Intelsat 901 (was 907) at 27.5 West – Signal disruption
If you use the Satback service on Intelsat 901 (was Intelsat 907) located at 27.5 west, then you may have lost your signal yesterday.
This is not a “normal” occurrence, and is nothing to do with the biannual solar outage.
The Satback service at 27.5west is a not for public use back up for the UK Freeview (ie UK TV via a TV aerial) service. When TV masts have signal issues (such as the fire at the Bilsdale mast on 10 August 2021, affecting 600,000 homes across the North of England), then they can get a feed for the main UK TV channels via this SATBack service.
The service is encrypted and is not for public use
But can be “hacked” into using the correct satellite receiver and BISS codes. So there is always a risk that this service could either be switched off, closed down, or changing their codes, leaving users without any TV.
This SATBAck service is useful for European expats living in areas where they are unable to receive the official UK TV satellite signals from the Astra 2 group of satellites, such as southern Spains Costa de Sol.
On the evening of Monday 15th May 2023, users were reporting the service was down, reporting “no signal” messages.
It appears that this was a temporary blip in the system, as at at 1200 on Tuesday 16th May 2023, the service is back up and running. But not before many expat users of the service posting on social media and to satellite installers like myself asking what has happened.
It was always know this service could be stopped at any time, something which some installers of the system fail to mention to their clients.
But luckily this latest “No signal” issue seems to have been just a temporary drop in the service.
Intelsat 901 Sat Back Service information
I think the drop outs in the intelsat service may be something to do with Arqiva doing tests on the masts at Bilsdale
The tests, which started this week, will allow Arqiva’s engineers to check the new antennas are working correctly and delivering the expected coverage. As both the temporary tower and the new 300 metre mast will use the same frequencies, both masts can’t broadcast on the same frequency at the same time. As services are temporarily switched from mast to mast, brief interruptions and loss of signal are expected.
Not sure about there, but in Málaga area we’re losing the signal during the daytime for the last 2 or 3 days or so.
Same issue as a month ago
The issue last month was apparently them changing things on the satellite.
Only seen reports from a handful of people recently who say they are having issues, with many saying no issues and all OK.
One who said they had an issue just bumped the dish a bit, and into a better alignment, and signals increased.
So sounds like, if there has been a small drop in the signals (either from the satellite or the heat and humidity) , we are seeing people losing signals as perhaps their dishes are not as well aligned as they should be, or their LNBs need replacing..
So good to read about the issues of the past month or 6 weeks regarding drop out of signal. It’s been happening in my area(near Marbella) and driving me crazy. At any time of the day or night. The picture freezes, pixelates or just says no signal. Duration can be seconds, minutes or hours. I had the position checked after some storms and it was fine for a week or so. Now, with the extreme heat it’s happening again.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope that all the equipment lasts a bit longer.
Very frustrating, but good to know what’s actually going on!
Thank you.
Some people have been reporting issues with this service this past week or so. This is different to the issue a few weeks ago, when the signal was simply not being transmitted for a few hours.
It seems this weeks issues are that the signal levels have dropped.
This could be either down to the heat and humidity causing less signals getting through the atmosphere to your dish, or the satellite power has been reduced to save its lifespan, and thus signal levels are lower.
Will be good to know when the satellite companies decide what to do.
This evening from about 9pm the reception was stable, whereas during the morning and afternoon it was impossible to view any programmes due to the interference.
Logically, it would seem that it the constant heat that is having an adverse effect!
But the satellite company does not have to say to the general public what it is doing… especially when the satback service is NOT for public use, and there are so few other services on that satellite anyway.
Of course, getting a larger satellite dish may help getting more signal…
Miracles do happen! Since last Wednesday,there have been no more interruptions, no freezing, no messages of no signal …..and all without lifting a finger! The dish is still the same, the rest of the equipment too. Nothing has been adjusted. It’s all back to normal. Hopefully, it will last!
Regards
has anyone else lost Channel 5?
According to the channel list it is still there : https://www.lyngsat.com/Intelsat-901.html, unless something has just happened…But I dont monitor this system as much as I should, as where I am based we can get the signals from Astra 2 satellites perfectly fine.
But I know some people have been having signal issues with the satellite, people reporting small drops in signal levels.