News items for tag dvb - Koos van den Hout

Ik heb toegegeven en voor mezelf een wikipedia account aangemaakt zodat ik de ontbrekende gegevens over de RTBF en VRT dvb-t uitzendingen kon toevoegen aan de pagina over DVB-T frequenties. Het blijft me opvallen dat deze informatie zeer slecht te vinden is. Dan maar wat extra google juice voor deze informatie : DVB-T guard rate, coding, error correction for VRT / RTBF Belgium.

VLC can be a bit hairy to configure, but with some trial and error and a bit of google juice I found the right playlist file to instantly play radio2 from multiplex 1:

$ cat digitennemux1-radio2.vlc 
#EXTM3U
#EXTVLCOPT:dvb-adapter=0
#EXTVLCOPT:dvb-frequency=706000000
#EXTVLCOPT:program=1113
dvb://

Use with vlc --m3u-extvlcopt digitennemux1-radio2.vlc and enjoy the Top2000. Without the --m3u-extvlcopt vlc finds those commands scary.

Onderweg op de fiets zie ik nogal eens oude tv antennes op daken staan die duidelijk niet meer gebruikt worden (allemaal horizontaal gepolariseerd, terwijl alle dvb-t zenders in nederland verticaal gepolariseerd zijn). Misschien dat er daar nog eens eentje tussenzit die ik voor weinig kan meenemen voor meer DX experimenten. Of iemand moet een antenne weten? UHF / VHF band III.

Als je een aanbieding als World's Smallest Portable DVB-T Digital TV (2.4 Inch) ziet vraag je je af waarom KPN mobiele tv of Callmax / Mobiele TV Nederland uberhaupt nog zo moeilijk doen met een apart 'mobiel TV' aanbod via andere technische standaarden (KPN mobiel dvb-h, callmax en mobiele tv t-dmb). Mobiele TV is door internationale aanbieders van apparatuur allang gedefinieerd als kleine DVB-T ontvangers die FTA DVB-T kanalen ontvangen. Nu nog deze wijsheid bij de Nederlandse contentaanbieders en bij de frequentieverdelers.

Seeing another set of DVB-T DX pages by Hans makes me think I should have a look at parsing the vdr files from w_scan into an automatic DX logbook, noting when muxes are first found. I collected the output files since 3 January 2009. I started doing that after I saw the WDR program at 674 MHz so that was not logged in that format. Documentation: VDR file format.

Gisteren gingen we (lig) fietsen en bij het plannen van de route namen we een item van mijn foto wensenlijst mee: we zijn langs de Gerbrandytoren gefietst, bekend als zendmast Lopik te IJsselstein.

Gelukt.. Zendmast lopik te IJsselstein / Gerbrandytoren

Meer informatie over de Gerbrandy Toren: De Gerbrandytoren te IJsselstein Gerbrandytoren - Wikipedia Nederland
De zendmast is natuurlijk bekend van de rol als de grootste kerstboom van de wereld als aan het eind van het jaar de tuidraden voorzien worden van lampjes. Altijd in TV-gidsen gestaan als 'Lopik' maar door een gemeentelijke herindeling ooit van Lopik naar IJsselstein 'verhuisd'.
Ook leuk is om op te graven in de geschiedenis hoe hard Nederland 1, 2 en 3 ooit over ons uitgestrooid werden: het Nozema TV frequentieoverzicht uit 2002 geeft 100, 1000 en 1000 kiloWatt ERP (!). Dat gaat nu met 10 kiloWatt per DVB-T multiplex.

In the dvb-t scan yesterday evening late:

TV Gelderland :642000:I999B8C999D999M999T999G999Y999:T:27500:7041:7042:7043:0:1104:0:0:0
Radio Gelderland:642000:I999B8C999D999M999T999G999Y999:T:27500:0:7112:0:0:1111:0:0:0

Part of Digitenne bouquet multiplex 1 at 642 MHz. The transmitter could be Oss or Veenendaal given distance and transmitter power. I only noticed it yesterday but now I see it in the w_scan output a few times. The reception is not error-free (I had to wait a bit for a chance of a screenshot with not too much distortion).

No extra foreign channels from the dvb-t scans.. yet. I keep an eye on the tropospheric ducting forecast for northwest europe. I also updated the DVB experiments page with the DX results.

Bouquet or Multiplex? It is described as bouquet at DVB-T zenders Digitenne Nederland but the mpeg standard term for multiple program streams in one transport stream is 'multiplex'. Bouquet in DVB terms means a set of 'programs' logically grouped together.

I caught the Omroep Brabant logo last night: after dark reception is a lot better! The Digitenne B1 bouquet at 546 MHz and Digitenne B2 at 786 Mhz scanned fine.

I took some pictures of the log-periodical antenna which improved the reception of dvb-t stations in the area and updated the DVB experiments page with them. A big thankyou to Alan Yates for doing the calculations for the UHF log-periodic antenna which has been built by several other hobbyists.

Het artikel Regering dreigt digitale (ether)televisiemarkt te verstikken van David de Jong geeft aardig weer wat er mis is met de televisiemarkt in Nederland. Ik heb er zelf mijn commentaar nog aan toegevoegd dat ik veel meer zie in mogelijkheden voor free-to-air lokale omroepen via dvb-t dan voor dvb-h (mobiel TV) wat eigenlijk voor een deel een kopie is van wat er al via dvb-t gedistribueerd wordt. Ja, Nederland is een land met heel veel buren die ook iets willen en heeft dus maar heel beperkte frequentieruimte. Maar dat alleen maar gebruiken voor mobiele telefonie is jammer.

The log-periodical antenna has effect: a number of signals show workable data in w_scan. New:

490 MHz - Digitenne B3 from probably Lelystad
514 MHz - Digitenne B1 from Lelystad, including TV Flevoland / Radio Flevoland
682 MHz - Digitenne B4 from Lelystad

And with aiming and trying (3 windows with dvbsnoop for pid 0x00, 0x10 and 0x11, one window with tzap reading the signal strength):

546 MHz - Digitenne B1 including Omroep Brabant, source unknown

Updated the DVB experiments page with the latest findings. Time to take pictures of the antenna I built.

First success with the self-built antenna: I tried it in the 'home office', approximately 5 meters above ground, north-east direction. With the log-periodical antenna pointing outside through the window I was able to receive Digitenne bouquet 1 at 618 MHz UHF, which includes radio and TV Noord-Holland.

Several times when I scanned for DVB-T signals in the UHF band from home I saw some very weak signals on several frequencies. Too weak to make out anything other than that the signals are very probably DVB-T as the radio scanner does not pick up a thing there (for as far as I know FM receivers cannot pick up QAM signals). The DVB-T receiver I use has a small external antenna (simple half-wavelength wire), so to get more signals I will have to use a good antenna. Buying something is expensive and it is to me much more interesting to build something myself from scrap materials. Most promising seems to be Alan Yates' Laboratory - UHF Log-Periodic Array so I'm browsing my scrap electronics for materials to build this.

The empty slot I found before in a dvb service scan where BemBem used to be is now:

0x0000 0x0072: pmt_pid 0x0474 Digitenne -- 100%NL (running, scrambled)

As reported by radio-tv-nederland.nl.

So, the US is now also switched over to digital television. I found a nice compilation of analog shutdowns on youtube: 2009 DTV Transition: Analog TV Shutoffs in Los Angeles As They Happened and one particular WABCEndsAnalogShrtVrs061209 from ABC channel 7 New York. Some stations made a nice item out of it with a countdown and some just dropped their analog signal in the middle of a program. One big thing in the US is a lot of TV channels use their channel number in their branding (like ABC 7 for WABC above) and the US brother of DVB-T named ATSC has provisions for channels 'named' with a number which is not equal to the VHF/UHF frequency.
Update: Journal entry describing the end of analog tv broadcast: uneventful

I found this funny in a dvb service scan in Utrecht:

0x0000 0x0072: pmt_pid 0x0474 Digitenne -- Geen service (running, scrambled)

Translation: Geen service = no service. But it is running and scrambled. It is the old slot of 'BemBem' kids radio which seems to have stopped.

Oh and in Paris I did bring my laptop and the dvb-t stick. Tried a scan, and found 5 bouquets with in total 29 services (18 free-to-air). Some services with 'HD' in the name, which mplayer could not play. I also saw some multilingual services. Free-to-air services seen by w_scan: Canal 21(Multi-7), IDF1(Multi-7), NRJ Paris(Multi-7), CAP 24(Multi-7), M6(MULTI4), W9(MULTI4), NT1(MULTI4), PARIS PREMIERE(MULTI4), ARTE HD(Multi 4), CANAL+(CNH), TPS STAR(CNH), CANAL+ SPORT(CNH), TF1 HD(MR5), France 2 HD(MR5), M6HD(MR5), TF1(SMR6), NRJ12(SMR6), TMC(SMR6).

Another scan of the vhf/uhf spectrum in Brunssum, and this time I got lucky and found the VRT dvb-t bouquet at 506 MHz (UHF 25) from Genk. With scan:

scanning /usr/share/doc/dvb-utils/examples/scan/dvb-t/be-Genk
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
initial transponder 506000000 0 1 9 3 1 3 0
>>> tune to: 506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE
0x0000 0x1090: pmt_pid 0x1090 VRT -- Klara continuo (running)
0x0000 0x1080: pmt_pid 0x1080 VRT -- MNM (running)
0x0000 0x1070: pmt_pid 0x1070 VRT -- Studio Brussel (running)
0x0000 0x1060: pmt_pid 0x1060 VRT -- Klara (running)
0x0000 0x1040: pmt_pid 0x1040 VRT -- Radio 1 (running)
0x0000 0x1050: pmt_pid 0x1050 VRT -- Radio 2 (running)
0x0000 0x1010: pmt_pid 0x1010 VRT -- EEN (running)
0x0000 0x1020: pmt_pid 0x1020 VRT -- Canvas/Ketnet (running)
0x0000 0x10b0: pmt_pid 0x10b0 VRT -- Canvas+/Ketnet+ (running)
0x0000 0x10a0: pmt_pid 0x10a0 VRT -- Sporza (running)
0x0000 0x10c0: pmt_pid 0x10c0 VRT -- Nieuws+ (running)
0x0000 0x10d0: pmt_pid 0x10d0 VRT -- MNM hits (running)
Network Name 'VRTmux1'
>>> tune to: 482000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE
WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!
>>> tune to: 482000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_1_2:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE (tuning failed)
WARNING: >>> tuning failed!!!
dumping lists (12 services)
Klara continuo:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4241:4240
MNM:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4225:4224
Studio Brussel:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4209:4208
Klara:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4193:4192
Radio 1:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4161:4160
Radio 2:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4177:4176
EEN:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4113:4114:4112
Canvas/Ketnet:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4129:4130:4128
Canvas+/Ketnet+:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:4273:4274:4272
Sporza:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4257:4256
Nieuws+:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4289:4288
MNM hits:506000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_1_2:FEC_AUTO:QAM_64:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:0:4305:4304

In the evening reception was ok, during the day lots of errors. I guess an outside antenna with preamp could make this usable. I updated the DVB experiments with the new data. This brings the total listing of free-to-air services found in this place to 24 television and 24 radio stations. The tuning to 482 MHz is because that is the other VRTmux1 frequency.

Interesting how conditions change, compared to the DX scan from yesterday Digitenne Bouquet 1 at 618 MHz (with Radio/TV Noord-Holland) is fine again and Mobile TV at 658 MHz is fine. Yesterday bouquet 1 had a very high error rate and 658 MHz did not show up at all. All with just w_scan. I think the location of the antenna is the key to these differences, centimeters movement make a lot of difference for certain frequencies.

Interesting DX conditions: A dvb-t scan using w_scan gives me Mobile-TV at 570 MHz and Digitenne bouquet 2 at 826 MHz easy (no tzap and dvbsnoop, just a simple scan).