BVN TV signal in canada

[sparkycivic]

Ever since we had to switch to SatMex 6 , now known as Eutelsat 113 West A, reception has been awful or non-existent for all of the prairie-dwellers I know.
The strength is directly related to lattitude, so north of 49 means a 36 inch dish only gives good picture in clear skies.

Lately, the signal strength as measured on my spectrum analyzer has taken a 1.5dB dip, and I'm getting calls about broken picture.
Have any readers on this website noticed a change in the strength of the transponder carrying BVN? I've reached-out to both BVN and Home2US directly regarding the strength issue, but after more than 2 weeks, no response whatsoever from either company!

I'm afraid that the service may be in trouble based in the lack of response. Obviously the relationship between BVN and Home2US can't be very good since the settings changed overnight last January without notice, And BVN had to apologize.

We can t even switch most of my viewers to internet streaming because of the non-existent of unlimited usage internet service outside city limits.

Hope is rapidly fading for BVN TV in the prairies...

Sparkycivic

[DrSat]

According to the footprint map for SatMex 6 below, only southern Ontario can get reliable service using a 33 or 36 inch dish.  I know over here in the Toronto area, we typically get 50% to 60% quality on that transponder when using a 33 inch dish and 65% to 75% using a 36 inch dish on a clear sunny day.

For your location, I would first suggest upgrading customers to a universal PLL LNBF such as the Avenger PLL321S-2 or PLL322S-2  if you haven't done so already.   If this still does not improve the signal enough, you would most likely need to upgrade their dish to at least a 1 meter or preferably a 1.2 meter dish if possible.  For any new installs, I would strongly recommend installing a 1 meter (39 inch) or 1.2 meter dish right from the start.

[sparkycivic]

The labels are gone on my lnbf's so I'm not sure if they're aready PLL type or not, but none of them are the same.
I might just have to investigate the LNBF's, because using even larger dishes is going to cause trouble for asthetic reasons...

As a side note, my reception came back at home, the signal strength rising about 1dB on the screen of my spectrum analyzer, from where it had been. I don't think my antenna is shifting, because it's on a motor, and testing out the rest of the arc, I was still getting all other satellites with the usual quality from 72'W to 129'W.

[pctest]

I have had problems as well in London, my signal goes from 72% to zero at times. My thought is they are using a weak signal strength because they would like us to use the internet, over time this satellite signal will be gone, saving them money.

[DrSat]

The issue is that SatMex 6 is not really a satellite that provides good Canadian coverage as it only provides strong signal in US, Central and South America.  Originally BVN was using both 113W and 101W but decided to stop using 101W in order to cut down on costs.  However, this resulted in the total loss of coverage for all of northern Canada, Alaska, Hawaii and a weak signal in southern Canada.

Signal would be slightly better here in Canada while maintaining most of their coverage in South America if BVN used 117W instead of 113W but not by much as per the below coverage map:

Main issue is that there are very few Ku-band satellites which have good coverage for all of North, Central and South America.  The only thing that could possibly be done at this point is convince Atlanta DTH Inc. who is uplinking BVN on 113W to increase the transmission power on their 11719 transponder if possible.

[sparkycivic]

I've been getting reports from my users around Manitoba here, that the periods of bad reception seem to come and go on half-hour slots. one show will be 100% good, then next show unwatchable, or maybe a few shows in a row good or bad, but usually changes between shows.  Perhaps the satellite is firing thrusters on a schedule for orbit maintenance, that ever so slightly disturbs it's orientation and causes those of us at the edge of the beam to gain or lose strengh?
I have recently aquired some even larger dishes.  I'll experiment with them once I fabricate mounting hardware which is missing, and when the weather isn't deadly cold...

[DrSat]

After further examination, the issue could be with the Eutelsat 113 W A satellite itself on horizontal transponders rather than the uplinker.  As i'm sure you have all noticed already, the signal on the 11989 (MTA) and 11994 (Hope Channel) vertical transponders is much stronger than the 12089 (BVN) Horizontal transponder.  For those of you with a DVB-S2 receiver, you should have noticed that the Reuters Live transponder on 12046 H 14300 DVB-S2 transponder has also been impacted.

As I keep getting complaints from our Dutch customers and considering the fact that this is an official FTA service for home users published on their website, I have contacted ADTH, the uplinker for this transponder located in Atlanta, GA.  They told me that they recently received reports from BVN directly that some viewers are having issues.  In response, they have setup a 90cm dish at their uplink station connected to a spectrum analyzer in order to monitor their transponder and advised me that it appears that their signal levels are normal with this system.

I have advised them that since late October / early November, many people here in Canada have experienced their signal level drop.  Before they switched from their full power 12080 transponder at the begining of 2015, a 33 inch dish and low noise LNBF were sufficient for reliable service here in the Toronto area.  After they switched to a half power transponder on 12089, quality went down about 10% which raised the minimum dish size requirement for reliable service to 36 inch but with this most recent issue, a dish of this size now has occasional issues during inclement weather.

As they are not seeing any issues with their signal down in Atlanta, a possible cause to the issue would be if the antenna probe on the satellite for horizontal channels has somehow shifted or has been damaged a bit which would impact fringe coverage here in Canada.  At the end of the conversation, the uplinker advised me that they will contact Eutelsat in order to report the issue to see if anything can be done in order to improve the output level of their transponder.

[DrSat]

Attached some specrtum analyzer plots.  It does appear that there also might be a cross-pol issue at hand as we can clearly see a peak on 12089 even on vertical, although much narrower.

Plot of horizontal polarity with the red line indicating the 12089 transponder





Plot of vertical polarity with some sort of signal being shown at 12089 MHz on the last peak at the right hand side of the graph.  We can also see the Hope channel transponder at 11995 on the graph.

[DrSat]

Good news! Just got a call again from the uplinker who confirmed that Eutelsat just increased the output level for their transponder by 1.5 dB!
Over here, this resulted in an increase of about 7 to 9% signal quality so now the BVN transponder is about the same level as the Hope Channel transponder on 11995.

Before:



And after....


Please check at your location how much you are getting now and post in this thread.


Thanks,

Dr. Sat

[sparkycivic]

I'm so happy to hear that I'm not alone with the frustrating experience of trying to keep BVN online for myself and my friends who rely on me! I had reached out to Atlanta DTH several times, and got no response.  BVN themselves also stopped responding to me, without giving any hopeful information.

It's the impossibility of rural unlimited internet service in this area that prevents most of us here from just using the online streaming and forgetting about the satellite reception altogether.

I'll keep hoping for a better solution...

Thanks for what you have done!

[DrSat]

I'm so happy to hear that I'm not alone with the frustrating experience of trying to keep BVN online for myself and my friends who rely on me! I had reached out to Atlanta DTH several times, and got no response.  BVN themselves also stopped responding to me, without giving any hopeful information.

It's the impossibility of rural unlimited internet service in this area that prevents most of us here from just using the online streaming and forgetting about the satellite reception altogether.

I'll keep hoping for a better solution...

Thanks for what you have done!

I posted at the same time as you it seems....

As per my previous post, please check how much signal you are getting now.

[sparkycivic]

I'm not at home till later, but phoned a couple of friends and they report solid picture now. one was off for several days, so this is a big improvement.
Lattitudes here are 49.5 and 49.9'N
Longitudes near 100'W.

I hope this lasts... Eutelsat 113Wa is only almost 10 years old, electronics don't usually get better with age -especially in space!  This razor-thin margin is begging for a better long-term solution.  I hope BVN will participate in the Galaxy 19 multicultural TV neighborhood, that is a logical solution for Canadian coverage.

[sparkycivic]

My dish at home is in no shape to test the difference.  I gave away all my good parts to keep my friends online, so now all I have is a rusty 32 inch dish and a drifting LNB on my h-h motor. I can't keep a lock on the signal even now.

At least my friends are getting acceptable picture quality now...

[DrSat]

Do you receive Hope Channel on transponder 11995 with that dish?  If not then your alignment could be a bit off but I suspect that a larger dish and/or more sensitive LNBF would be required at your location.

[sparkycivic]

Hope and Esperanza are coming-in slightly better for me now than BVN. My mount is definitely out of alignment, as I just tried other satellites in the arc using the motor, and find that the satellites at the top of my arc aren't coming-in.  I don't use this dish much.