[mythtvnz] Hello! And DVB-S woes...

[Steven Ellis]

Hi Neil,

On Thu, December 21, 2006 11:29 pm, Neil Bertram wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I've just moved into a new place that happened to have a sky dish left
> over from the previous owners. For some time I've been wanting to set u=
p
> Myth, so it seemed like a good idea to go get a DVB-S card and start
> playing. So I did!
>
> I bought a Skystar2 ("ST STV0299 DVB-S") and it comes up fine with the
> b2c2 module (btw tried all this with the windows software too, no luck
> there either, but I'm primarily a linux person anyway).
>
> When we moved in, for some reason I took the sky dish off the house, so
> I had to put it back once I got the card. The neighbour has a dish on
> their roof too, about 2 metres away from where ours mounts, so I used
> that as a rough alignment guide.
>
> I soon set to trying to get a signal with dvbtune, on the Optus B1 at
> 12483MHz. I had one of the old Sky LNB's with fixed 11.3GHz LOF, so
> translated that down to 1183000Hz for dvbtune. I used vertical polarity
> and 22500 symbol rate. And I got nothing (the FE reported FE_HAS_SIGNAL
> and FE_HAS_CARRIER only, which seem to always be present when the LNB i=
s
> connected, no matter which direction the dish is pointing).
>
> I tried wiggling the dish around, but still found absolutely nothing.
> This went on for a few days of me trying absolutely everything I could
> think of, including a blind scan between 10000 and 15000MHz (vertical
> and horizontal pol) with the windows software, which turned up nothing.
>
> So I presumed the LNB was dead, and bought a new universal dual LNB fro=
m
> freeviewshop. It's a Zinwell ZKF-DJ21, which I think at least one other
> person on this list has one of? It uses the 22KHz tone to switch into
> high mode, and diesecq commands to switch which LNB to use, and has a
> 10.6GHz LOF in high mode.

Ok I have the same sort of LNB so here is my scan results

 dvbtune -tone 1 -f 1820000 -p v -s 22500 -m
Using DVB card "ST STV0299 DVB-S"
tuning DVB-S to L-Band:8, Pol:V Srate=3D22500000, 22kHz=3Don
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_LOCK FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI
FE_HAS_SYNC
Bit error rate: 3777
Signal strength: 53431
SNR: 51399
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_LOCK FE_HAS_CARRIER FE_HAS_VITERBI
FE_HAS_SYNC
Signal=3D53173, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51399dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)
Signal=3D53045, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51552dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)
Signal=3D53002, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51525dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)
Signal=3D53218, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51441dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)
Signal=3D53207, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51585dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)
Signal=3D52865, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51552dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)
Signal=3D53171, Verror=3D0, SNR=3D51564dB, BlockErrors=3D0, (S|L|C|V|SY|)


> Naturally this didn't help things at all, I had the same result. Next I
> replaced the cable with a brand new pre-crimped one, still nothing. Lot=
s
> of dish wiggling and frequency scans later, I decided I should probably
> buy a satfinder to get better aim, so I did.
>
> With the satfinder I can sweep across the sky and it goes crazy across =
a
> rather large horizontal patch at 45' elevation (which the dish has been
> set to all along). The card still sees nothing (including after a
> 10000-15000MHz scan in the area where the satfinder made the most
> noise). When I put my hand over the LNB, the signal goes way down, so I
> know it's picking *something* up... And it looks to be pointing in the
> same direction as the neighbour's one still.
>
> So I guess at this point I ask is this a common thing? I haven't found
> anyone by googling that's had this much trouble getting a lock on D1 or
> B1 (I've been scanning for 12420V on D1 lately, as something that shoul=
d
> exist).
>
> I guess the card could be suspect, although it was brand new a month
> ago, and it does lose carrier and signal when I unplug the LNB, so the
> air interface appears to be healthy...
>
> My dvbtune line currently is "dvbtune -tone 1 -f 1820000 -p v -s 22500
> -m", which is 12420V on D1 ((12420-10600)*1000). It tunes it fine, says
> it has signal and carrier, then sits there polling and never seeing
> anything.
>
> So that's where I am right now. I live in Wellington, so if anyone
> either has a sky dish that I could hook the card up to to test it, or
> could lend me a card/STB that I could use for testing on my dish, I
> would be very appreciative! Advice is welcome too, but I'm pretty sure
> I've tried everything by now...
>

Ok there is a chance that you accidentally picked up B3 or C1 instead of =
D1.

The following file for dvbscan to look for B3 frequencies. Save this as B=
3
and then try "dvbscan B3"

-------
# Optus B3 satellite
# freq pol sr fec
S 12398000 H 6670000 AUTO
S 12407000 V 30000000 AUTO
S 12425000 H 22500000 AUTO
S 12452000 H 22500000 AUTO
S 12525000 V 30000000 AUTO
S 12552000 V 6670000 AUTO
S 12564000 H 30000000 AUTO
S 12613000 H 22500000 AUTO
S 12640000 H 22500000 AUTO
S 12658000 V 30000000 AUTO
S 12674000 H 22500000 AUTO
S 12701000 H 22500000 AUTO
-----

Also here is a scan file you might want to try for D1
----
# Optus D1 satellite 160E
# freq pol sr fec
S 12420000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12483000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12519000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12519000 H 22500000 3/4
S 12546000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12546000 H 22500000 3/4
S 12581000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12608000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12644000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12671000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12707000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12734000 V 22500000 3/4
S 12734000 V 22500000 3/4
----

dvbscan comes with a scan file for C1 anyway, just do 'locate OptusC1' on
your box to find it.

Steve


--------------------------------------------
Steven Ellis - Technical Director
OpenMedia Limited - The Home of myPVR
email   - steven@openmedia.co.nz
sales   - sales@openmedia.co.nz
support - support@openmedia.co.nz
website - http://www.openmedia.co.nz