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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 09-10/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
1. Signal measurement on TURKSAT 42° East
2. Signal measurement on ASTRA4A 4.8° East
3. Signal measurement on EUTELSAT 7A 7°
East
4. You need to adjust and correct the tran-
sponder details for ABS1 75° East before you
can actually receive a signal: Polarization
should be vertical, the LOF does not cor-
respond to universal Ku band LNBs (10600)
commonly used in Europe, and the 22 kHz is
not active by default.
5. Once we had adjusted all settings the
LEXIUM FastAlign 5110 Pro was able to per-
fectly scan and lock signals from ABS1 75°
East.
Vienna therefore is not pos-
sible. We think this makes
sense as beams can easily
be changed and moved by
satellite operators, so that
the odd Asian position might
in fact be of interest in Eu-
rope one day. If or when
such changes occur, the new
LEXIUM signal meter will al-
ready have the relevant pa-
rameters stored in its inter-
nal memory.
We appreciated the fact
that LEXIUM has pre-stored
both C band and Ku band
transponders: While the Ku
band definitely dominates
the European market the C
band is the preferred fre-
quency range in most other
corners of the world.
In total, we found 109 pre-
stored satellite entries on
our list. You might object at
this stage that this is way
beyond the number of re-
ceivable positions in Europe
– and you’re right. LEXIUM
has chosen to create sepa-
rate entries for Ku band and
C band transponders on sat-
ellites that use both bands,
such as INTELSAT 14 at 45°
West. In terms of usability,
they couldn’t have made a
smarter decision.
Then again, an impressive
number of satellite entries is
not everything that counts.
The painful truth is that it
can quickly become worth-
less if transponder data are
not equally up-to-date and
comprehensive. To check
the LEXIUM FastAlign 5110
Pro’s worth in that field we
randomly selected a number
of European satellite posi-
tions and tried to align our
dish to those birds using the
LEXIUM meter. We noticed
right away that the pre-
stored LOF for the high band
was correctly set at 10600
for some positions (such
as ASTRA 4A at 4.8° East),
while other satellites (such
as BADR 26° East) came
with a wrong frequency of
10750. In addition, none of
the pre-stored high band
entries came with an acti-
vated 22 kHz signal, which
is required for the LNB to
switch from low band to high
band. This means that Eu-
ropean users have to make
a point of checking all pre-
stored transponder settings
for the selected satellite and
the LNB that is used.
Most European satellites
come with correct tran-
sponder data, however, so
that the LEXIUM FastAlign
5110 Pro turned out to be a
useful companion for align-
ing satellite antennas. It
worked nicely with weak-
er signals as well, such as
those from BADR 26° East or
ASTRA 2D 28.2° East – the
built-in tuner boasts a rea-
sonably low threshold and
the measurement results
turned out to be very pre-
cise. We loved how quickly
the LEXIUM meter reacts to
changes in the incoming sig-
nal, which in turn allows for
a swift alignment process
without the risk of overlook-
ing a signal while moving the
antenna.
To sum up, we truly en-
joyed working with the LEX-
IUM FastAlign 5110 Pro un-
der a European sky. It’s a
very handy tool and if the
manufacturer decides to
update the pre-stored tran-
sponder list it would leave
nothing to be desired.