Automatic Scanning

[cyberham]

I'm using an Edision OS Mio+ with TNAP 4.1. Today I used the Automatic Scan feature. It worked well, moving the dish to each satellite and then scanning the tps programmed for the satellite. I was able to leave the system alone and come back in 40 minutes to see if anything new was found.

Is there any way to alter the order of the satellites that are scanned? Since I'm using a motor, I would prefer to have the scan begin either at the most western satellite or the most eastern satellite and progress to the adjacent satellite just to minimize how much the motor has to move. Currently, it seems to randomly select the next satellite to scan.

Is there any way to do an automatic Blind Scan of all satellites? The current Automatic Scan only checks programmed tps. It's what I call a Programmed Scan.

[el bandido]

A lot of information you would like to adjust or change would be in the ScanSeup python file. I have made changes or adjustments in this area before, and had at one point a lamedb scan where it would only scan the transponders in the lamedb file. This was used to delete dead channels, and worked pretty good since it could be set to automatically scan and clean every satellite I used.

You can probably change the order a bit whee you are doing a multisat scan, but getting it perfect will be difficult as there are many variables. I will try to look and see what kind of order is used (if any) when the multisat list to scan is created.

[cyberham]

The order of scan isn't such a high priority. More of a "nice-to-have". This old motor has served me well over the years and a few more turns won't really matter. It does seem to complete its move before it starts scanning so that's good.

But being able to automatically blind scan rather than doing just an automatic programmed scan is more important. For me, not being able to blind scan makes the feature not useful since this is my hobby and I'm mainly looking for new feeds or channels. In Europe, where the box was designed for normal TV watching, doing programmed scans is likely what they need most.

[el bandido]

Okay, Let's think about blindscanning multiple satellites automatically for a moment.

First, when would such a scan be done? If it is done at night then some feed channels may be missed. If it is done in the day, then it may be too slow and miss some active feed channels.

Some sort of delay is needed when the blindscan starts so the motor can move to the proper satellite. A scan delay of 3 to five minutes would probably cover about every dish mover on the worst case of having to travel the entire satellite arc to scan the first satellite. Then you will need to use the same delay or a shorter delay of some sort so the dish mover can travel to the next satellite after the blindscan is finished. 5X10=50, 3 X10 = 30, and 1X10 =10. So you can see a delay of a few minutes adds up if ten satellites are blindscanned and a delay is added between each blindscan is added.

Actually most of the code or work to do this is already done. A multiple satellite blindscan should be added to the blindscan plugin probably and not in the Automatic Scan feature. The only real hurdle for the multiple satellite blindscan is logistics. It would be nice to know where the dish rortor is located and base the satellites to be blindscanned on where the dish rotor is at now. But even this tidbit can be tricky.

There is a feature in the stock blindscan plugin that shows transponder lock. This feature is supposed to show when the rotor has moved to the correct satellite so you will know when to start the scan. But this feature is very unreliable and is deleted in TNAP because it doesn't work properly in systems with multiple rotors, and depends on a decent satellites.xml . I'm not saying determining exact rotor location in systems with multiple rotors can't be done, but it is tedious at best . Some features depend on a good satellites.xml file. The satellites.xml file is updated weekly in Europe.

Some years ago, I started setting up an automatic blindscan, but trashed the idea because of some of the issues mentioned above. Granted it would be a nice thing to have, but getting it to work correctly on systems with multiple rotors is a challenge. Blindscan would not be needed very much, and things would be a helluva lot simpler if fta people in North America would work together on keeping a decent satellites.xml file updated because this is what they do in Europe. In North America, you can't find anyone to properly edit a satellite.xml file one time for an image. So you can forget about getting a group of people to keep a satellites.xml file updated in North America.

[cyberham]

Lots of good thoughts. Everything is more complicated than it may seem. The reason I missed this feature is that multiple satellite (configurable) blind scan was available on my little Geosatpro microHD that I bought over 10 years ago. So I got used to using that feature.

As for the satellites.xml file, I can provide a copy of mine if it's ever needed. I recently edited it using TS-Satellites Editor based on current lyngsat listings for both C- and Ku-bands. This won't be perfect, but it removed a lot of the tps listed that are no longer valid due to the 5G updates. When exploring C-band on a 1m dish, I can now fairly quickly use Satellite Finder to manually scan across the arc checking tps for any signal. Since I can now physically see my dish as it moves in my temporary installation, I can see when it's ready to check for tps.