On first impressions the Mediastar HDX9100 looks to be quite a nice fully featured satellite receiver that has had some time spent on the design and development of the receiver functions, something that isn’t to common these days as receiver manufactures and reseller are driven to get the new models out selling ASAP with out some of the testing you might expect.
The first thing I noticed about the Mediastar receiver is that the channel name is displayed on the front panel of receiver a feature I haven’t seen since …

The first service cutover from Asiasat 2 to Asiasat 5 was successfully conducted on September 17 at 22.15 UTC. All services are planned to be transferred by the end of September. Already many viewers are reporting increased signal levels from this new satellite.
Asiasat 5 is a Space systems Loral SSL1300 satellite with 26 C band and 14 Ku band transponders. The C band footprint covers 53 countries from Russia to New Zealand and from Japan to the Middle East and parts of Africa.
This new satellite offers 2 high …

Hot on the heels of Senator Conroy’s announcement last month that there would be no 4th free to air television network for Australia, comes the news that Telstra is believed to be planning the release of a PVR called “T Box” by the end of the year.
According to a news item on the Big Pond News website, this strategy would allow Telstra to offer its own (Big Pond) content, which it already does to Telstra broadband customers, with no bandwidth charges.
It would also place Telstra in direct competition with both …

Japan’s indigenous H-2B rocket successfully launched the HTV cargo transporter on September 11 for a week long voyage to the ISS. The launch vehicle flew smoothly, and at 15 minutes and 6 seconds after liftoff, the separation of the HTV Demonstration Flight was confirmed.The HTV was designed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to transport supplies to the ISS. On this demonstration mission, the HTV is carrying 4.5 tonnes of food and supplies, and was scheduled to dock with the ISS on September 18. Launched from the JAXA Space …

Palapa D1, owned by Indonesian telco Indosat, suffered a third stage launcher mishap on August 31 during the launch sequence from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China’s Sichuan province. Consequently the satellite was placed in an unusable orbit.
Failure occurred 20 minutes after liftoff as the third stage was scheduled to ignite for the second burn of the launch. The 13 metre long third stage, powered by two YF-75 liquid hydrogen and oxygen engines capable of generating 35,000 pounds of thrust used on most long March launchers has never failed …