Welcome to the AnalogueSat website.
This site now has an online translation service. I have no idea how accurate the translations are, but I hope they will be a useful addition to the site for non English speakers. (Page bookmarks - like those below - do not work correctly with the translation - they link to the English version of the site. Scroll down instead).Follow the bookmarks to the section of this page you want:
Thinking of buying any satellite tv equipment? Check out the SatCure web site. You can get a small discount by using the voucher form on this site :-) Details here
One of the lads from the Digital Spy forum has put some of the old SES-Astra promo videos on line. They can be downloaded here..
If you want help or information, why not join a forum? Theres loads out there. Try Satellites.co.uk
5th July 2008: Heres an interesting article about the rescue of Olympus-1 back in 1991. This is the satellite that took an unintended trip around the Earth after an incorrect command was uplinked onto it.
1st July 2008: 1.2.3.tv ceased off 19E at 2AM CET this morning. No graceful closedown - the transponder was just cut off.
21st June 2008: apologies
for the site being unavailable today.... Demon have been carrying out maintenance on their
server arrays.
According to broadbandtvnews.com, M2 will cease analogue on 13E next month. :-(
16th June 2008: all quiet recently.
2nd June 2008: Sorry for the lack of updates recently - Ive been very busy at work again..... First bit of news is another channel loss - 1-2-3.tv will shut down its analogue signal at the end of June
30th April 2008: No changes
on the channel front since the last update.
Sirius 2 has slotted at 31.5E and has been renamed Astra 5A
Optus A3 has been sent to junk orbit - she was obviously only keeping the 31.5E slot
reservation open
AMC-14 has been declared a total loss and SES are discussion their options to get rid of
her.
15th March 2008: Sirius 2
has been withdrawn from 5E and is currently drifting slowly eastwards towards 23.5E
Thor 5 has slotted at 1W
The Russians lost another satellite last night when the Proton carrying AMC 14 into orbit
suffered a malfunction in the upper stage. AMC 14 is now stranded in a low orbit and is
likely to be crashed into the Pacific.
2nd March 2008: Not much to
update recently although there are 4 satellite related news bits:
Eutelsat have ordered W3B which will be co-located with W3A to strengthen the 7E slot -
details have been added to the W series comparison page
Thor 5 has been safely launched, is currently testing at 16.5W and will be going to 1W in
a few weeks time.
Eutelsat have orders a new bird to slot at 13E with the Hotties. Its called Ka-Sat, and
will be a Ka band only satellite
Turksat 3A is to be launched from Kourou in the next couple of months
2nd February 2008: Bloomberg Germany has ceased off 11362H 19E.
26th January 2008: The following dates have been announced for the closedown of analogue channels on 19E (info from the Transponder News forum)
ARD - 2011
Arte - 2011
ZDF - 2012
15th January 2008: Measat 1 has slotted at 46E and has been redesignated Africasat 1. Sirius 4 has taken over virtually all the traffic off Sirius 2, and S-2 will be moved in the near future.
1st January 2008: 10744H on 19E was turned off last night. The frequency will be turned over to digital in the near future.
27th December 2007: The 11 year old Measat 1 from Malaysia has drifted into the skies above Europe. No idea whats happening with it at the moment..
6th December 2007: According
to the German language Transponder News website, 10744H analogue will cease on December
31st.
This tp carries CNBC & TV Shop. CNBC has already reappeared mornings only on the Das
Vierte tp - 10714H.
29th November 2007: CNBC has appeared in the mornings on the Das Vierte frequency (10729V). This is in preparation for the analogue shutdown of 10744H which is to be digitalised in the near future :-(
18th November 2007: several bits of satellite
news to catch up on:
Astra 1C has been turned off at 4.6E
Astra 1D has moved from 23E to 31E and according to reports has been loaned / hired to the
Turksat operation. Shes currently operating a Turkish beam so is unavailable to western
Europe.
Sirius 4 was successfully launched from Baikonur last night and is heading for 5E.
8th November 2007: According to the Lyngsat sat tracker, Astra 1D was removed from 23.5E last week. Shes currently reported out near 33E and moving rapidly eastwards. :-( Has she been sent to junk orbit??
28th October 2007: There are rumours on several German language forums that 10744H on 19E (CNBC) will be closed in the near future and converted to digital for ARD expansion.
27th October 2007: Astra 1D
has been switched off at 23E. All traffic moved to 1E. There is no indication at the
moment of her fate
Astra 1B has been spotted by the Sat Obs lads - as usual with dead sats she is tumbling
slowly in her eternal orbit.
18th October 2007: Astra 1E has been lit up at 23.5E. Traffic is slowly being shifted over from 1D.
14th October 2007: Apologies
if you have been unable to get in this evening - Demon website hosting have been having
problems again.
Astra 1E has been withdrawn from 19E and has a new home at 23.5E. She will be replacing
the elderly Astra 1D
4th October 2007: Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. The Russian satellite was the very first man made satellite launched. Sputnik 1. Sputnik weighed just over 180 pounds. The 22-inch aluminum sphere, scarcely wider in diameter than a modern home satellite dish, orbited the Earth every 96 minutes and was launched from what is now Baikonur
3rd October 2007: The final 5 channels have been removed from Astra 1E and she has been turned off. Phoenix (11009V) / WDR (11053H) / Viva (11127V) / Tele 5 (11553H) / NDR (11582H). All have moved over onto Astra 1L.
2nd October 2007: 2 more channels removed from Astra 1E. Das Erst (11494H) has moved to 1KR, RBB Brandenburg (11656H) has moved to 1L
30th September 2007: 4 channels switched from Astra 1E to Astra 1KR (Sonnenklar 11464H / DSF 11523H / MTV 11621H / NTV 11641H) This must be in preparation for 1E moving to 23E.
29th September 2007: The elderly Arabsat 2B at 30.5E has suffered a minor glitch, and drifted off station. She has ended up at 29E. Oops!
25th September 2007: WDR are reported to be looking to shut down their 19E analogue channel at some point soon due to the high running costs....
19th September 2007: The solitary analogue testcard on 10832H on Astra 1D at 23E has been turned off. :-(
14th September 2007: Sept 16th sees the 20th anniversary of the launch of Optus A3 which is currently slotted at 31.5E. She is radiating a few low powered test signals for SES Astra.
4th September 2007: All quiet recently.
25th August 2007: Astra 2C fired up with the first blank test carriers at 28E yesterday.
19th August 2007: More dead European broadcast sats spotted by the sat obs boys: Hispasat 1A, Eutelsat 2F3, DFS 1, Eutelsat 2F2
11th August 2007: Astra 2C has been removed from 19E and is on her way to 28E :-) The chart has been updated to reflect the current situation at 19E
1st August 2007: Numerous changes at 19E in
the last couple of weeks whilst Ive been in Crete - Astra 1L has come into service causing
a big swap around of channels:
10714H Kika-Primetime / 10759V QVC moved to Astra 1KR
10964H - ZDF / 10994H - Arte / 11141H Bayerischen Fernsehen / 11171H 1-2-3.tv moved
to Astra 1L,
14th July 2007: As a follow up to the dead satellite observations noted last week, Turksat 1B has also been spotted :-)
July 11th 2007: SES have released a press release stating Astra 1L is ready for service at 19E. There will be a channel shuffle in the near future, since 1L cannot cover the low "band D" analogue channels that 2C carries, It is known that Astra 2C will be moving to 28E in the autumn, and Astra 1E will be redeployed to 23E probably around the same time.
July 10th 2007: Yesterday was the 45th anniversary of the launch of Telstar 1 - the first proper communications satellite. Amazingly she is still up there circling the Earth - lost forever with burned out transistors (the damage was caused by large amounts of extra radiation in the atmosphere thanks to a high altitude Yankee nuclear test the previous day!) Some info here
6th July 2007: Ive just been
browsing the Sat-Obs astronomy site. The lads over there have made the following recent
observations of satellites that have operated in European skies:
Astra 1A, Gals 2, Telecom 1C, Arabsat 2A, Hotbird 1, Hellassat 1 Thaicom 3, Intelsat
604, Eutelsat 1F5, Express AM11 Telecom 2B.
All are noted as flashing so are tumbling slowly through space as they drift
16th June 2007: The counter on the front page of the site passed 125,000 today :-)
30th May 2007: CNN have now confirmed that they wont be leaving analogue on June 4th :-)
28th May 2007: The demise of CNN has been confirmed by the Media Network weblog - update 30th May - article since removed
27th May 2007: There are some nasty rumours going around that CNN will leave 19E analogue on June 4th ....
15th May 2007: Hotbird 2 has been redeployed to 9E & renamed Eurobird 9
12th May 2007: Voyages has left its timeshare slot on 10744H on 19E.
27th April 2007 Thor 6 ordered on April 24th.Preliminary details added to the Thor comparison page.
14th April 2007: We have a
new channel!! TMC (Television MonteCarlo) has started on Atlantic Bird 3 at 5W
(11475V audio 5.8MHz) in the usual SECAM
WRN Deutsche is reported to be shutting down their analogue radio service on June 5th.
29th March 2007: Alison
Jarvis has emailed to say the Pixmania
website is currently selling new analogue receivers for £20 plus postage.
Heres a real blast from the past - the Rewind virtual
museum has some really old satellite kit on it! - Including analogue kit with dial
tuning!!
24th March 2007: Some information about the demise of Hotbird 1. In August 2006, Eutelsat began redeployment away from 13E. She was known to be low on fuel, but the Eutelsat tech boys thought she had around a year left. She was being sent to 25.5E to back up Eurobird 2 (ex Hotbird 5). By August 31st Eutelsat had to admit they did not know how much fuel was on board but Hotbird 1 may well not be redeployed to 25.5E. The final fuel level assessment was obviously too low for safety and poor old Hotbird 1 was consigned to oblivion in junk orbit instead :-(
Some old Sky idents :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ13gVPReOU sky
sports
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjdpCm6jkck sky news
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv77NDIL6c0 sky movies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBE38Qo42sA sky movies gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeHwydbkA7U sky travel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWvdvuk1I64 sky one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTEbjIJqD4sky soap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaTEbjIJqD4 sky movies 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0j3eQombGU sky sports 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6dw_gcRtLE Sky Sports Two 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ5_TD7m_Ps sky sports gold 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPvh6SwTYs sky travel 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BNsVKfGWH4 sky news 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiKXcyWoHHU sky one 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6U8mrGeWCs sky one primetime
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1bs89c0zTA sky premier 98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQP3LCez1O4 sky moviemax 98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKNmAWjLllU sky launch ad2
15th March 2007: Eurobird 10 (ex Hotbird 3) has been moved to 4E and renamed again - to Eurobird 4.
14th March 2007: Hotbird 2 was switched off last night and all traffic was transferred to Hottie 8. Eutelsat have announced they have detected an anomaly in the power sub systems, so turned her off as a precaution. None of the relic analogue services were affected, only digital channels.
11th March 2007: Ive been highly amused to find that this website is cited 3 times in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia! Once each for the Madely Earth Station page, Chris Wathans page of how analogue was run down in favour of digital and finally for the BSB/Sky merger page :-)
10th March 2007: Thanks to Kay Batholomaus Ive got the closedown information from the last few moments of the very final D2Mac channel - goodbye to DR2 on 1st July last year. Sadly there wasnt any farewell announcement, the transponder was turned off mid programme!
8th March 2007: All quiet recently.
20th February 2007: some
satellite updates. Thor forthcoming Thor II-R has been redesignated Thor 5 (what happened
to Thor 4??)
Hotbird 1 is in junk orbit - all mention has been removed from the Eutelsat website and
according to the Lyngsat sat tracker shes out over the Pacific.
At 26E, Badr 3 & 4 will take over all traffic from Eurobird 2 during March
Astra 1C has moved to 4.6E and is on air with very strong digital test signals.
16th February 2007: Very quiet on the analogue scene recently, but Ive added the test card currently running off Astra 1D.
2nd February 2007: Cuatro
has ceased off Hispasat 1D 12591H. :-( Hispasat falls off from the list of
satellites with active analogue channels.
Megavision has ceased off Astra 1F 11436V. The transponder has been reconfigured to
radiate digital signals.....
14th January 2007: 19E music
channel Viva Plus has been sacrificed and replaced by Comedy Central on 11303H
Radio channel SWR3 closed New Years Eve as expected.
The earlier news has been moved to a separate page on the site due to the amount of material.
This site is solely concerned with tv channels that can be received on analogue satellite tv equipment in Europe. In the UK this really means "can I still get anything with my old redundant Sky Analogue receiving gear which is currently sitting forlornly in the shed??" And the answer is - "Of course you can!" HOWEVER. There isnt a fantastic amount of English language programming left, and certainly no general entertainment programming in English.
If you want:
1) Free access to English programming on
Eurosport, CNN, CNBC, or BBC World
2) a few extra tv channels to play with
3) to just experiment to find out whats still out there
4) learn a new language
5) see how other Eurpopean countries report the news
6) watch the ahem "erotic" programming that you find on German
channels late at night, and you no longer get since you moved to Sky Digital
then this is the site for you.
Just as important to me is that watching these channels will not cost you a penny once you have the receiver and dish. Almost all the channels listed on this site are fta (free to air). You do not need any smart cards of any sort in your receiver. The very few remaining scrambled channels are mentioned, but only as they are part of our analogue heritage, and are still going. (And so you will know what that encoded channel is if you run across it). Most of them have closed in recent months, and there are only about half a dozen or so left now.
With Sky tv changing its transmissions from the old analogue system over to digital in the last 5 years or so, millions of British analogue installations were ripped out and junked. If you are lucky, you will be able to get your receiver and dish for free from someone who has upgraded. Ask around friends & family - its surprising how many folk still have their old stuff tucked away in cupboards & garages. This is how I got my equipment for free. However, even if you cant get equipment donated, it wont cost you more than a few pounds for a fully functioning set of kit. However, remember that the days of analogue transmissions are numbered. In a few years time, all transmissions will be in the digital format, so dont spend lots of money on something soon to be totally obsolete.
Some ideas on where to get analogue kit cheap second hand can be found here.
In 2000, some friends of mine decided to upgrade their satellite system from Sky analogue to Sky digital. This left their old kit redundant, and looking for a new home. They were happy for me to take it off their hands for nothing, as it saved them a trip to the tip. Details of the equipment I use for all my satellite reception can be found on the site too.
The technical advice side of the site is really aimed at the beginner, although I hope other folks will find it interesting / useful. All the info has been compiled from my own observations / experiences, and is the sort of info that isnt easily found elsewhere on the web. With a bit of experimenting, and maybe some advice if you get stuck, you can get a second hand dish and receiver operational. Its easy when you know how - honest!
A quick note on terminology on my site. I tend to use the terms "receiver" and "decoder" across the site to mean the same thing - the box which you plug the end of the cable from your dish into. To be strict, the box is a satellite receiver. A decoder was the bit which decrypted the scrambled Sky channels. Very early satellite receivers had stand alone Videocrypt decoders which were connected to the receiver by a SCART cable. Later analogue receivers had built in decoders, (which is where my rather free interpretation of the terms comes from). (The early stand-alone Videocrypt decoders are now only fit for the local land fill. There arent any Videocrypt transmissions left. The last Videocrypt transmission above Europe ceased at the beginning of October 2002).
What I found when I started.
One chilly afternoon I ventured outside with my new dish, and pointed it roughly south. In less than 10 minutes I was watching the free channels on the Astra 1 satellite constellation. The current free to air Astra 1 analogue channels can be found here. The other satellite information can be navigated to using the panel on the left.
After lining the dish up on the Astra 1 satellites, I quicky decided to find out what else it was possible to watch using this old dish. A complete starters guide to finding the currently active orbital positions and well over 100 tv channels can be found elsewhere on the site, and is based on my own experiences.
Analogue channel closedowns.
This page has details of the phased Sky analogue channel closedowns, which finally ended with the analogue service ceasing at the end of September 2001. This page also has details of what I have been able to find out about non Sky channels across all the satellites.
The Analogue Channel Graveyard.
This page details the tv channels that we have lost from analogue format since the beginning of 2001. It will be regularly updated with an ever increasing list of stations we have lost from our main satellites to the digital format.
Thanks to help from SES-Astra in Luxembourg, Ive got hold of a list of almost all of the analogue tv channels that have ever broadcast off the Astra 1 satellites. Its quite a big file (85 kb at the moment), but interesting. How many of the early channels do you remember?
Contributions.
The Contributions Page now has 9 articles on it.
If anyone has any articles like these they would like to see on the website, contact me and let me know what you like to contribute. As long as its more or less relevant to analogue satellite tv, I'll accept almost anything.
Ross Lockley
Galashiels (Scottish Borders)
Site details, future plans, and revisions
This page was last updated on 05 July 2008
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