Loop out question...the saga continues

[icstephen]

ok last Friday I got my hands on a General Instrument Innovation 651i for the high price of $0.00 so I figured I would see what I could see....which so far is nothing.
here is my set up, I have a Fotec 36" dish, W/ a .4 deg lnbf running to a Fortec star lifetime classic NA. I connected the 650i from the classic's loop out to the ku input of the 650i.

Now I have the manual for the 650i and it is about as clear as the Fortec's manual (clear as mud). The 650 doesn't have a ku button (its switched internally) you have to set up a satellite in the installation screen, however it only has pre-programmed band plans for the ku band satellites (circa 1988 to 92) and of course they are not the same as today. I set up a couple and would change channel...but I didn't get any channels (however the snow would change sometimes to darker snow and the audio would change with the darker snow). I looked at the set up and it would show a level between 25 & 45 on ku, the strange thing is it would show 87% on C-band (no C-band lnb is connected).

I was originally on IA5 but I tried on AMC4 and now I am on AMC1, unfortunately I don't have a motorized dish and have to move the dish by hand. My main problem is I don't know if there is anything analog on those sat's I looked at lyngsat and at looks like there may be a few analog feeds on AMC1 but you never know if there is going to be anything there. Also I don't even know if this receiver works...I got it from a friend of mine and he said he thought it worked because he would have probably thrown it away if it was dead but he can't remember.

Also as an fyi to anyone that may have a 650i you can control it with a Starchoice remote (found that out by accident).

any thoughts?

 

[voomvoom]

It will be hard since you'll have to wait for something to come on in analog. I believe your best bet will be to monitor AMC5, SBS6, AMC6, because they have analog sports on occasion.
As far as the remote goes, General Instrument was bought by Motorola and the StarChoice boxes are probably made by Motorola, If it's an old one it could have been made by General Instrument.

Al

 

[Das Hammer]

That 650i was a heckuva nice receiver back in the day.

I don't believe it will be able to change the polarity on your LNBF. Don't think it has voltage controlled polarity switching. Plus, with it being on the loop out, it will also be forced to be on the same polarity that the DVB receiver is on at the time.

I can't think of anything right off of the top of my head that is almost always there on analog Ku. It's been a while since I've gone through SBS 6 during the daytime, but I think there are some analog feeds there before evening time.


To help us out a little more: what are you trying to achieve with this setup being that this is an analog only receiver and you can only receive Ku with your current dish setup?

 

[Shawn95GT]

Here's one you should be able to tune:

Point the Fortec at 121 and choose a horizontal transponder.

On the GI, Choose G10R, channel (TP) 24. It might show up as G0.

You should see a Dish Network logo with music.

Make sure the L.O. is set right for your LNBF on the GI receiver.

 

[icstephen]

I am mostly just playing around....I don't care too much about analog it is mostly to play with, same with my FTA I enjoy playing with it more than the actual watching tv. I will try more during the evening when there are more news feeds on, the guy I got the receiver from gave me the dish as well (if I can figure how to get it) then I will see what I can get on C-band.

 

[icstephen]

Here's one you shoudl be able to tune:

Point the Fortec at 121 and choose a horizontal transponder.

On the GI, Choose G10R, channel (TP) 24. It might show up as G0.

You should see a Dish Network logo with music.

Make sure the L.O. is set right for your LNBF on the GI receiver.

Thanks I appreciate it...I am going to move the dish to another location this week and I will be able to see more of the sky. where the dish is now trees are killing me and I have a small window to the sky.

 

[Mr Tony]

Here’s the issue…he is using a .4 UNIVERSAL LNB

This puts the LO at 10600 (versus 10750). Therefore, all of his frequencies on analog will be off by 150MHZ

So as an example, the test card that still might be at AMC9 TP19 is at 12080…add 150 and you get 12230, which is higher than the normal KU band and the receiver wont accept.

Stephen I had the same issue a while back. There’s two ways to do it

Change your frequencies on the analog up 150MHZ (so if its 12000 make it 12150). You will only get up to channel 18 on the receiver

Or the easier thing….get a standard LNB

 

[Das Hammer]

My opinion - a lot more quality stuff to catch on C band rather than Ku with the FTA box (and analog box for that matter). If you can get it you'll love it.

 

[icstephen]

Or the easier thing….get a standard LNB

Thanks Ice...and that is a standard as opposed to a universal, correct? I am thinking of getting a motorized dish and may get the standard with that, I would have gotten set up sooner but I had to spend $2100.00 on my septic system last week and that really killed my reserves and killed my hobby.

hey Ice here are a couple of other questions I was going to ask in a separate post but I,ll just ask here. I have had this thing for awhile now and I now I have new questions.

1) what are v-pid, a-pid & p-pid? I assume the v & a are for video and audio but what about p? also what do the numbers mean following the v,a &p pid's?

2) what is a network search? I see it on the scan menu (set to off) but what does it do if it is on?

3) Sometimes when I scan it will show a bunch of channels but when its done they are not all in the channel manager...I know some are scrambled/pay channels but I usually scan all because sometimes the pay channels are in the clear.

4) I think I know the answer to this one but on AMC1 a number of channels scan in as FTA but they look almost like they are analog scrambling (I know its not analog but thats as close as I can get) the audio comes through and I think its NBC. Are these the 4:2:3 channels? and are 4:2:2 HD? I think the fta receivers wont decode 4:2:2 so if this is what that is I will know what to look for in the future.

Thanks

 

[Das Hammer]

There's a lot of questions there. I can answer a couple real quick.

Your FTA box won't get 4:2:2 channels. It will only get standard DVB which is 4:2:0.

PID's are idintifiers in the data stream. When you have multiple channels all on the same frequency (TP), the box has to pick out the right audio and video stream for the channel that you want to watch. So, each audio and video stream coming down have "ID Tags". This way, the receiver can pick out the correct one based on what is stored in it's channel list. The channel list tells it which apid and vpid to use for a specific channel.

 

[Mr Tony]

Thanks Ice...and that is a standard as opposed to a universal, correct?

correct. Standard LNB. LO frequency of 10750

hey Ice here are a couple of other questions I was going to ask in a separate post but I,ll just ask here. I have had this thing for awhile now and I now I have new questions.

1) what are v-pid, a-pid & p-pid? I assume the v & a are for video and audio but what about p? also what do the numbers mean following the v,a &p pid's?

p is PCR...have no idea what that is for. the numbers behind it are the PIDS. Analog is one channel per transponder. Digital is more than one so this is how they separate them. By using PID's...All digital channels have PID's

2) what is a network search? I see it on the scan menu (set to off) but what does it do if it is on?

Network search tries and find the same symbol rate. In Europe, alot of the satellites use the same symbol rate so you dont need to blind scan as much. Here in NoAmerica, network scan really works for DBS satellites only.

3) Sometimes when I scan it will show a bunch of channels but when its done they are not all in the channel manager...I know some are scrambled/pay channels but I usually scan all because sometimes the pay channels are in the clear.

Some receivers have a separate "hopper" for scrambled. The Buzz receiver I just reviewed has a "ALL", a "FTA" and a "Scrambled" hopper for the chanenls.

4) I think I know the answer to this one but on AMC1 a number of channels scan in as FTA but they look almost like they are analog scrambling (I know its not analog but thats as close as I can get) the audio comes through and I think its NBC. Are these the 4:2:3 channels? and are 4:2:2 HD? I think the fta receivers wont decode 4:2:2 so if this is what that is I will know what to look for in the future.

Thanks

The Quali-TV receiver (MikeI and Diamond Jim have one) is the only consumer receiver that does 4:2:2 Otherwise you need a PC card or the DVB World Box PSB uses.

 

[icstephen]

cool thanks...I have the Fortec classic NA and it is strange when you search all (in the channel manager) it will give you a list and the scrambled ones will have a $ next to them, but like I said it doesn't show them all....maybe dbs stuff? thats all I can think...when I was on AMC4 I saw it bring up court-tv and some other regular tv channels but did not list them in the channel manager. I did look at Lyngsat and it looks like they are part of the hotel networks (AMC4-tp 18). I mean its a mute point if its scrambled I was just curious why it shows some scrambled and not others.

 

[Mr Tony]

let me check on that tonight but I think it may put the scrambled stuff in another hopper. There are some church channels that for some odd reason have a $ in front but they're free. Can you see them?

I know if you scan Free and there is stuff with $ it removes them when it saves the list

 

[icstephen]

you can get some of the stuff with $ in front of it (there was several channels on IA5) and I am getting some audio on AMC1 that shows $. I just figure when its like that its like the vc2 in free mode (I don't remember exactly what they call it). Although I don't know anything about the encoding on these things...the receiver I have doesn't even have a card slot even if you wanted to pay for something. BTW is there anything that you can pay for (other than international) on mpeg-2? I heard there was some adult stuff....I really wish I could buy programming on this thing it is soo much more convenient than C-band (at least in my situation with all these darn trees)

 

[Mr Tony]

other than Globecast (int'l) thats really all about it.

Some channels will have just the audio because they dont scramble that.

Over in Europe there is more of a need for a card slot...not here though

 

[icstephen]

you can get some of the stuff with $ in front of it (there was several channels on IA5) and I am getting some audio on AMC1 that shows $. I just figure when its like that its like the vc2 in free mode (I don't remember exactly what they call it). Although I don't know anything about the encoding on these things...the receiver I have doesn't even have a card slot even if you wanted to pay for something. BTW is there anything that you can pay for (other than international) on mpeg-2? I heard there was some adult stuff....I really wish I could buy programming on this thing it is soo much more convenient than C-band (at least in my situation with all these darn trees)

oops I don't think I answered your question...it shows allot of channels with $ next to it and at the bottom it will say what kind of encryption (nag, pv, scrambled, etc) sometimes those channels are viewable....even if it says nagra (don't know about Pv or others) I figure the viewable ones are in freeview and if it is FTA it will say FTA at the bottom and will not have the $

 

[Krapola]

Pcr....

"p is PCR...have no idea what that is for. the numbers behind it are the PIDS."

Program Clock Recovery....Keeps the timing....You will find that the PCR PID is the same as the Video PID in many cases....But not always....If the packet looses PCR, you lose picture...

 

[Das Hammer]

you can get some of the stuff with $ in front of it (there was several channels on IA5) and I am getting some audio on AMC1 that shows $.

Those have been that way for a while. Shows $, but they didn't encrypt the audio apparently.

 

[icstephen]

Those have been that way for a while. Shows $, but they didn't encrypt the audio apparently.

ooops I meant radio channels with the $ next to them (amc1) bit on IA5 it was video and audio....sorry my above response was unclear.

 

[Das Hammer]

It's OK.

There's some Bahamas channels on AMC3 C band which have the $ next to them that have always been ITC too. I don't know what makes it come up that way, but if it is not encrypted then it is fair game.

Good luck.