TIPS ON FTA TRACKING

For anybody looking to track any of these satellites. You may find it easier to track using the following frequencies as pointers. Good luck!!!!

ABS1 FEED 3.821(V)/29.997 L:90%, Q:37%

INTELSAT 7/10c Waqt News 4.004(H)/2.962 L:85%, Q:67%

INTELSAT 7/10k Mana 2 12.575(V)/3.377 L:77%, Q:75%

INTELSAT 906 AFN channels 4.094(V)/3.679 L:89%, Q:70%

INTELSAT 902 CITIZEN 3.837(V)/2.477 L:88%, Q:46%

NSS 12 BFBS channels 3.801(H)/19.998 L:91%, Q:66%

EUTELSAT W7/W4 HiTV channels 12.130(H)/27.497 L:93%, Q:78%

ARABSAT 5A RTM RABAT PN 4.014(H)/6.110 L:88%, Q:75%

ASTRA 2B CRTV 12.599(V)/3.254 L:85%, Q:84%

BADR 5 CANAL+ channels 12.319(V)/27.497 L:87%, Q:62%

EUTELSAT W6 AFLAM tv 11.651(V)/15.713 L:77%, Q:48%

AMOS 5i Reuters WNS 4.172(V)/7.198 L:88%, Q:55%

EUTELSAT W2A STARTIMES 3.927(H)/8300 *L:87%, Q:59%

EUTELSAT W3 TV Madagascar 10.978(H)/3.333 L:86%, Q:65%

ASTRA 4A Top TV 12.525(V)/29.997 L:88%, Q:79%

RASCOM 1 FEED 4.023(H)/9.999 L:85%, Q:45%

INTELSAT 10-01 Nile Life 4.181(V)/21.049 L:92%, Q:48%

ATLANTIC BIRD 3 ortb 4.155(V)/2.288 L:91%, Q:73%

EXPRESS AM44 PLANETA RTR 3.663(H)/10.807 L:88%, Q:65%

INTELSAT 901 ETH.EDU.channels 3.888(V)/26.498 L:89%, Q:54%

NSS 7K CANAL+ channels 11.491(V)/29.997 L:89%, Q:76%

NSS 7C TV Africa 3.725(V)/1.462 L:89%, Q:72%

INTELSAT 907K FEED 11.047(H)/12.713 L:91%, Q:71%

INTELSAT 905 ORTM 4.111(V)/5,750 L:88%, Q:42%

INTELSAT 907 RTP Africa 3.841(H)/10.850 L:87%, Q:50%

INTELSAT 903 RTI premiere 3.743(V)/3.220 L:88%, Q:74%

TELSTAR 11N KidsCo 11.477(H)/19.998 L:85%, Q:57%

NSS 10 Metro TV(GH) 3.806(H)/2.142 L:87%,

KEYS

V-vertical

H-horizontal

L-signal level

Q-signal quality in %age

Simple Do it Yourself Installation

I thought there could be some people like me reading this who like TV so much but can't afford pay TV. Free-to air satellite TV is an option.The TV channels you will have to receive depend on the size of dish you're using and also the satellite it is faced to. 

You have the choice of Ku band which usually needs the 90cm dish but the number of stations you will receive wont be much. If you're using 1.8m or 2.5m dish u will need C-band LNBF and that means more stations. Depending on the satellite, it can be as much as 40 to 80 channels for 1.8 and 2.5 m dish respectively. You have to bear in mind that what you're using is free-to-air and not pay TV, the type of channels you might receive will not be the best but they will be worth it.  I advise you to try FTA. All you need is just the money for the equipments such as Dish, LNBF, Receiver (Decoder), and RF cables. They are not that expensive. A 90cm dish costs only 50USD. A dual KU band LNBF for the 90cm dish is only 10USD and the receiver (decoder) is only 100USD. A roll of RF cable is about 10USD and that is all you need for a Ku band FTA reception. For 1.8cm dish C-band reception, your dish will cost 100USD and the C-band LNB costs 20USD. If u want 2.5m dish (the black net type) the only difference is in the dish and it costs just 200USD. You will use the same LNB with that of 1.8cm. With C-band dish, there are a lot of choices you will have depending on the satellite want. Currently am using a 1.8m dish which has both a C-band LNB and attached a KU-band LNB by the side enabling it to get reception from satellites such as PAS 10 and Intel sat 902 both in the east.. Go to any major electronics market in your city to get them. Installation is easy. Just assemble the dish with the manual provided, mount the LNB on the dish and connect the RF cable to it and then connect the end of the cable to your receiver (decoder). Connect the Video and audio outputs from the receiver to the appropriate ports of your TV.You are ready to start; put on everything (TV and receiver) with the remote control, go to the installation menu of your receiver and put in the TP frequency and Symbol rate of the channel in the satellite you wish to locate. (Some websites where you can get these frequencies for free abound, the most popular is http://www.lyngsat.com/ ) when you're sure you have put in the correct TP and SR, go to your dish which you must have positioned in the mounting pole and start turning. With your primary geography you should know where east and west is. If the satellite is in the east face your dish in the east. Don't adjust the elevation of the dish for now. (Elevation is the up and down movement of the dish). Make the dish stand parallel to your mounting pole. Now start adjusting the azimuth (azimuth is the side by side movement of the dish). Move from one side of the east to the other. if possible start from west . While you're doing this your eyes must be fixed at the installation menu being displayed by now on your TV. If your LNB is good, if you move the dish slowly from east to west, there must be a point at which the signal strength will rise sharply. Try to move back and forth to locate this point. When you have done this, Screw the bolt that controls that azimuth movement and then go to the one that controls the elevation movement. Slowly again move the dish upwards until it gets to a point where the signal strength will rise very well. That is the position of the satellite you're looking for. Remember if you have equipment that locates satellite (spectrum analyzer) you don't need all the stress.When you compare these prices with that of pay TVs you will understand what you have to gain bearing in mind that you do not have to pay anybody for anything ever!  I have nothing to gain in all this. I'm just giving back what I have learnt for free.

For any questions or comments, please use the box below.

FIRMWARE UPDATE

Receivers are like computers in the sense that they need softwares to function well. These softwares are referred to as firmwares. They can be updated as the manufacturers of the receiver regularly release updates for the firmware of different receiver models.

One of the most used receiver in this part of the world is the one made by Strong Technologies.The entrance of My Tv into the pay tv industry has even made this receiver very popular. A lot is now being said of the various video formats in which free to air channels are now being broad-casted. This has made Strong Technologies to come up with different models to meet up with the growing demand for the new video format receivers.

The strong SRT-4669X is a receiver which is now commonly seen all over because of its ability to receive Mpeg 2 and 4 stations in addition to older video formats.

The latest firmware for this model is SRT4669X_7111_ALL_MyTV_130p_20110414.stb

 which was released on April 14th, 2011. This particular firmware boots the receiver with the My tv logo. This update allows you to view two channels at once. The way it works is that while watching a channel, you press advance button and it brings out channels you can choose from. If you press OK on any of the channels, then, it starts showing on the top right corner of your screen. You can then use the red button to switch between the two channels. The audio will work only for the one with the larger picture size.

You can try this update if you have the 4669X receiver.

You can get the update from:  http://www.fileserve.com/file/yn4EFru

Do you have a 4669X? If you are interested in doing the upgrade yourself, the first thing to do is to make sure that your source of power or electricity is stable. This is to avoid power loss in the course of the upgrade, this may result to the irreparable damage of the receiver.

Download the firmware into a USB stick or flash drive. Please ensure your flash drive is virus free. The consequence of not being sure of this is better imagined than experienced. Insert into the USB port of the receiver and make sure you see the message on the screen that the USB is ready for use. Go to the menu and press OK on USB. When you get into that menu, you can press OK on data transfer. Scroll to the file you downloaded as displayed on the screen and press OK.

It may take time for the update to be completed. After this, you are ready to enjoy the new update.

Have you encountered any problem updating your receiver? Let me see how I can help.

Free Stations on DSTV Decoders

When you saw the above heading, you probably thought 'here we go again'. I do not blame you for your skepticism  However, for the purpose of making a point, let me continue.
It is true that DSTV is beamed to the rest of Africa (aside from Southern Africa) on the EutelSat EW4/7 at 36 degrees east. On this same position, which is on Ku by the way, there are other channels that are also being beamed from that same satellite. But, unlike DSTV channels, they are unencrypted and are free to air.
The aim of this article is to illustrate how these free stations can be watched on the DSTV receiver. The DSTV receiver creates three bouquets which is a collection of stations depending on the region one is staying. The one that is of importance to us the PUBLIC bouquet and it is in this bouquet that we get to watch the free stations.
This stations will not just appear there, we will have to do some things to get them there.

1. Press menu and go to advanced options, click on dish installation

2. Enter 9949 when it asks for pin and you are in

3. You will notice that there are many networks there that can be used. This is equivalent to Satellite in
FTA receivers. We have the Home network, dont touch that if you dont want trouble.

4.On Network 2 or the next free Network, click and change the options from disabled to any satellite whose FTA frequency you want to scan. For instance, EW4 or EW7.

5. Click on the one you have chosen and it will bring a window, where you enter the frequency and symbol rate of the FTA channels you want to watch.

6. Go to line 11 and accept all displayed values.  Once that is done, on line 8 of the new window,you will see 'scan all networks', click on that.

7.Once the scanning is complete, press TV on your remote and click on the public bouquet option and  you should see the FTA channels there.

Happy Viewing.

Firmware Downgrade

I dealt with the issue of firmware update or receiver update n another blog. I am interested now in writing about the downgrading of receiver firmwares. I never really thought that I would be interested in the above topic until I got a new receiver recently.
I deal extensively with Strong receivers, because they are the most obvious receivers in this part of the world. In those days, it used to Supermax. I have heard of several other models that are also very popular around here, but Strong is still the most popular. Perhaps, this may stem from the fact that many pay tv organizations are using Strong boxes for their services.
I recently got a SRT-4669XII. The software in it was 102p. So, I felt I should update it to the latest release which is 109p(April 14th). I went to strong website, under downloads, I saw software, looked for the receiver and downloaded and installed it.
I had to reverse this update(downgrade) days later when I discovered that though the new firmware had the Picture-in-Picture option and other cool stuff, it did not enable the HE-ACC sound format in which some channels were broadcasting.
I searched frantically on the net for a downgrade. I saw one on a website I have never seen on any forum or blog. I downloaded the 103p software which is lower than what I had. I installed it and gbam! i had the audio I was looking for.
The procedure for downgrading Strong receivers is the same as updating.

1. Get the firmware from either Crosat.com or Wizkid.persiangig.com
2. Save it after download in your USB device
3. Plug the USB and go to menu, then usb, press enter on data transfer and click on upload file.
4. It is that simple.

The first person that told me about firmware update wanted to do it for me at a fee, but you can do it on your own. In case you do find the firmware you are looking for in the two sites above, you  can tell me by dropping a comment and I will tell you the name of the site where I eventually got mine.

My journey into the Free to Air world started for me with those two dishes and since then I have not looked back. I am pleased to be bringing to you through this blog, my experience and my knowledge as far as FTA is concerned. I am enjoining you to follow me all the way as I bring to you all I can.

This is the after picture.The above is a representation of a lot of hours of work, checking and troubleshooting.