₦airaland Forum

Ifende,
Thanks for the info, i'm about to download the one on the link posted by microgiant, or is it also included in the official patch from srsupport?

Obnelly,

About the signal droppage on MY Echolink, pls understand me, it isn't all Echolink receivers that experience it, just a few of us, who are unfortunate to have bought a ?bad clone. my dish setting is very sound, i currently get about 60 - 62% signal strenght on showsports while using my strong receiver (which is presently hooked up to the echolink via a cable from the signal-out port of the echolink), but when i change over to the echolink and i'm watching it, it starts to show a gradual decline in signal level. (pls note, this may not happen every time, but it happens often enough to be a nuisance.)
and i don't think it is restricted to mine alone, cos Jujukemist mentioned something like that once as a shortcoming for echolink receivers.

Nzeonyi

1. Yes there's champion's league on ART,
2. costs btw 15 to 22 k (Naira) depending on availability
3.No need to change lnb if the dielectric has been cut off (if not, u might need to view pics of our installations here to see where to cut)
4. i think u can use 4663x for HITV if you have a smart card, they do not marry their cards to particular decoders yet.
5. MSNBC and feeds, i don't understand ur questions so i can't help you.


for those interested in the UPS Modification sheme,

Sorry i have been to busy to make a really detailed post, but like Butoneday said all you really need is a UPS ( i'm using an old one, they are cheaper than inverters but serve the same function as long as their load limit isn't exceeded), A heavy duty battery, ( the larger the capacity, the longer it can last for a given amount of charge, but also it means a lower internal resistance and hence a relatively more robust charger).
which brings us to the most important thing, the charger which can supply currents of more than 8amps without burning up. why i use the ATX power supply instead of a conventional large transformer based charger is that they are light weight, heavy duty and very very cheap, but watch out, avoid the ones made to Chinese specifications cos they do not supply the current they claim they do. (Yes i know all of them are made in China, just look for the ones made to European or American specs).
now modifying the ATX is the crucial part, the only problem is that not all the power packs you will find will have the exact same design but if you are comfortable with electronics, you should be able to figure out why to put the potentiometer.

Please give me about 24hours i'll do my best to put out a really illustrative piece.

Good Friends and wonderful people of Nairaland FTA,

I hail all of una, this thread has grown from being just a source of information and SOS site for satellite TV in subsaharan Africa, to being a hanging out spot for people with similar ideas/tastes e.t.c. anyways, let's keep on rocking.
Oga big joe,

even after all these years, i'm still truly thankful you started this thread.

Oga moderator,

i dey greet oh.

Olofofo my man,

how body now, i see you are now a general supplier of everything. how lag now?

Jujukemist,

i see you have succeeded in changing the name of our precious AB card to yours. how KD now, i go show that side soon.

Toxnaija

Former Zaria boy, only you get two massive dishes in 2 different states? how's work?

Baba Egun,

how area?

Those with Echolink, am i the only one on this forum who experiences a gradual decline in signal levels while watching a program? it is really annoying cos you might be watching something interesting when the signal will just drop and you have to rush for your remote to change it to another channel and change it back and in the process miss out on a few precious seconds of entertainment. i'm going online now to check up other sites to see if there is a hardware fix for this anomaly.

All,

i was going to make a detailed post before buy I'm much too occupied to that now, so i'm just going to post this anyways. a while back, Nash FTA pointed out how one could change the batteries of a UPS to a car battery and in the process get a much longer viewing time from a single charge, the problem we were all considering then was whether the in-built charger of the UPS would be able to charge the batteries without burning out.
well i discovered that the problem wasn't the charger burning out, but rather the charger wouldn't be able to charge the batteries properly. i bought a 62AH SLA battery and every few days i would have to put the batteries in a car to charge it up cos the charge from the UPS could power my TV for less than 5mins, even after a few days charge, (compared to 5 hours after staying in a moving car for a while). so i remembered an old project of mine when i was trying to modify a computer AT power supply to  see if i could get 13.8 volts from the 12v line for something similar.
i got an ATX power supply and using a potentiometer in the 5v feedback loop, i was able to raise the voltage to 14 volts, now those ATX supplies can pump out a lot of current at relatively low voltages so even after 3hours charge (which is how long PHCN usually leave the light on around here) i can watch a complete EPL game, and since i get home late at night, i rarely have to put on the generator these days.

Now someone may ask what does this post have to do with FTA but this thread is all about INDEPENDENCE (being able to get what u want, when u want it), so a true UPS that can power your TV, decoder and sound system for hours with minimum fuss does give you the independence you need to enjoy your FTA system. now there are a few problems with the setup, the most notable of which is that the ATX power supplies are notorious for tripping off with slight voltage or current changes on account of a very sensitive surge protection circuitary, but like i said, i will explain all of this much more fully in a detailed post later, maybe i'll post it on the computer/electronics section of this forum and paste the link here.

I have attached a picture under the post:

By the way, does the jsc patch for echolink affect the showtime/art packages in anyway? what i mean is does it mean u give up the ability to watch the showtime/art packages, or do you have to remove the card every time or something else?

Hi all,

with the advent of the Echolink decoder, it became paramount for me to get a motorized setup, so i went out to the area of town where i was told the installers hang out, and spoke with them and everyone said it was a bad idea to mount a motorized dish here in Maiduguri cos of the strong winds that blow here, and they all refused to give it a try, but there was this one guy who said he could and would do it, so together we went out to get all that was required, and when we got back he mounted the dish but couldn't get the jack to work satisfactorily and we were about going for a new jack when i decided to call on Adewest who asked me to change the wire, which i did and that solved that particular problem.
but the next day when the guy was supposed to come for the actual tracking of the birds, i didn't see him. i waited for a full week but didn't hear from him. i finally concluded that he was intimidated by the fact that i was far more knowledgeable about his business than him. but this left me in a serious mess cos i had never seen a motorised dish in action before not to talk of it being installed. but being one who always welcomes new challenges i decided to find out all i could about the topic and going back through the post and also other sites i managed to get some idea of what was required so last night, i set about trying my hand at it, i didn't have an inclinometer so i just cut out a piece of card board to the angle i desired. i also didn't have a compass so i used an old nail and rubbed it on a magnet a few times and mounted it on a pole. so after setting up everything i was suprised at how quickly i was able to get some degree of good alignment enough to get nilesat, nss7 ku/c, on the west, siruis ans w3a at the zenith and w4 at the east. but i was too tired and i realized i didn't have enough info to continue, for example i didn't know what other sats i could get (both c and ku) and what their tracking freq were, which c band sats require a dielectric and which ones do not, as well as the tracking freq for the sats in questions.
so that brings me back to the thread, i had wanted to wait until i finish the installation before continuing but i can't go much further than this so i need help.

Adewest/Any other Northern Installer,

Bauchi and Maiduguri are not too far and i know you have installed a motorized dish in Maiduguri before so i need your help, what birds should i aim for, and what are their tracking freq? also which ones require a dielectric and which ones do not, also i would appreciate any other info which i am not thinking of at the moment. thanks a lot.

Enigma,

With respect to the Hotbird, i think i got up to 22 TPS, most of which come up at night. but there are about 8 TPs that are constant throught the day. i wrote out all the TPs i got and their best signal strength but unfortunately i seem to have lost the paper. when i complete my motorized set up i will confirm the required info and post.

actually george, they do not change as regularly as u suppose. for instance if u track nilesat, it makes sense to use 10758 V 27500, cos every single time, it will always be head over hills higher than all the others.
i believe the same goes for 10949 for Hotbird. infact it is of the utmost importance to have these TPS at one's fingertips all the time.
i'm posting from my phone, so i can't keep up this discussion, but i'm also waiting for your software, i do need an easy reference guide.

F_Marshall,
i do agree with u, we do need a list of active and strong transponders for the most commonly tracked birds in this region, and also that such a list is not difficult to prepare. a couple of weeks back, i decided to try my hand at tracking some of the birds i had never tracked before, so i went on the net and got most of the needed infos e.g lnb skew, elevation and azimuth, but nowhere could a find a recommended tracking freq. so i had to call up Badaru and he gave me that of hotbird and hispasat, i did get the hotbird but not the hispasat (i think he wasn't certain of the hispa one he gave me).
Anyways, my point is thatis probably the most useful info for tracking. i am actually preparing something like that, but mine is actually a list of receivable TPS and their signal strenght for all the sats am able to track at my location, but lets see what happens soon cos my knowledge for now is limited to Nilesat, hotbird, intelsat 7/10, W4, W3, sirius 4, and NSS7 ((KU/C).
Actually George anyone can do this easily, someone who has a motorized setup can just go thru all his sats and copy out the strongest TPs for eah sat and post them.

If there is anything man knows how to create, it is debris, and we seem to be littering everywhere, the land, sea, desert and now space.

Badaru/Olofofo/Ifende,

when u say art is up and running, is it with a new software or with those from 7th of feb?

Baba Egun and Twinstaiye,

I really thank you guys for your efforts in making your upgrade process public information, because of your posts and the detailed information given by Baba Egun, not only have i successfully upgraded my echolink, i have also upgraded my strong receiver via serial (cos it was showing a memory error when i tried upgrading via usb after loading a fairly useless firmware), but even more importantly, i have managed to revive my defunct Iclass 9595x pvr receiver, which if you can remember i once said i had loaded a faulty firmware into and it became functionally useless. well i guess all i had to do was cut and join the wires the way you said and that was it.

for others who might try out the crossing over stuff soon, please note, there is no strict colour coding for the wiring so you actually have to test each wire using a multimeter to make sure, cos on mine, the orange and green wires were not for 3 or 5 as in Baba's post.

Enigma,

I guess i have finally brought that Iclass saga to a successful resolution. once again, thanks for your previous efforts, really appreciate them.

Jujukemist,

welcome back to the land of the free (and the home of those who have refused to be slaves). how's the crocodile land?

HI all,

I started posting this yesterday, but somehow i didn't manage to finish and unfortunately, there was no light afterwards.

Adewest,

Thanks for the heads up about the type of wire used for running the jack, when i changed it, the thing started moving in all directions.

Echolink Users

Does any one else experience this, if i leave the receiver on a particular channel/frequency for long, it will experience a gradual drop in signal strength such that after a while, you will not be able to watch anything meaningful. sometimes it corrects itself, but at other times, i have to change it to a different channel on another TP and change back immediately to correct this. please note, the lowest signal from that same dish on my stong recievier is about 60%, so it is definitely from the echolink.

I just remembered how very well designed those computer power supply units are, i am going to go and buy a 2nd hand one now and modify it so it can function as a battery charger. i'll get back to you guys as soon as i can accomplish that.

Adewest,

sorry, i ran out of credit while talking to you. i'll change the wire and give it another try and get back to you.

Hi guys,

did i mention i finally got mine to work off my PDA, i installed the newer version of JBED and that did the trick. thanks a lot.
I did transfer up to N100,000 from my phone the other day, and it went one time, though i don't intend to do it again.

Dee2,

If u have to call to get it activated, it sorta defeats the aim of it being entirely menu driven doesn't it? so how could it be the best?

Hi all,

I've got a UPS which i power from a 62AH car battery, the problem is that the UPS charger only supplies 0.2amps of current to charge (doesn't overheat). so i need a car battery charger. i would actually love to build one, so anyone who has the circuit diagram for one which uses a switching mode power supply and transisitors, that can suppy up to 4amps or more should please hook me up with it, i will appreciate it. thanks in advance.

Baba Egun,

Congrats on your echolink, that decoder turns watching satellite television into a whole new experience. just imagine how many packages it can open? i am presently motorizing my 1.8m dish so i can get the orbit packages on eurobird 2 in addition to my art/showtime packages.
Anyways, i imagine u and ur family fighting over what to watch, you football, your madam the series channels/E, your kids the cartoon channels, very soon, there will soon be civil war in your place. with this decoder, PHCN becomes your greatest enemy in life.

Nash FTA,

Talking about PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria), i recently bought a big generator set, but it still gets tiring going out to switch it on everytime the power supply goes, so i remembered our previous conversation about UPS, and since the generator had a battery charging port, i bought a 62AH 12V battery and connected it to my pretty old Blue gate UPS (rated 600VA), and the thing works beautifully, no problems of over heating so far, the only problem is that i use up more power from the battery than i am able to recharge it with, using a multimeter, i determined that the UPS only charges the battery with 0.2Amps, while the generator charges it with 0.8amps, while using my TV and one of the receivers uses up about 5amps so what i ended up with is putting the battery into a car everytime it runs too low, so that it charges up appreciably. At the moment, i am scouring the net looking for a circuit diagram for a 12v battery charger that can supply between 4 to 10amps of steady current for charging, while being able to switch to trickle charging after it becomes almost fully charged (i know u are going to say why don't i just buy a charger, problem is i have searched for one but can't find, so i guess i have to build one up from scratch.)

Enigma/Big Joe,

I said i was going to go and trouble shoot that receiver to receiver lnb connection and see what comes up, well, i got home and hooked up the Echolink to the wire from the diseqc, and then took out another connection from the Echolink to the Strong receiver, and voila, the thing started working, moving from channel to channel, i discovered that when the stong is taken to a V channel, H channels on theEcholink refuse to come on, and vice versa. but generally, the connection is manageable for watching my precious football. (i just saw Badaru post that strong no longer opens the jsc sports channels, well, it was fun while it lasted)
By the way Enigma, the problem with living in a box is that it is very difficult to think outside it, i probably would never hav thought out a way to use a quad lnb with a diseqc if u hadn't mentioned that. but i dont need that any more, like i mentioned i am going to have 2 dishes soon one a motorized and the other a fixed dish so each one will use a seperate receiver (everyone has been asking 'what sane person needs 2 1.8m dish at once?).

Broucher

Talking about Jsc sports, there is actually no JSC +1, +2, +3 or +4 on badr sat, just the normal 1 and 2, while on Hotbird, there is no JSC +4 on hotbird, so if are watching JSC +4, then it is only from Nilesat. check your wire connections. (all the info qouted above are from lyngsat, so i might be mistaken).

Beowulf,

If your get around to reading most of the thread, u will see that i have ties to Makurdi, Benue state, u can check my previous posts to see all the posts relevant to your quest. i installed nilesat there with a 1.8m dish, although there were some problems with the dish itself. you could click on my username and you will get to see most of posts. DSTV receivers cannot be used for watching FTA channels, but haven said that, there might be a way to get around that that we are not aware of, so keep reading. the strong 4652 receiver is okay, Badaru swears by it for installation, and you can get patches for it, just search around the thread and u will find links.

Xwallace,

u can use the fuji lnb to complete nilesat package at Nsukka with a 2.4m dish. What u need is patience.

Olofofo My man,

Nice to see you are also installing all around now, keep up the good work.

Toxnaija,

How body?

Hi all,

a couple of things, i am using a multi lnb setup (3) with a diseqc so i can't use a multi output lnb.

next, i have tried this before, when i was using a dvb card, i looped the signal out from the strong lnb into the dvb card (which by the way couldn't power the lnb's on its own) and i was able to get it to work, i just assumed the strong decoder was powering the lnbs while the dvb card was the 'slave". i was hoping it would be easy to repeat the same thing, but to no avail. i will do a detailed trouble shooting this evening and see, and i'll get back to you guys.

George,

well that makes sense, but i wish to solve the puzzle of the default loop out of each receiver first. if that fails then i would have to do the splitting stuff.

on another note, is the splitter also capable of 'mixing' two signals from 2 lnbs, like a 2way diseqc. i think i came across something like that which the seller says has a problem with H tps.

olofofo:
sorry for all typos,  too freaking tired to modify,  imagine being outside still working on the dish at 3am in the morning. , i don sleep ooooooooooooo.

All for the love of Nilesat . well Olofofo, more than anyone else, i'm truly happy for you my man. That Echolink decoder makes nilesat a 'must have'. thank God urs is in the kitty.


Enigma,

fortunately for me, most of my really qood friends are lawyers. Just impressed to know you are one also.

for all those using both echolink and strong
having the two receivers opening different packages causes a bit of a problem. let's say you want to watch the premiership on saturday, while the spanish la liga is going on, how do u shuffle between both receivers. i tried looping out a wire from the echolink, via the IF out port, into the LNB in of the strong receiver so i could have both receivers functioning at the same time, but no signals were going through (i have tried this before with a strong and dvb card and it worked), i reversed the connection, even powered off the LNB from each one of the receivers in turn(under the installation menu), just in case theres was a conflict in the power supply to the lnbs, but all to no avail.
so guys, is there a way around this.

enitan2002:
@ adrusa,
, Concerning tox climbing and doing installation, i think that will happen in his next life but not in this one, the guy lazy no be small. Na only bag of cement ihn carry, wey ihn dey complain.
You cant compare tracking with medical profession, kindly ask adewest if he works with GPS, Compass e.t.c, those ones even slow down the work of the experts. There're so many of us here who are ready to help eachother out, badaru,ola(90cm expert only), olofofo, obnelly e.t.c
I know adewest is good, but i am better, just that i've not really discover myself and due to so many factors hindering me right now.

Yes indeed, the above is indeed comedy101 from the Great Enitan himself. God, you guys are good, sometimes the humour here is even worth more than the info one gathers (pls i said sometimes).

Enigma a Lawyer? , Now who would have thought?

Adewest and the western Nigeria Installation people,
I hail una oh, this will surely mean much better satellite TV for you guys surely. i totally feel Pitodenz's enthusiasm, if they can do it in lagos, surely it can be repeated in Port-harcourt, Accra, Temale, and so on. All i can say is that we are finally really defining what is possible in our region. after this phase, we are moving on to doing the impossibles.

On the issue of whether anyone can be a good installer, i think Enigma has said it all. Now i was having a conversation along similar lines with a fella i met yesterday and this is basically what i gathered
,  tracking satellites has been going on in Nigeria/West Africa for a long time, but it experienced a huge surge interest/knowledge in the late 90's and early 2000's when a lot of 1.8cm dishes were brought into Nigeria (from Dubai mostly), the first centres to benefit from this influx of materials/knowledge were kano and Maiduguri (according to the guy). Now the people who brought in the dishes of course taught the trade to a few guys who were the installers then. now the birds commonly tracked then were Arabsat, Hispasat, Hotbird, Nilesat, Nss7 amongst others. gradually, the knowledge of how to install dishes spread around and a lot of towns in the north started having good installers who learnt from the original few (and let's face it, it isn't advanced calculus, hence is not so difficult to learn). so these 2nd generation installers (people like my friend in question) started going out to other cities in the middle belt and southern parts of the country and trying out their trades there and of course teaching the trade to more people. so that is why most of the really good experts you find in this FTA business( mind u not all) were at one time in their lives resident in Northern Nigeria. Now the abilities of installers varies, just as in a class where there are those with different levels of aptitude, there are some who only learn enough to get by and there are others who have to know everything the master knows and then some more. Such people end up pushing the limits of what can be said to be possible.

Now anyone with an above average intelligence can be a good enough installer. but only a few ever get to be truly great. like adrusa said, anyone can track the a bird if the have the right info and the right gear, but it takes the really dedicated professional, with a lot of patience to coax a dish to bring out the really weak TP's. i put it to you Mr. Adrusa, that the tracking of weak TP's for out of footprint birds is an Art, which requires not only knowledge but talent as well. now just about anyone might be able to get nilesat in lagos with a 2.4m or 3.0m dish. the more experienced installer might be able to get it with a 1.8m dish, but he would only have a few TP's and most of these would be unstable at best. Now it takes a real pro to acheive some semblance of stability with that same 1.8m dish, and even one that is motorized, and that my friend comes after years of practice and probably installing under different conditions and in different places.

Now i see we've got ourselves another Big enders/Little enders situation going on here with this issue of use of sat equipment (i.e compass, gps, satfinders, e.t.c) to track birds, and whether this usage (or refusal to) shows how really expert one is.  The basic truth is that we all follow the same basic principle whether we like it or not, and that is
1. locate the position the beam is coming from
2. position your dish in such a way that it receives the best possible signal from the bird
3. while monitoring your progress with a suitable visual (or audio) indicator.
so whether u use the sun (pretty archaic but simple and always reproducible but slow), or u use a GPS positioner (really hi-tech and fast, but a bit expensive), u will always have to find a way to locate your bird. i am absolutely certain that there is no one on this forum who can track even HITV beam in the middle of the night with no moon or stars in a town he has never been to, and without any visual indicator. And only a fool will see sun/moon and still decide to ignore them in search of the direction of a beam without any aid (i believe it was F_Marshall who used the phrase ",  trying to re-invent the wheel, ". For someone who is very much familiar with the properties of a particular bird, he definitely doesn't need to carry a GPS positioner every time he wants to track it, but a compass sure does save ones time, most especially when searching for a difficult bird.
The truth is that in this satellite hobby, our knowledge is our power, so, People of God let us live and let be. My philosophy has always being "Each man according to his own".

Olofofo et al,

I can confirm that the JSC patch works on the new strong (downloaded from persiangig.com), after 6969, u leave it on each of the jsc channels for a while until each one opens (remember each one requires a different key), then you are good to go.

On the same note, i tried accessing the keys so i could copy them out and apply them to my echolink, but i could nt find the ccw keys, only irdeto 2 keys. i wonder which ones are the right keys for jsc sports. on a similar note, has anyone with echolink/AB card noticed that if u press the info button, it brings out some parameters of the channel including the keys and u can see them as they change every minute, so i it makes one wonder, when we have a set of keys that open showtime for like a week, is it that they have a prob with their key changing stuff or what? i forgot to check for the keys for disney/bloomberg whether they also remain constant or change like everyother one of the showtime package?

About decoders suitable for tracking

i have tracked using several decoders, 4652, 4653x, 4663x, ali a and ali c( echolink), the ALI decoders are the worst because you have massive alterations in signal levels so u have to use a lot of assumptions, the strong receivers on the other hand are probably the best because like someone said, they react to the minutest change in signal levels within miliseconds so are good for tracking distant birds. but the 4652 has a slight advantage over the others in that you can use both the signal level and quality, so u actually know when u are getting close to the signal, unlike the 53 and 63 x versions which have a persistently high signal level( or is it quality? i can neva remember, i just know its the one on top ).

Adewest,

i might need to talk to u soon since u have experience in motorising dishes in maiduguri, i met an installer yesterday who swore i couldn't motorize my dish cos it's the fixed dish type and that they wind makes motorizing dishes here a bad idea.

Enitan,

if i tell you what i'm doing here, then i would have to kill you (ha ha).

Hello All,

nice to be able to make a post after a long while. i am now back to some semblance of order in my life (or at least for the next few months), i am now based at maiduguri (and like i said in a previous post, probably the closest forum member to the signal sources of our beloved birds). i also have limited access to the internet during working hours, but that is entirely dependent on NEPA or is it PHCN now.

anyways, i have setup a 1.8 m dish facing nilesat, and it was so easy to track that i almost agree with Adewest that i will probably be able to get nilesat here with a 0.9m dish (i'm going to give that a try as soon as i possibly can, once i lay my hands on a 90cm dish that is). what i'm trying to say (without rubbing it down people in the south's noses ) is that i have pretty good signals here. my CNN/Showsports signals alternates between 58 t0 60% and please note that the central plate covering the bottom of the dish is missing. so that reduces the signal strengtht a bit. but no problem.
the next phase in the installation process is to motorise my 1.8 m dish so i can start hunting out most of these birds. let me repeat someone's earlier call that those who have knowledge in motorising dishes. please could one of u post a tutorial on a detailed step by step guide? i saw Olofofo's info, but i need more details on how to put the whole system together and start the tracking biz. thanks.

F-Marshall,

i wanted to ask about you, so u were in Nigeria all this while, wish i was in lagos, would have been nice to run into u. anyways, one of these days.
hope u have a safe trip back.

about the echolink decoders with AB cards, i got one at about N18,500 at Kaduna before coming to maiduguri, and it is worth the investment, too bad the ones they have here don't have PVR function, but for sports enthusiasts and those who love their entertainment, it is a must have.

Enitan,

I saw your lists of friends/would be enemies, so we for north no de your book ba? , anyways, you are an indispensable part of this forum.

Jujukemist,

How far, hope the struggle will soon come to an end. all the best.

Sullazi,
my suggestion is u go through d thread from page 1, i guarantee u that U'll get better at it. but if u still have questions after that, u can come back and ask.

All those who say everything that can be invented has been invented, a little story for you guys.

In the late 1950's/early 60's, because of rapid advances in the pharmaceutical sciences, the world had so many antibiotics for just about every known bacterial infection, scientists congratulated themselves and the Surgeon General of the U.S, went on national TV and announced that ', now we can close the book on all infectious diseases'.
barely months after that speech, the first documented case of 'Multi-drug resistant' staph. aureus (that was not responsive to any known antibiotic at that time), was observed. barely months after that, viral infections also became more prominent and of course had no known cure at that time, and the Surgeon General wished he could eat his words.

The point of the story is that science is constantly evolving, and there is so much yet to be done. the holy grail of computer is still the electron computer (imagine a CPU the size of a pin head), nuclear physicist still dream of controlled nuclear fusion, and more realistically, in our hobby, the dream of catching nilesat in S/Nigeria with a 90cm dish because of advances in LNB and dish design. but in case u say that isn't really inventing, then think about this, Living things can generate so much energy from organic matter (food), while man has to design inefficient batteries which constantly need recharging. Imagine if one could design a power pack that utilises the same principles of energy generation as living things, u would have devices with almost unlimited sources of power, u could have an electronic bug, fitted with a camera, mic and transmitters the size of a fly, that doesn't need to have it's batteries replaced, the world of espionage would become truly frightening indeed. and don't think of this as just science fiction, that's what they thought of some of the Star trek gadgets (e.g their communicators) of those early days, but which wireless technology and bluetooth has made a reality today. these things are even being researched as we speak, so don't u dare believe inventions as a phase of mankinds existence is over!!!

Nash FTA,

I am using a 1.8m dish and the sirus/w3a lnbs are attached as 'side' lnbs so my signal qualitty is hardly ever high enough. but thanks for the input.

All,

I think i finally appreciate why Pitodenz has been asking Badaru about the neck of his dish. I just entered Kaduna about a 3 hours ago and went over to see a friend, at that moment he was trying to set up nilesat on a 1,8m dish, but this had a different neck than the common one meant for groud installation (it seemed this one was originally intended to be motorized), the neck was locally constructed and in my own humble opinion, badly constructed, cos the silly thing kept wobbling everytime i tried to adjust the dish. needless to say it was an extremely difficult installation (and it didn't help matters that everyone there had their own opinion of how things should be done.)
i managed to get it to bring up most of the tp's but with very low signal quality, and left cos i was too tired of the journey.
so Badaru, please post a pix of the neck of your dish for reference purposes cos i will soon enter into the league of the motorized dishes.

All,

here's wishing you all a truly wonderful new year ahead, and may you have all you truly desire.
cheers.

Nash FTA,
Nice to hear from u again, actually i am pretty interested in ur post on the sirius bird, cos a few days ago, while completing my multi-LNB setup on a 1.8m dish, i wanted to track w3a and sirius with a single LNB. But unfortunately i didn't pull it off (couldn't maintain usable signal levels from both sats at one). why i finally gave up was cos i realized tthat even if i did pull it off, i wouldn't be able to receive Go Africa from w3a, so i ended up using 2 lnbs and tying them up in a really ingenious way (i'll post the pic one of these days).
this created a big problem in that i now have 5 lnbs (nile, w3, nss7, sirius and a small dish with 7/10), AND ONLY a 4-way diseqc. i tried tying up the wires from the sirius and nss7 lnbs and feeding them to one diseqc port but experiened considerable signal drop esp. on the sirius signals, so now i've left out d nss7 cable, but i'm still open to suggestions (note, i can't find a 2-way switch, which would have been my best bet or an 8 way diseqc either).

Olofofo,
i was the one asking about PVR. thanks, i'll research into it before making a purchase

Enigma,

way to go! thanks for that post, i needed something like that. initially i was thinking of buying the 'best' but i think it is better for me to find out about each and get any/all i can lay my hands on (for educational purposes of course.
but let me get a confirmation, am i right in saying that the CI SLOT is that port (within the receiver) with about 3 or 4 pins usually next to the one into which the card reader is plugged?

Twinstaiye/Olofofo,

does the starsat/echolink with abracadabra card have PVR FUNCTION?

Enigma, glad to know u got back safely.
Oga moderator,
a quick word on multi-lnb setups on a fixed dish if you will allow me.
when using a large dish (say 1.8m) to track multiple birds, the lnb at the central focal point gets to receive signals from the entire surface of the dish, but the other lnb only use a portion of the dish (equivalent to half the diameter for the lenght of the dish) and hence only satellites receivable with dishes of that size and whose angular distance isn't too muh can be included in such a setup. what i am trying to say is that let's say i'm using a 1.8m dish to receive nilesat, nss7 and w3a, the entire dish surface would be required to get the nilesat signal, but because nss7 and w3a are meant for this region (direct to home for west africa as adewest put it), they would require a dish of 90cm or less and since their angular distance from Nilesat are not too great they can easily leach signals from the 90cm segment of the dish which is facing their signal. so hotbird and nilesat cannot be possible in w/africa with 2.4m dish (might be possible in Egypt or tunisia though).
bit haven said that, if u had a dish of 5m or more u would have 2.5m on either side of ur dish to track those birds with. this is just a theoritical footnote, though i think i've seen something like that in kaduna

Ghanian n'landers,
how r the elections coming along? we are rooting for u guys to receive nilesat/hotbird real soon.

Enitan,

i feel ur addiction, MTN have really benefited from it cos i am constantly refreshing this page on my phone, but everyone has got to have a demon haven't they ( though some end up having more than one).

Enitan, that's d version i got. Someone gave it to me about a month ago. I load it on nokia series 60 phones like N72 and it works, i'm even using a friend's own to post this. But i have a HTC WIZARD .(Tmobile MDA.) and it isn't working. So that's why i think it's a compatibility issue. Also it didn't work on my brothers P990.

Enitan, lest i forget the browsing tip does not work on my phone. I guess there is a compatibility issue. But thanks a lot anyway.Chuk, i would advise u stop thinking of 3.5m dish and instead focus on 2.4m dish in the east (not unless u have one already.) i say this because it seems the ability to catch distant birds with relatively smaller dishes is improving, and the lnbs are also getting better. When i discussed with installers in Makurdi about nilesat they said it was impossible with 1.8m but i still went ahead and did it. But he Badaru is getting almost full coverage in lagos there's no reason why u shouldn't get something similar in d east. Think about it.

Hello good people of Nairaland,

Here's wishing u all a wonderful Christmas and New Year ahead, and pray for wonderful things to come in the year ahead. I am typing this on my PDA which has a problem with the C and T keys, so please overlook any errors.
I wanted to make a post a few days back so I logged on using my PDA and I just couldn't find d thread!!! I searched around for a while and finally had to give up (i assumed one of the Pay Tv guys had gotten Seun to close down the thread), anyways, I decided to check back today and well the thread was back. Oga Twins, u only apologized for it, I wish u had given some explanation!?!

A quick comment on the 'Free to Air' discussion going on, I seems some issues always ome back after a while. I do remember the post Enitan made reference to (though can't remember who posted it) and it dealt with the phrase 'free to air' in very good details, I wanted to access it and paste it (or at least the link here), but I have poor navigation with this phone so I leave anyone interested in reading it to google it up for himself. But to my own opinion is that the phrase 'free to air' was originally coined to describe broadcasting signals for consumers to receive without any cost to them (F.O.C) a definition seen from the broadcasters perspective.
But with the increase in technology and the advent of various types of Conditional access systems, the term has gradually been taken from the 'Consumers' point of view where it simply 'Watching broadcasts without (the need to) pay a subscription or any other fees ( this raises questions about the system in S/Africa where the signals are broadasted without encryption but consumers pay a special monthly TV tax, is this pay tv or not?)
So with this in mind one can now understand why the word 'free to air' is now applied to a situation where the broadcasters intention is for the broadast to be Pay tv (hence its been encrypted) but some way somehow the consumer receives it without cost (like E.TV for instance). So in this case it is 'free to air' for the consumer ( this on its own is a misnomer and should instead be 'free to view', but old terminologoes die hard). This is the meaning implied by most hobbyists when they use that term while describing watching encrypted broadcasts without cost. Whether it is right or wrong is another thing altogether.
Now with respect to your analogy Enitan, it will be difficult to make a case for someone watching at a neighbors place to be enjoying 'free to air' TV, but if the same person can tap the signals from the friends place using say a wire, and watches the same thing his neighbor is watching, then one can argue he has a 'free to air (view)' system while the original subscriber is on Pay TV. But please note, the above is my opinion though I borrowed heavily from the previous post.

Now to my original post, I finally got around to tracking nilesat with a 1.8m dish in Makurdi, and I guess it all came down to LNB (not really the type, but more like cutting it at the right place), and proper positioning. I initially got there and set it up (note I was using an old 1.8m dish left over from the arabsat days), and placed the digisat lnb I had cut, and after tweaking it the best I could get was the following miserable values and that was late in the evening:
10.758 V 27500: 72%
12.130 V 27500 (Fox Series) 48%
12.207 V 27500 (Nessma Tv) 48%
12.284 V 27500 (JSC) 46%
11.955 V 27500 (MBC) 49%
12.054 V 27500 (Alkass) 45%
12.015 V 27500 (Aljazeera) 44%

So I popped in here to check adewest's values and I felt really bad so he next morning, I surveyed my site and found out there were some stray branches bloking the path, and that I didn't cut the lnb very well (the inner ring still remained), so I first moved the dish to a better location, which gave me some improvement in signal values, then I went and sawed off the LNB again, and wham, most of the other V freqs appeared, and also BBC (a H freq), but they were unstable, so I removed the digisat and replaced it with a an premium 2 lnb and the signals were a bit better, my current values are:
10758 83
10766 49
11862 47
11900 48
11940 53
11958 48
12015 48
12034 47
12132 49
12205 55
12284 51
And the values tend to increase with darkness, though like we all know now, nilesat channels have to be traded off for each other, to get BBC, I had to settle for a drop in some other signal levels. I tried getting another 0.2db lnb but I got even poorer signals than these. I'll give it a rest for a few days before continuing.
Now since it was a fixed dish, I also put 3 otther lnb's for NSS7, W3A, and Sirius, now I thot some people said they could get both W3A and Sirius using a single lnb, I tried that but because they boh have a marked disparity in LNB skew, it was either one or the other, so I had to use 2 different LNB'S, tied up in a really horrible way (cos both are supposed o occupy about the same position). now what i'm left contemplating is how to attach 5 lnb's to a single diseqc switch, I tried tying up the nss7 and sirius wires then passing it to a single diseqc port, but there was a really significant signal drop so right now the nss7 is left out (had to add another smaller dish for their precious intelsat 7/10).

Now something worthy of note, because I was so busy setting up the dishes over the preeding 2 days, I woke up thinking Yesterday was 22nd Dec, and so I went about my day thinking I still had a coupla days to prepare, it wasn't until 3pm I found out it was 24th and had to start running helter skelter, anyways, it was one of those truly unbelievable things that happen once in a lifetime.
Well gotta run now, still have a lot to do, hope u guys enjoy the celebrations, and if u happen to be around Benue state, pop in for a glass of fresh palm wine and goat meat. All the best to all of u.
And Oga Badaru, very special Happy Birthday.
Enigma, so soon? Well safe journey back.

Hello All,

I'm back in kaduna now, on my way to Benue (maybe 2morrow), just using a friend's network connection to communicate, just left Jujukemist this morning, and i do agree with him that nilesat has made us in the north lazy, we haven't been going after new birds, but all that should change very soon. i wish we had concluded arrangements for that get together, i'm sure we would have been a really good opportunity to meet a lot of members.

Enigma,

Welcome home, nice to hear u arrived safely. maybe it's a good thing u didn't tell us when u were coming because u would have had a difficult time with ur baggages because of the amount of stuff we would have requested. anyways nice to hear from you again. i haven't had internet access to research on that stuff so i would really appreciate it if you would do that. but with respect to the echolink, they seem to be 'very available' now. i came across 2 in kaduna, cost b/w 20 - 22k, and i called someone in makurdi and it is available there and costs 20k. i got the digisat 2100 0.2db lnb, and it cost N700 here.

All

I have been wondering why installers here swear by their locally constructed dishes and one thing i noticed is that those dishes (2.4m) have a shallower depth than the prefabricated eurostar/strong dishes, and thus a higher focal point, now i was wondering (and i have discussed this with several people), if this translates to a better gain for those dishes, compared to the more traditional ones, cos i have noticed also that the dishes used for internet satellite connection also have a shallower depth, so i guess my question is 'does the depth of the dish matter when it comes to signal gain (would like a scientific explanation on that even though i am currently searching for one on the net right now.

Folo,
yes the eurostar 2.4 dish is available in kaduna, check along kano road, it costs about 22k. the strong one costs 19k and the locally fabricated one costs about 22 with support for motorized setup.

Olofofo,

i was wondering about that abracadabra card, whether it is just the card one needs (so we could just use it on another decoder, say strong 4663x, or only the echolink, has the support for the abracadabra card. another way to phrase this question is whether the card can be used on any card reader or requires a specific CAS? sorry i haven't been able to catch up on the gmail group, will do that as soon as i settle somewhere for more than 2 days.

Enitan,

Need a favour from u, it's about mtn free browing, do u at the moment have any setting that works? if yes, could u mail it to my box thanks.

Enitan,

i totally agree, i'm just saying we should do the chatting in moderation, to reduce the space taken up.

Toxnaija,

i really wanted to call but u never sent ur no. please send yours and Adewest's to my mail and i'll definitely call as soon as i get it. meanwhile, i may be moving to Maiduguri soon, (thats where i am at the moment), i might be the one with the best access to Nilesat/Hotbird if that happens.

Olofofo,

alright. i'm keeping my fingers rossed, i cant browse properly or i would hae checked it myself, i also am not in a rush to buy another decoder cos that would be 3 in 3-4 months, so let me see if the cards/cams  are available first.

Enigma/Badaru/Adewest,

i would also love to hear from u guys on the card/cam stuff so i can decide which  one to get (though in the end, i guess it depends on what is available)

Oga moderator

Nothing gum me come bak oh, infact, i neva return yet, but i go keep in touch.

Hello Good People of Nairaland,

It's nice to finally be able to make a post after more than 3 weeks of being off d grid. Enitan and Enigma, thanks for inquiring about my well-being, I am quite alright, just that for the past few weeks I have been away and have had no access to the NET, but all is well.
In just 3 weeks, I see the thread has grown by more than 16 pages, that really is quite something, a this rate, we would need a third thread immediately after the Christmas break.
There's so much i'd like to say, but where do I begin? (let me first of all point out that I am typing this on my PDA, whose keypad has problems with the 'C' and'T' keys, so please forgive any typos I fail to correct along d way).
Now, there was a time, about 18mnths ago, u would have only 5 - 10 posts on this thread after 3 weeks, it does seem like we have a lot to discuss, but is u were to read every single page of those 16 belatedly (as I have had to do), 2 things would strike u;
1. There are certain Gems of extremely useful information on FTA in this region, these are usually preceded or followed by some equally informative questions/answers tha serve to improve the thread, but there is also a lot of what I would like to refer to as 'white noise', that is people posting absolutely mundane info that have absolutely nothing to with the General public, such as repeatedly carrying on personal conversations tht r best suited for phones, txt or IMs.
2. A lot of people are quoting other people's messages (not wrong in anyway), the problem is that a lot of messages being posted here are pretty long (such as this one), and it seems pretty unbelievable that someone wants to make reference to something I said on the 12th line, he has to copy the entire message back for me, maybe just to add a word or two afterwards.
All the above just serve to increase the number of pages unnecessarily, so one has to plod through a lot of gibberish to get to useful information. Please I know I am not in a position to tell anybody how to behave/post on a public forum, but if u guys would just take these tips (not directed to anyone in particular) it would help reduce the labour of catching up with what is going on, for people like me who will not be regular visitors for a while. For example, if you want to quote for a very long message, after hitting the 'insert Quote' link and it brings up the message, you could delete everyother line that has no bearing with what you want to discuss, and maybe put three dots to show it is from a longer message.

But enough of that, I guess I have really missed this forum, u get to find out after a while that you like hanging out here, I guess there's something addictive about carrying on intelligent conversations with total strangers you never get to see face to face, I must confess that when I had stable internet connection, my web explorer was constantly on this thread and set to refresh ever 5mins, so I could read every new post as they come in.
I see Adewest has finally made good on his claims (which sounded too good to be true when they were first made), I must say I marvel at ur ability to keep coming back even when u were greeted by so much derision and scorn, you must be one heck of a person in life (and pls don't say it comes from being an officer cos I know a lot of them and they r far from tolerant). I've always maintained that no one is under any obligation to post a message here, so if someone makes a claim, the least you can do is give them room for explanations. Personally, I just wish you had taken time out to explain yourself fully and saved us all a lot of bad blood, but like I said, thank God u kept coming back.

Anyways, i've got an appeal to make, for those who have the knowledge, could you please give me/us a detailed tutorials on CAMS, cards (gamma, abracadabra, e.t.c) and other conditional access systems, with respect to what they can do, how they are used and how to update them (For Educational purposes as always) or at least point us to where such topics are treated in details.
Another thing, I had always thought motorized systems were poor with signal localization, so they were not suitable for use with distant birds, but to my utmost surprise, Adewest is using one on a 1.8m dish to receive Nilesat and Hotbird, in Lagos of all places!!! I guess this means the end of VBUG (VERY Big Ugly Dishes) (and my dream of a 5.5m dish for hotbird, or maybe I still need one for SKY) and multiple big dishes.
Anyways, I'll try and keep coming back as often as I can, while I try and work out which town I am going to settle in.

Eutelsat W3A viewers, download the weekly schedules of MBC 1, 2 and 3 here hxxp://www.mbcradio.tv/mbc_schedule.php?LINK_CAT=tv.

they seem to be the only stations worth watching that have their program schedules available online.


Nilesat viewers, download the weekly schedules for Dubai one, here hxxp://www.dmi.ae/dubaione/program/schedule/Weekly_Schedule.pdf

A really good channel, but unfortunately they do not have this available over- the - air, unlike most of the other good stations on Nilesat.


Oga Moderator, i know this isn't exactly what u had in mind, just thought there might be people out there who would want to have access to them.

Twinstaiye,

I think that is a wonderful idea, it will indeed save us a lot of space on this thread, but more importantly it lets us have directed entertainment, so that u know what to watch e.t.c. It is because of this that most channels have implemented Extended Program Guides (EPG) so you can know what to look forward to, it is nice to see that Fox Movies and MBC max have gotten into that groove, so also have JSC sports, I guess the one channel on the entire Nilesat system we all would like to see have EPG is Dubai one, at the moment, they are A Quality channel that u don't know what to expect from at any time. anyways, nice work.

Toxnaija/Twinstaiye,

About the 6969 stuff on this new series of patches, what i was trying to say was that, in the past, when u load in keys, either manually, via a softcam or via a recent patch, you immediately press 6969 twice and the patch comes into effect. Now if you switch of the receiver from the mains, and switch it back on, and navigate to the channel you have installed keys for, they will show you 'Scrambled Channels', so that you will have to press the 6969 twice again for the patch to take effect. in order words, every time you switch on your receiver after it has been switched off from the mains, (or if NEPA takes light), you have to 'switch on' the patch. i guess we all accepted it as a small inconvenience which came with getting to watch encrypted channels. But like Enitan once pointed out, other decoders do not need you to 'Switch on' their patches, immediately you load in keys, they just start working.
But with these new series of Strong Patches, after pressing 6969 twice initially, it tells you Patch on, and the patch stays 'ON' even if you remove the wires from the socket and slam the receiver on the ground (assuming it doesn't sustain any other damages), so you don't need to keep pressing 6969 twice every time the device boots on. i wonder if i am any clearer. i do hope so.