February 13, 2013
C-Band Antennas Almost
Here!
Are you ready for Spring
yet? This winter started late, but it's been a wild ride in many
places already.
We're getting our share of snow, and more than our normal quota for
ice. A little known weather pattern called a Flash Freeze has
repeated itself twice already, where the temperature goes to balmy winter
temperatures in the 40s or more, with rain. Then it turns cold very
fast, with ice coating everything, and sometimes dusted with some snow
before the thermometer drops below Zero F. Not good for anyone
working or traveling outdoors. I just hand-spread eight 70-pound
bags of sand, in order to be able to use my driveway and get the car
indoors before it snows again. When it snows tonight, at least there
will be a rough base to work with, instead of wet glare ice. My new
antenna creation from last month, with 13 Ku-band LNBFs covered by a
sub-reflector put into service as a snow shield, is working out
well. At least I avoided having to remove ice from the LNBFs!
Once winter has set in, I have found time to do some badly needed updates
to our website. Go to the Off-Air antenna section and look at the
new state-by-state TV station listings. We have done the entire
country, now adding low power TV and translator stations to the existing
full power TV channel listings, and shown what channels can be received in
each community. Months of work went into this project, and there is
still a bit of reformatting left on a few states, but you should now have
a much better idea about what local signals are available in your
location.
Our ace software programmer has delivered a new firmware update (version
4.4) for the Manhattan RS1933 receiver. It can be downloaded at www.manhattan-digital.net
in basic form (satellites and transponders with embedded version 4.4
firmware). The major update is that C and Ku-band switching is
finally possible during motorized operation. Many lines of computer
code needed to be searched to find a solution, and we sincerely thank our
software guru. The receiver is also now capable of tuning symbol
rates as low as 500 (previous lower limit was 1000), allowing a few exotic
radio feeds to now be available. Please be warned that these
channels must be entered with a channel editor and then the entire file
(Preload) put into the receiver with a USB memory stick. The
receiver itself will not complete a scan on something this narrow, but if
the information is already in memory, it will play those channels.
Another caution is that one needs to get a Phase Locked Loop (PLL) C-band
LNB for such channels to stay locked, and it should have a local
oscillator stability of 25 KHz or better. Global Communications has
a new Preload that includes all of this, and can customize with some
sample audio channels upon request. Price is 25.00 by itself, or
20.00 when purchasing a receiver (or to my existing receiver customers),
and free with the purchase of a preloaded receiver and Ku-band antenna
system (still 199.00 plus shipping, but hurry while these antennas are
still available).
Shaw Direct
enthusiasts: if you are getting ready for an MPEG-4 receiver such as
the DSR-600, you will need to think about the Anik G1 satellite (assuming
that you are within its coverage area). We now have a separate
special Ku-band LNBF that will work on an existing single satellite
Ku-band antenna now parked on 107.3 West. Uses the same conventional
40 mm neck as previous LNBFs from Pansat and DMS, but has an unusual
Ku-band conversion that gets both Anik G1 and Anik F1R from the 107.3
satellite position, when the receiver is mapped with the configuration for
the new Xtended Quad Ku-band LNBF. Add a second dish for 111.1,
connect a 22 KHz switch and you are ready for HD from all of their
satellites. Please contact us if you are in the market for an
upgrade, or considering getting into the Shaw Direct community.
Have a Happy Valentine's Day, and stay warm!
Until next time,
MIKE
|