BATC bursary - GB3EY approved

[g8gtz]

The following application has been approved:

Date of application: 11/16/2020

Project description:
As part of the conversion to digital operation for GB3EY, a Comag SL30/12 receiver was tried. This worked for DVB-S, H262 and symbol rates above 1999kS/s but with the move to H262, DVBS-S2, H264 and much lower symbol rates an alternative receiver was sought.
Several different makes of 'HD' set top boxes were tried and some showed promise at 1000kS/s and H264 but all of them failed to cope when switching between H262 and H264 or DVB-S and DVB-S2 on marginal signals. Typically, the receiver would output a black screen despite showing a locked condition.
The Ryde receiver has been tried breadboarded and it allows the repeater to work with low symbol rates such as 333kS/s. The proposed Ryde build for the repeater will be a 'headless' version controlled by the console with a composite output. This output is for compatibility with the BATC I2C Project based logic and the BATC DTX1 being used as a modulator.

Benefits to ATV community:
1. This upgrade brings H264, DVB-S2 and lower symbol rate inputs to the repeater. The reduced bandwidth significantly reduces the power required to access the repeater so effective increasing its coverage whilst allowing high resolution with sound together. Excellent results have been obtained with H264, 8PSK and 333kS/s.
2. The reduced bandwidth will allow any future frequency changes required to accommodate Galileo easier.
3. Improved reliability; this receiver can be accessed remotely via a LAN connection for reboots, parameters changes and updates etc.

Total amount of funding requested: £132.00