Hi guys.

There's one or two things I'd like to know about SMATV setups. I've been watching how they set up some of them on a UEC set-top box here in South Africa. I don't know if you guys can remember the setup of the UEC, but it had a multiple signal source/network setup under what is known as a "Dish Installation" menu.

Anyway, basically, the thing that intrigues me is how they set it up. Now usually, you can set up one of these "networks/signal setups" (which is basically just a form where you enter the LNB settings, freq., symbol rate, FEC, etc., basically one tp) and it uses the NIT (and program map table?) to find the other tps as per usual. But, what they do in the SMATV case is, they set up several of these networks with frequencies that are not listed on Lyngsat or anywhere, at least none that I have ever known to exist. In the case of our system (IS-20, which was Panamsat 7 slot at one stage, 68.5°E), the tps are from 10.97-11.17 GHz, all 40 MHz apart, and 11.554-11.674 GHz, also 40 MHz apart. The seed frequency is 11.594 GHz.

The standard setup is under network 1 you have 11.594 GHz as the seed frequency and you turn on NIT to "yes" and it scans all of the linked tps.

When the SMATV setup is used, they open about 6 or 7 of these "networks" and enter frequencies between 11.2 and 11.5 GHz, also 40 MHz apart. NIT is then set to "SMATV". From what I can see, LNB settings remain the same (universal) - Lo LO is 9.75 GHz and High LO is 10.7 GHz.

Has anyone ever witnessed such a setup where other frequencies are entered when setting up a SMATV system? What would be the reason for doing so?