My Current Equipment...

In preparation for the migration of EUMETCast services from DVB-S to the DVB-S2 standard at the end of 2014, I made some major changes to my reception equipment during April 2014. Most significant were the acquisition of an Ayecka SR1 DVB-S2 IP over satellite receiver and the "retirement" of an old HP 6715S laptop that had been the data reception computer for several years.

So, as at 1 May 2014, the present reception station set-up consists of the following:

 

TRIAX TD88 (88cm) Dish, pole-mounted at a height of ~8ft in the garden.

Galvanised steel dish with polyester powder coating.Equipped with multi-LNB holder. (At present this dish is also used for the reception of domestic Sky TV so alignment is something of a compromise. I intend to devote this dish entirely to EUMETCast reception around the middle of June 2014.)

 

Inverto Black Ultra LNB, part number IDLB-SINL40-ULTRA-OPP

0.2dB typical noise figure, Current consumption is 120 mA Max. @ 11 ~ 20V. Approximately 30ft co-axial cable to receiver.

 

Ayecka SR1 Advanced DVB-S2 Receiver with GigE interface.

Ayecka describes the SR1 as "an advanced DVB-S2 receiver with a GigE forwarder. The SR1 is designed with satellite reception in focus, leaving routing to be handled by external device. SR1 implementation is based on advanced engineering methods that eliminate the bottleneck caused by CPU load. The SR1 supports payload rates of up to 120Mbps SR1 supports DVB-S2 VCM and ACM. Implementation of ACM is based on availability of return channel (terrestrial or other). The SR1 can be used as receiver for MPEG-TS and encapsulate them over IP output Ayecka proprietary encryption (using internet connectivity to head end) is available as an optional package. SR1 provides independent 100baseT management interface. The management interface support CLI, WEB and SNMP."

Most importantly, this device has been tested by EUMETCast and comfirmed compatible with their new services.

 

Shuttle XS35V3L Slim Form Factor Computer

Receiving computer. Using onboard 1Gb/s LAN Port, directly accepts data from Ayecka receiver's 1Gb/s LAN Traffic Port. In effect, forms a "dedicated network" in order to avoid Ayecka device's broadcast flooding home network with data. The brief specifications are:

PROCESSOR: Intel Atom D2550 dual core processor

MEMORY: 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz

ETHERNET: Realtek RTL8411 Supports 10/100/1000 Mb/Sec. Built in 802.11b/g/n WLAN module

STORAGE: 2 x 2.5" SATA HDD, 5400 / 7200RPM (2nd HDD installed in Optical Drive bay.) HDD are WD Black 500GB (WD5000BPKX)

POWER: 19V DC. Consumption ~15W

OS: Windows7 32bit

FEATURES: Fanless design that it’s not only quiet and low in energy use, but also suitable for 24/7 permanent operation.

 

Mesh XGS Desktop Computer

"Processing" computer.