed and the dish stops. Regardless of the situation, there should be no coasting, stopping short or stopping over the targeted satellite. A problem exists when there is coasting, stopping short, or stopping over the targeted satellite.

Actuator movement or pulses can be counted anytime the postioner has power and is in a normal operating mode. One way to prove this is to remove the actuator motor, power up the postioner and note its pulse counts. Then turn the motor shaft by hand a revolution or two and see if the pulse counts change. While I am certain, this is the way all positioners operate, I have no way to verify the ASC1 because mine is currently at another location.

The actuators used in consumer satellite dish systems do not have brakes or a braking system of the type that you would see on an electrical hoist. Actuators are screw type devices. The actuator extends when the screw is turned in one direction and retracts when the screw is turned in the opposite direction. An actuator screw would be similar in design as a wood screw or a sheet metal screw.

When a sheet metal or wood screw is first installed, they usually fit tight or snug into the surface they are installed. Over a period of time, or when the sheet metal or word screw is repeatedly loosened or tightened, they no longer hold snugly, and may also slip or fail to tighten. In some instances, the hole these screws were originally installed in may become enlarged, allowing the screw to fall out.

Actuators wear in a similar way over time as sheet metal or wood screws. Actuators may become marked or frozen in a certain place if they are not moved for an extended period of time. Actuators contain wear parts that are not designed for hundreds of years of operations.

A good quality actuator designed for consumer satellite use will have everything that is needed for proper operation. Simply buy it, connect it to the dish system in a proper manner and you are done! Applying a band aid to a bullet wound is probably better than nothing. Lubricating, adding extra lubrication or trying to improve a defective pulse count in a wore out actuator probably won't do much better than the band aid on the bullet wound.

Good quality actuators are not cheap devices. Most consumer satellite dish systems in operation today have dirt cheap actuators installed on them, or they have actuators that are many years old. An old actuator can have as many issues as a cheap actuator, especially if it sat unused for a long period of time. Probably some of the best preventive maintenance you can do on a satellite dish actuator is run it from one end of its limit to the other end of its limit at least once a month. Doing this will help keep the screw cleaned and in good working order.