Forum for former BBC staff - Satellite Changes

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Satellite Changes
Oct 3^rd, 2012, 8:38pm

Alix Pryde of BBC Distribution's latest blog here refers to the forthcoming satellite changes.

"On 15 October 2012 we will move our radio services on the Sky platform from DSat2 and DSat7 to be more evenly spread across DSat2 and DSat5 (Astra 1N tp 46). On the 16 October 2012 these changes will take effect on Freesat and Virgin Media. As each of the radio services moves there will be a small outage of a couple of minutes.

This will also mean that our radio services move from a European beam to a UK spot beam as DSat7 is the last of our European beam transponders. We use a UK beam for our TV services, so the radio services will be as available in the UK as our TV services. But it does mean that the radio services will no longer be receivable across much of mainland Europe."

The blog also refers to TV distribution changes.

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david en france Full Member Offline Posts: 104 Old Whittington, Derbyshire. Gender:	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #1 - Oct 4^th, 2012, 4:07pm Obviously this is bad news for ex-pats especially as the alternative, Internet Radio, is increasingly being subjected to rights limitiations. We need someone to speak up for the thousands of Brits living on mainland Europe. Perhaps our buddy Amigo could enlighten us to alternative means of receiving UK radio in quality reception?
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Amigo Full Member Offline Posts: 174	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #2 - Oct 4^th, 2012, 5:36pm From what I can see, Brittany residents will notice very little difference. However, until the new satellite is actually located correctly (as I type it's winging its way along the Clarke Belt to 28.2) nobody will know what the reception will be like anywhere! Happy hunting!
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Alex Trelinski YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 4	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #3 - Oct 13^th, 2012, 12:00pm Currently easy reception of BBC TV and Radio services is possible on a 1 metre dish in South East Spain. Since those channels are going to move to a UK beam on the new Astra 2F satellite, possibly as soon as next month, things are going to get tougher. I live in the Alicante area, and I'm hoping that my 1.85m dish will still be OK
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PGS4038 YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 5 Ariége, SW France Gender:	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #4 - Nov 5^th, 2012, 11:15am An 80cm dish with my Humax Freesat box is currently OK here in SW France but HD TV now suffers from pixellation since the early summer. I will wait until next spring and the final channel allocations before any re-evaluation of dish size.
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Alex Trelinski

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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #5 - Dec 11^th, 2012, 4:02pm

Reception of the four transponders on the Astra 2F satellite seems to be very good on the Costa Blanca, which augurs well for the eventual transfer of the BBC services. Large parts of Spain and Portugal look like they'll have some very serious problems in picking up the UK Spot Beam, with three metre dishes needed(at least!!) on the Costa Del Sol, which has previously used 1.2 metre dishes.

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roy argyle YaBB Newbies Offline Posts: 22	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #6 - Dec 13^th, 2012, 5:35pm A BBC spokesman has told the "Portuguese News" that reception of BBC channels will remain unchanged till at least the middle of 2013
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John Junior Member Offline I Love YaBB 2! Posts: 78	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #7 - Dec 16^th, 2012, 3:26pm I hope this will be of help to those receiving BBc satellite signals overseas. John http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107052050
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Amigo

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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #8 - Dec 16^th, 2012, 4:25pm

For more information try:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/Changes-to-BBC-Satellite-transponde...

http://astra2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=a2f (Not updated very often)

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=142 ("Freesat")

Basically, Astra 2E should launch in 2013, however there has been a problem with an earlier launch and so there might be a delay.

Astra 2F, seems to be 'faulty', in that it doesn't seem to be working properly.

Astra 1N is needed at 19º East as soon as possible, but it can't be released from 28º East (The UK 'slot') until a working replacement is correctly located.

Some UK TV channels have moved from ASTRA 1N to ASTRA 2F., renderring them unavailable to some European locations.

Edited Feb 24th.
Updated web-site,
Astra 2E launch deferred to early June 2013
Astra 2B is now at 19ºE
Removed 'robsatellites'.

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« Last Edit: Aug 5^th, 2013, 9:20am by Administrator »

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Amigo

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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #9 - Jun 20^th, 2013, 4:25pm

A few updates.

Astra 2E is now scheduled to launch on July 21st (or thereabouts). It is expected to be operational towards the end of August. Then Astra 1N is expected to move to 19º. The UK channels on 1N will probably move to 2E. This includes most of the BBC domestic services.

Astra 2B is presently located at 19.4º East.

The last launch from Baikonur went well, and there is no expected delay to the launch of 2E (so far).

Astra SES 2E site :- http://www.ses.com/4628866/astra-2e

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« Last Edit: Jun 20^th, 2013, 8:53pm by Amigo »

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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #10 - Jul 2^nd, 2013, 7:19am

There is likely to be a delay in the launch of ASTRA 2E due to an incident at the launchpad:-

http://rt.com/news/proton-m-rocket-takeoff-crash-514/

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/07/proton-m-launch-three-glonass/

"The next Proton launch was expected to occur on 20 July, when a Proton-M/Briz-M will be used for a commercial launch conducted by International Launch Services, to orbit the Astra 2E satellite for SES. However, this will now be delayed, pending an investigation into Tuesday’s failure."

BBC News:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23141297

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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #11 - Aug 5^th, 2013, 9:30am

Based on the progress to date, it is expected that the Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) will begin on August 9 and will tentatively conclude by August 16.

Astra 2E Campaign Status, Return to Flight and Proton Manifest

The Astra 2E team will resume campaign operations after the Russian State Commission and ILS FROB complete the required work on root cause and required corrective actions and all parties agree to re-start the campaign.
The schedule for the return to flight and subsequent missions will be determined once the Russian State Commission and ILS FROB complete their efforts and the required corrective actions have been implemented.

Source ILS News, dated August 2nd.

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Administrator YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 3264	Re: Satellite Changes Reply #12 - Aug 21^st, 2013, 3:51pm Latest update regarding ASTRA 2E's launch. ILS have now scheduled the launch for September 15th, although "Interfax" reports it being delayed slightly to the evening of the 16th (UK time).
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roy argyle

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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #13 - Sep 10^th, 2013, 10:05am

Just in southern Spain, Portugal at the moment and everybody has lost channel five even with a big dish, but can get it on hd, if of course you pay for sky hd,I see that BBC hd is available on channel 141 142 if you pay sky subscription, is this soon to be launched satellite a clever way to get people back to sky subscription from freesat
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Re: Satellite Changes
Reply #14 - Sep 12^th, 2013, 3:36pm

According to sources, the launch of Astra 2E has been further delayed due to an 'out-of-tolerance' on the first stage.

There is no confirmed launch date at present.

The footprint for Astra 2E looks to be similar to that of Astra 2F which was launched some time ago. Reception of this new satellite will only be ascertained once the 'bird' is 'lit', and tested in it's actual orbital location.

This site:-
http://www.ilslaunch.com/mission-control/mission-astra-2e

is the official site, although it's not updated frequently.

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