FTA Contact in Japan

[cyberham]

Tomorrow I will go to Japan. I have been looking for a direct contact with anybody in Japan who happens to enjoy FTA but haven't found anybody yet. I've heard there are a few who pursue this activity though mostly on C-band I believe. If anybody has any direct contact with either a supplier or individual in Japan who is involved in FTA, it would be nice to be able to source a Ku-band dish of suitable size. Most dishes I've found are very small and are intended for commercial Ku-band reception, not suitable for FTA. Some larger dishes are available but extremely expensive such as available here. A 1-meter dish by Maspro is about $1300. There do seem to be 60 cm (23") dishes in the $400 range.

I will take a receiver and LNB with me but I'm not confident of finding a suitable dish to use.

 

[primestar31]

Tomorrow I will go to Japan. I have been looking for a direct contact with anybody in Japan who happens to enjoy FTA but haven't found anybody yet. I've heard there are a few who pursue this activity though mostly on C-band I believe. If anybody has any direct contact with either a supplier or individual in Japan who is involved in FTA, it would be nice to be able to source a Ku-band dish of suitable size. Most dishes I've found are very small and are intended for commercial Ku-band reception, not suitable for FTA. Some larger dishes are available but extremely expensive such as available here. A 1-meter dish by Maspro is about $1300. There do seem to be 60 cm (23") dishes in the $400 range.

I will take a receiver and LNB with me but I'm not confident of finding a suitable dish to use.

View attachment 174203

Will their tv sets work with the receiver you are taking?

 

[cyberham]

Will their tv sets work with the receiver your are taking?

Good question. Japan used the same analog NTSC format as the US in years past. For digital TV, I'm less sure. I have a TV there with composite connectors that I can connect to my receiver composite connectors. I've done this for analog TV in past years when I had a Slingbox. I also have an external TV converter box for receiving local digital TV on my analog TV set. I have a computer monitor with HDMI input that I could connect to my HDMI output from my receiver. Worst case, I might need to buy a new TV which I need anyway.

 

[Cham]

Sounds like you will be in Japan for a while. I do have a buddy that originally moved here from Japan but I don't think he does any FTA stuff there when he goes back to visit. Would be good to know what they are doing there for FTA and OTA, different part of the Clarke Belt for sure!
Have fun over there!

 

[cyberham]

FTA really isn't a hobby over there. Partly because most of the footprints on Japan are for commercial TV. Actually some of their satellite commercial TV is available unencrypted according to Lyngsat. So I may go for a small 60 cm dish since I know it would receive something. On C-band, you can receive Korean, Chinese, Russian channels.

We'll be there for a while this time and return in future years. Covid has kept us away over the past several years. I used to live there for 5 months each year. But I didn't know about FTA at that time; I just used a 60 cm dish to source local TV.

For OTA, our local community has a small OTA network of six or so channels relayed from the big stations in Tokyo. But we are too far from Tokyo to get those channels directly.

 

[Martyn]

I lived in Japan for many years.

Satellite has been a part of daily viewing for most of the nation for many decades. Japan launched and stuck with high-powered DBS service and for many years it carried the world's only HD TV channel, NHK BS-hi, in an analog format called MUSE. It also used to carry NHK BS-1, BS-2 and pay TV Wowow. In the late 1990s there were also two commercial "CS" satellite services, each carrying about six analog scrambled channels. SkyPort TV and CS-BAAN.

(Japan divided the services into "BS," meaning broadcasting satellite - essential high-powered DBS, and "CS," communications satellite, being lower powered. I think licensing was different at one time)

The introduction of digital TV in the late 1990s brought PerfecTV, DirecTV Japan, and JSkyB, the latter of which never launched service. But DirecTV closed and the other two merged to make the SkyPerfecTV that exists today.

The BS channels remain extremely popular because satellite receivers (with fixed channels) have been a standard part of all TVs since the late 1990s. And the programming is free.

C-band was never really a thing. In the late 1990s, I met a couple of people doing it (and I think I interviewed one for TeleSatellit magazine) but NTT, the local telecom company, used C-band for point-to-point microwave links so many in cities couldn't receive anything. Also, Japanese have less real estate on which to put large dishes.

There was a shop called Hammers in Yokohama and Asahi Satellite in Tokyo, but both closed down a long time ago as far as I know.

When I last lived there, which was 10 years ago, I sometimes saw C-band dishes hanging off balconies. These were almost certainly for the reception of Chinese television.

I have no idea of the situation with C-band frequencies today. If you are living in the mountains somewhere, you might be OK. If not, those frequencies might be given over to 5G. C-band would bring in a few foreign channels that are difficult to receive otherwise. In the past there was a ku-band satellite that covered Japan and carried AFN TV (scrambled) and a bunch of pay TV channels for the Philippines. I guess a larger dish will also bring in Koreasat DBS.

The cheaper dishes will be through online stores from China. In my experience, Japanese prefer quality over quantity and pay for well-engineered products so commercial dishes from local companies like Maspro will never be cheap.

I went through my old bookmarks and most sites are dead, but this one still works. I'd start here: ŠCŠO‰q¯ ŠO‘‰q¯ ƒeƒŒƒr •ú‘— ‚ðŽóM‚·‚邽‚ß‚Ì ‚¨‚·‚·‚߃Zƒbƒg

Where will you be living?

 

[cyberham]

Thanks for the detailed feedback. We are now at our house near Togane, Chiba. We are 1 1/2 hours by train one-way to Akihabara, Tokyo. I can take day trips there with $19 for train fare in my pocket and energy for a lot of walking.

On arrival, we discovered we must first address "minor" property maintenance issues. So FTA and HF ham radio will initially take a back seat. Cut to an image of me using a machete to hack through the overgrowth to get to the front door.

I have good mobile data comms via a rented SIM card from the Tokyo airport. You pop a 15GB SIM card into your smartphone for mobile use and/or via tethering to my PC all for a reasonable no-contract cost to Softbank of $49 for 45 days.

Dish location could be on a 2nd floor balcony pointing about 135 through 315 degrees azimuth. This would be easiest for pointing a ku dish on a short tripod. I may also have visibility from the ground to the other half of the compass from 315 through 135 degrees azimuth. The key Ku satellites with active transponders and footprint on Japan are high in the sky which is convenient. So such a dish may see above neighbour houses and foliage. Dishpointer doesn't seem to work at the moment.

I had a CS 60-cm dish with paid subscription for analog Star Channel, etc. in 1993 to 1996 while in the Yokohama area. It offered a good service of foreign English movies and other programming. I never experimented with FTA since I'd never heard of it then. I used the satellite receiver built into my domestic Japanese TV.

In later years until now, I simply received OTA from local repeaters. No satellite then. I also used a Slingbox in Canada to watch analog TV via a wifi connection.

Due to our short stay this time, I won't be sourcing a Ku dish from China. But that's the best plan. For this reason, I likely won't get a dish up this visit. But I can learn and plan for next time. And keep eyes open for a used or local source. Our local Cainz or Don Quijote stores can be reached via bicycle. Every store delivers locally quickly for reasonable cost.

I visited Hamers in Yokohama in 1993 while looking for a dish in those days. It only exists in name now as a commercial service company.

I have no room or desire to explore C-band here. Though...it might be fun someday to put a C-band LNBF on a Ku dish just to see...

Your suggestion for Kontec Satellite is 4 hours by train from me. But could be good if they ship. I'll research.

 

[Martyn]

Glad it helped! I tried to find the Hamers website and couldn't. Do you have a reference to them.

I'd check the Kontec page isn't abandoned and they are actually in operation. They almost certainly ship, although it might only be through Japanese bank transfer. Good luck!

 

[cyberham]

Hamers website:

株式会社ハマーズ-衛星中継,海外衛星放送受信,TV番組制作など | 株式会社ハマーズは、衛星中継,海外衛星放送テレビ受信,映像伝送,番組配信,収録業務,アンテナ設備工事施工など衛星活用のための通信サービスを提供しています。

Japanese bank transfer is convenient once you register a company on your bank account. But credit/debit cards have become more popular too.

 

[cyberham]

Today I did a closer inspection of what I could expect to receive in Japan on Ku. I printed out a custom report from satstar.net (attached) for my location that shows which satellites I could receive. Then I cross-referenced this against satellites with transponders as shown on Lyngsat.

My notes show the following non-encrypted programming that I could expect to receive:
============
154E: JCSAT 2B
TV Asahi HD, NTD China, Cable 4K HD, Shinnyo-en HD

144.0E: Superbird C2
NHK General HD, Medekiku TV

128E: JCSAT 3A
Skyperfect promo HD

124E: JCSAT 4B
HD channels promo
============

Overall, not a lot that is ITC. I can already receive the main channels above like TV Asahi and NHK General via my local OTA transmitters.

The main satellite for Japan at 110E has many transponders with HD and 4K channels, but all require a subscription to receive. It seems everything mentioned in this message could be received with a regular BS/CS 45 cm dish. Even getting the so-called 4K/8K dish which is 50 or 60 cm likely wouldn't catch more channels. It would only provide more reliable reception during heavy rain.

I'm not sure if there are news feeds to be found as we do in North America. Or professional sports or entertainment feeds like we have sometimes on FTA satellite.

So I'm not sure if I will proceed further. I'm not too motivated to buy a dish & tripod. Maybe if I find an abandoned dish somewhere I could try it out.

A big C-band dish would provide some FTA from adjacent countries but such a dish is totally impractical here for most.

 

[cyberham]

Will their tv sets work with the receiver your are taking?

I confirmed my GT Media V7S5X receiver displays its menus reliably on my old analog TV here using the composite video connectors. So that was good news. If I were to get a modern digital TV, then I could use the HDMI connectors for proper viewing of TV HD channels received. But not having a satellite meter, I would have to drag this heavy "portable" analog TV to be near the dish for orientation. That's an issue.