Freesat frequency

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phil-binner
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Freesat frequency

Post by phil-binner »

I am setting up a new system with a freesat tuner card. While setting up the input connection for this card I need to scan for channels. When I try to do this I am asked to set up the scan configuration, and one field in this is frequency. How do I use this field. It seems to me that it is asking for the frequency of an existing channel, rather than scanning for all channels from the source.

I am attached to 2 spare LNBs on a sky dish. I believe this is Astra E, but whatever, it is the same a Sky.
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stuartm
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by stuartm »

It's asking for a frequency to start scanning from. Satellites can use a very wide range of frequencies and a completely blind scan would take a very long time, so we ask users to give the frequency of a single channel, from which it can learn the frequencies of all the other channels. There has been talk of building up a list of starting frequencies for all the different satellite networks around the world and instead asking users to select their network (e.g. "Freesat/Sky") but this hasn't happened yet.

The frequency you want is 10773250 - the polarity is Horizontal and the symbol rate is 22000000 . Everything else can be left at the defaults, or set to 'Auto'.

You can find frequencies, polarities and symbol rates of other channels here - http://en.kingofsat.net/pack-freesat.php - Note that they are listed in mHz, MythTV expects kHz so multiply by 1000 first.
phil-binner
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by phil-binner »

Thanks.

One other thing, what is the significance of Horizontal and Vertical. If I have a twin receiver do I need one of each.
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stuartm
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by stuartm »

Satellites can broadcast the radio waves of a single frequency in two planes - with horizontal polarity they oscillate side to side, with vertical polarity they oscillate up and down.

The number of LNBs (receivers) you have is unrelated to the polarity. All you need to know is that some multiplexes (groups of channels) are transmitted with vertical polarity and others with horizontal polarity, you just need to verify the correct polarity is configured when defining that starting channel. Once MythTV has a starting channel to scan it should find all the others without issues as Digital broadcasts include information about the other available channels, their frequencies and tuning information.
phil-binner
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by phil-binner »

Thanks. When I set this up now it waits about 20 seconds and a message "Failed to find any new channels" comes up. When I enter OK to that it shows an almost empty screen with the word "Scanning" at the top. I have left this for almost an hour without anything happening - i.e. no frequency bar with progress showing, as with the terrestrial scan.

I have tried this with both DVB-S and DVB-S" being selected. The first time I tried I had the box to check encryption checked, but I am now trying it without in case this was just a very long scan.

It doesn't look as if it is going to do anything, however.
phil-binner
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by phil-binner »

I might have got it. The first time round I had selected "RadioTimes" as my channel source, rather than "Bleb.org", which is what I used for the terrestrial scan. It then asked me for a completely different set of information and commenced a scan. I got both "Radio Times" and "bleb.org" from the list of sources for the UK. Can anyone fill me in with details about these please.
olcdodger
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by olcdodger »

Before I start, giving something back :)

If it's any help to others reading this thread , if you go through the xmltv script in 'Video Sources Setup' from the main menu, enter 'Radio Times' and answer the questions, it DOES populate the program guide.

However...
stuartm wrote:Once MythTV has a starting channel to scan it should find all the others without issues as Digital broadcasts include information about the other available channels, their frequencies and tuning information.
I used the info you've provided to the OP and managed to get a lot of channels added to my mythtv setup so, thanks... :)

However, oddly, I'm still missing a few :(

These include Sky News and Pick which are both available when I use scans from other dvb software such as 'me-tv' and 'kaffeine' so the hardware, (which is the same), is DEFINITELY working fine.

If, as you say, the channels contain info about the other, available, ones, (which must be the case as the vast majority have loaded properly),is there something obvious I'm missing.

I've even re-scanned using the info for the specific channels at...

http://en.kingofsat.net/tv.php?&pos=28. ... ltre=Clear

i.e. for 'Pick' TV I've entered

11914000 - H(orizontal) - 27500 - DVB-S* - 5/6 - QPSK - Auto** - 0.35***

* although I have a dvb-s2, it scans the dvb-s channels fine on other channels.
** and *** both the default as they're not indicated to be changed AFAIK.

The information is shown as at today's date so I assume is OK.

I've also tried the values at...

http://www.lyngsat.com/Astra-2E-2F-2G.html

11207000 - V - 27500 - DVB-S - 5/6 - QPSK - Auto - 0.35

Every time, it comes back with 'Failed to find any new channels'

It's probably something obvious I'm missing but I can't see it for the life of me :(

Any help greatly appreciated guys.

TIA :)
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stuartm
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by stuartm »

These channels are FTA (Free to Air) but they aren't carried by Freesat, as a result Freesat frequencies don't provide the information on where to find those channels which is why they are missing from the scan results. Since other applications actually predefine the list of frequencies to scan they are able to find them even though they aren't signposted in the signal.
Mossy
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Re: Freesat frequency

Post by Mossy »

I don't know if this will help but I have never had problems scanning all available Freesat and non-Freesat FTA channels in MythTV. Pick and Sky News are Freesat channels.

I followed the instructions on Garry Parker's site which includes the following -
First we will scan for the DVB-S (SD) channels. To do this, enter the details for one transport and it will find the rest. Hit "Scan for channels" and enter the following details:

Freq: 10714000
Polarity: Horizontal
Symbol rate: 22000000
Mod Sys: DVB-S
FEC: 5/6
Modulation: QPSK
Inversion: leave at auto
Rolloff: leave at 0.35
In case it makes a difference my tuner is a TBSDTV 6981 (DVB-S2) and I'm running mythbuntu.
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