Feed Hunting

[Satsearching]

Feed hunting is scanning various satellites for transmissions that are not intended for general public viewing. These feeds can be “live at the event” news interview links, sporting events such as football, boxing, etc. What can be interesting is seeing the un-edited versions of news feeds.
Most receivers use a variety of methods when scanning including reading data streams such as the NIT (network information table) and or BAT (bouquet association table) to find channels, as the feeds are not intended for general viewing they are not in these streams so a proper “Blind Scan” is required.

A Blind scan normally works by fully scanning the whole of the KU band (10.7Ghz to 12.75Ghz) in 4 MHz steps in 2 stages, Vertical and Horizontal polarisation. After this it should find all transponders in current use.
Then it scans the found transponders and finds out the symbol rate FEC etc. This can be a slow process. I have a Manhattan Plaza 1000 that can perform a Blind Scan.

The Dreambox isn’t the ideal receiver for feed hunting as it doesn’t perform a scan as above, instead it has a satellites.xml file that already contains known Transponder frequencies with symbol rate etc, so it only checks these and adds the channels actually transmitting. Generally the satellites.xml only contains main broadcasters and not the known feed frequencies. Added to that, feeds can pop up on random frequencies with all sorts of different symbol rates, therefore only a true blind scan box will find all feeds.

But the Dreambox can be used with limitations, check the site below...

http://satellites-xml.eu/

Here you can generate your own satellites.xml based on a huge database of known transponders including common feeds! So I have picked out 11 satellites that are known to have regular feeds.

Badr 3/Telstar 12 (15.0W)
Atlantic Bird 1 (12.5W)
Atlantic Bird 2/Telecom 2D (8.0W)
Atlantic Bird 3 (5.0W)
Thor 3/5/6/Intelsat 10-02 (0.8W)
Sirius 4 (4.8E)
Eutelsat W3A (7.0E)
Eutelsat W2A (10.0E)
Eurobird 16/Eutelsat W2 (16.0E)
Eutelsat W6 (21.6E)
Astra 1E/1G/3A (23.5E)

Next, I manually edited the satellites.xml and removed the known normal broadcast channel transponders on all 11 satellites.

Result! A satellites.xml file that will only scan for known feeds (and it is pretty quick as the normal broadcasts/channels are missed out). And after playing with it, it works better than I thought it would.


The satellites.xml is enclosed below if anyone wants to have a try at feedhunting. If you do, post up what you find.

SS

[RoYaL KiD]

Just to add. Feedhunting requires mostly a dish which is over 1m in size, as providers try their best to keep the feed easily accessible by themselves but hard for us to get hold of. Some feeds will be encrypted and therefore cannot be watched.

[Satsearching]

Agreed, and as well as encripted signals, a lot are in 4:2:2 format that cannot be viewed on a standard box (technically not scrambled).

However, a box such as a DM7025 can find these signals but not display them, but you can stream them from a 7025 to your PC and a program like progdvb will display it on your PC.

A lot of feeds are in 4:2:2 these days.

SS

Originally Posted by RoYaL KiD

Just to add. Feedhunting requires mostly a dish which is over 1m in size, as providers try their best to keep the feed easily accessible by themselves but hard for us to get hold of. Some feeds will be encrypted and therefore cannot be watched.

[henrycraig]

@ Satsearching

Thank you for all the hard work you have done with this. Blindscan is the one function I wish my DM had but this looks cool

Hope to try it out real soon

"the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be"

[Satsearching]

Added Astra 1C at 2.0'E to the satellites.xml

Astra 1C is an old satellite so is in an inclined orbit.

It's current inclination can be viewed here at any time -> Astra 1C at 2.0°E - LyngSat SatTracker

SS

[PaphosAL]

Come on man, get a grip. Is it Astra 2C, or is it Astra 1C ?? Old and inclined, eh? A bit like me, then...

I know what I'm inclined towards at the moment!!

[Satsearching]

Sorry, Astra 1C, I have edited it now.

Don't know why I put 2C

Actually, a good way to check dish inclination, as I type, 1C is -0.34' and scanning is now showing channels!

[PaphosAL]

So what sort of channels do you pick up on this old satellite, m8, when it's so inclined? Stuff like this?

I Love Lucy
Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men
Muffin the Mule
Sunday Night at the London Palladium
What's My Line?
Crackerjack
Rawhide
Take your Pick
Emegency Ward 10
Dixon of Dock Green
Z Cars

If so, I might have to buy a dish...