Latest News Updates:

• 10/02/2022. I made some changes to the VLC instructions page; some additional cache settings incase you experience issues with the web stream momentarily freezing.
• 07/01/2022. Today I made some more improvements to the repeater. I noticed some stability issues with the Chinese HDMI splitters used to split the web stream and the transmitter feed, to resolve this issue I invested in some BlackMagic HDMI-SDI-HDMI micro converters which are working exceptionally well!
• 07/01/2022. Work is progressing towards a web stream (input) to the repeater. It’s been tested on the bench and is performing well. This is planned to be implemented sometime in February.
• 07/01.2022. I have some reports that the signal level is varying in some areas. If you are experiencing similar issues, I’d be please if you could leave a blog post on this web site.
• 29/12/21. The planned web streamer improvements were completed at 14:45 today. To see the repeater output using VLC, use this URL: rtmp://rtmp.batc.org.uk/live/gb3jv 
• 27/12/21. An additional 70cm input frequency (333kS/s) is expected to be active during February 2022
• 24/12/21. The H.264 HD upgrade was completed on 24th December and GB3JV is now operating in HD with a 100% digital pathway within the repeater.
• 22/12/21. A new filter and pre-amp has just been installed with a very significant improvement in receiver sensitivity. Many thanks to Gareth G4XAT for helping with the testing.
• GB3JV is streaming via the BATC web site, check out how to view amateur TV repeaters via the web from the tab above.
• Transmissions are currently using an FEC of 2/3.
• Many thanks to David, G4FRE for the reception report from the Isle of Sheppey – some 40 miles away and far beyond the predicted coverage area. David was using a home-brew LNC with a 60cm dish. David also reported a strong signal in North Cray without the dish. I did a little survey of my own, I had cause to pass by Reigate Hill (20 miles) and received the repeater on my GT Media V8 Gold Sat Finder with a barefoot Titanium C1W-PLL LNB, I also stopped by Biggin Hill and found a very strong signal using the same equipment. If you have received the repeater, a reception report would be very welcome in the blog/comments section to the right. To increase the range still further I’ve switched the FEC to 1/2 so a received C/N of just 1dB should ensure a stable picture.
• To receive the repeater, all you’ll need a C-Band LNB and a standard HD satellite receiver that accepts manual frequency input, or a BATC MiniTiouner. The recommended LNB is the Titanium C1W-PLL (Note: It must be the “W” version, the non-W version will not work!). The recommended LNB can be purchased direct from: Titanium Satellite
  
• You can view all the live UK TV repeater streams here

Tuning a Domestic Satellite Receiver

Many domestic TV receivers have an in-built satellite tuner. I’ve successfully tuned a Samsung 6000 series TV, my [pre-Android] Sony set, and a domestic set top box to receive GB3JV. I don’t however recommend any of the “FreeSat” boxes as the setup software seems to conspire against you entering direct frequencies into these products. The method used on the Samsung was to just leave it in the default “ASTRA” mode add the GB3JV frequency manually. To calculate the equivalent C-Band frequency you calculate like this:  9750 + 5150 – 3404MHz = 11496MHz. Enter this frequency into the receiver and then perform a “Channel Scan” so the receiver can detect the programme identifiers. You can also perform a “Blind Scan” if you are confident that you have a good signal being received by the LNB; perhaps you have already aligned the LNB with a Sat Meter like the “GT Media V8 Gold Satellite Finder Meter” that I purchased on Amazon. I’ll post a video in the next week showing how to set up a typical Samsung TV to receive Amateur repeaters on C-Band. Remember to turn off the 22kHz pilot tone (used for LO switching) and to set the Symbol rate to 2000kS/s on the receiver, everything else should be automatic.

It’s worth mentioning that if you have a fairly good line-of-sight from Petts Wood, you’ll most likely only need the LNB with the supplied scaler and without a dish to receive the repeater. Remember that LNB’s are designed to receive tiny signals from satellites 50,000km away, they are very sensitive and really don’t struggle receiving a terrestrial signal just a few miles away. Today I stopped the car near Biggin Hill with my LNB and Satellite meter and received a solid signal with an 85% quality rating just standing in a car park, that’s about 5 miles away.

For a rough calculation, assuming that a typical satellite is 50,000km from us we can calculate the free space path loss to be about 207dB at 11.5GHz. Given the gain of a typical 60cm dish is about 37dB, then  207-37 = 180dB effective path loss to give a good signal and that’s at Symbol rate of 27,500kS/s! If we do the same calculation and assume no gain at the receive antenna (i.e. just the LNB) then the equivalent distance is 2,000km! Obviously this is only a comparison and for terrestrial situation we have obstructions, hills, houses and the curvature of the earth, but you can see that if you have a clear line-of-sight to the transmitter, gain of the receiving antenna is hardly going to be of much concern. For fringe areas I would recommend a Sky Mini-Dish (45cm) as a great compromise between gain and ease of alignment, but start with just the LNB mounted in a good unobstructed location and see how you get on. One thing I have noticed is that the Titanium LNB does not appear very weatherproof, so I would mount it in a plastic box or cover it in a black heat-shrink tubing. I purchased some for the Tx Antenna from Hilltop Products “Heat Shrink Tubing HSP1″ which is UV resistant and does not inhibit RF transmission. 

Formula used to calculate free-space path loss (above)

Would you like to help?

Justin G8YTZ has 100% funded the repeater hardware and installation. If you’re enjoying this web site or plan to use the repeater and would like to see the repeater develop, please consider making a donation (more details coming shortly) Your money will help fund the ongoing development & maintenance costs. Alternatively, another way you can help is by using our referral link for a SIM only 30-day unlimited voice-text-data mobile phone contract with “SMARTY” (H3G). Every referral is like an £18.50 donation and this covers our internet costs for a whole month: SMARTY-GB3JV