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 …

Hot on the heels of last month’s review of Emitor’s G2 Microlook, is their offering for terrestrial TV installers, the Digiair Pro. This is an affordable, hand held meter capable of spectrum display, BER, MER and SNR measurements.
The Av–Comm version comes with Australian and New Zealand analogue and digital channel plans loaded into the memory, making it a simple matter to check levels on any service on an allocated channel.
The spectrum display covers 45 to 862 MHz, and signals can easily be observed on the 60mm LCD display. …

South Korea’s indigenous KSLV-1 launcher lifted off from the Naro Space Centre on August 25, but failed to launch a scientific observation satellite into low Earth orbit.
A previous launch attempt several days earlier was halted when “abnormal data’ was observed during the automated launch sequence.
The launch had been postponed on five previous occasions: — the end of 2007, end of 2008, the second quarter of 2009 and July 30 and August 11, due to Russia’s refusal to transfer technology or problems in acquiring components.
The KSLV-1 launcher is a mix of …

Well known Swedish manufacturer  Emitor, recently send us one of their Microlook G2 units for evaluation.
Here’s what we found………..
The first sentence of the User Manual says it all..”This unit is made for exact alignment of satellite dishes” and that is exactly what it delivers. Our experience with Emitor products goes back ten years and we previously reviewed the Satlook Micro several years ago.
Since that time Emitor have striven to improve the product and the G2 represents the pinnacle of that development according to John Lindberg leader of the development team. …

The Autumnal equinox is almost here and solar outages will occur from September 2 to 13.
Easterly satellites such as Inteslat 8 will be affected around 9.00 AEST for periods of up to 15 minutes.
Westerly satellites such as Thaicom 5 will be affected at around 3pm AEST.
To calculate the precise outage time for your location, go the the ionispheric prediction service  on line calculator at:
http://www.ips.gov.au/Satellite/3/1
Satellite systems using auto trackers should have the tracker disabled during periods of solar outage to ensure the dish does not lock to the Sun !!

Optus has announced that due to a court suppression order issued by the Supreme Court of Australia regarding broadcaster coverage of impending proceedings of a particular court case in Victoria, the ABC and any other media organization with national satellite programming coverage, has been forced to restrict the availability of their national service to viewers. What this means, for the duration of the suppression order, is that Aurora viewers will only be able to watch the ABC service applicable to the state in which they reside.

TV hardware specialists Electrocraft have recently announced the release of a new UHF/VHF programmable channel pass filter system that features double SAW filtering to produce outstanding adjacent channel processing. Made in Spain by ALCAD, the system comprises individual channel pass filters, a mounting rack and launch amplifier.
The rack is capable of accepting 10 active filter modules that can be individually programmed. In this way a simple and cost effective head-end can be assembeldbled with outstanding performance. The main advantage of the use of double SAW filters is the amazing 70dB …

Italian manufacturer Promax recently released the DT 504 quadruple input DVB-T modulator.
This unit allows 4 individual AV sources to be combined into one DVB-T channel (4 virtual channels).
The four onboard MPEG2 encoders mean that multiple satellite TV programs could be combined with digital terrestrial channels, allocated their own UHF channel, and displayed on a DVB-T receiver.
As many hotels are now replacing their standard analogue TV sets with plasma or LCD displays having an integral DVB-T tuner, this allows  other services such as satellite or movie channels to be integrated into …

 
Well known satellite pioneering company Opac, located at Ingleside on the outskirts of Sydney, has been involved in the supply of satellite and terrestrial receivers for some years, and is responsible for the  Mediastar brand.
The company has just released a new model combination satellite/terrestrial PVR HD receiver capable of using an external USB hard drive, aimed at the satellite enthusiast.

 
Labelled  the Mediastar HDX9100 PVR, the unit has a dual input satellite tuner capable of receiving HD signals (DVB-S2) and twin CI slots for smartcard use. Most importantly for  terrestrial viewers, …