Thanks Radiomike & yorkie98

it's so close to 19.2 now it's a shame it can't stop there & give us french & german people narrow beam

Oi!! Get your own narrow beam!!

Honestly, the cheek of some people

it is ours you have stollen it

You can have it back when we've finished with it and not before...

Don't forget you have had our 2C for quite a while now. Feel free to keep it though as it has no narrow beam footprints on it!

Don't tell the Somali's they will be hijacking them and holding us all to ransom

Let's hope it doesn't overshoot and end up over Kenya

we don't want your old 2c we want narrow beam & we want it now

The satellite is actually for 19.2, it will just stay at 28,2 for a while until the new satellites get constructed (2E, 2F, 2G). However, I don't know if it will still have a narrow beam....

Just seen a report that Channel 4 have signed an agreement for transponder space on 1N with SES for HD channels

Here is the press release:

http://en.ses.com/4233325/news/2011/8181203

I'm sure you'd rather we test it thoroughly first.


For a couple of years

Nice find on that one Night Watchman.

You beat me to it, I was about to post that. When I asked SES they said 1N is expected to be operational this month and will then issue a press release.

If you are lucky you might get a quick flash as it passes by

is it just me or has astra 1n slowed down a bit?

I think it's just you. Moving around 0.79 deg per day. Still on course to reach destination around the 20th.

Come on Channel 5, contract some capacity on 1N so we know you're serious about Freesat. It would be good if the BBC could take some space for a full set of HD channels but that seems unlikely in the current economic climate at the BBC, they're actually reducing their transponder count. It would also be good to see some movement from UKTV to acknowledge the existance of Freesat.

In effect, C5 wouldn't be contracting any 'new' capacity, only moving existing space segment capacity from their current 2A transponder to that of 1N, same with UKTV if they or anyone else decided to move to 1N.

I recently asked UKTv about the possibility of Dave on freesat and I specifically mentioned the new capacity on 1N.

Their response was that they are committed to their PayTv and have no plans to move any other channels to Freesat or freeview.

However, I suspect that I got a template reply as they mentioned the only free channels are Dave and Yesterday on Freeview and Really from August...

SgtWilko

There is no doubt that Channel 5 intend to move all their legacy definition channels to 1N.

Channel 5 HD is another matter - I have read they are currently under contract to Sky to remain encrypted. They could go down the ITV2/3/4 HD route of getting a nice slice of revenue from Sky for being part of their HD pack in the future. I believe there is no compulsion on the HD versions of PSB channels to be free.

Does this mean we will be getting More4 HD after all?

That would seem to be one of the reasons for doing it.

I really can't see why they'd hold back their UKTV channels on Freeview being on Freesat long term. As no spotbeam capacity has existed until soon, they would never have been able to put Dave, Yesterday etc FTA therefore they'd have had to go FTV. This would have given Sky a lead over Freesat (FSFS), therefore keeping them pay at present might actually be a cunning way of doing Freesat a favour longer term.

Who knows but that's an interesting theory, with VM now out of the shareholding and Scripps involved (who currently have Food Network FTA on Freesat too) they'd be supportive of the move I'm sure.

The only way we'll find out is that if both the UKTV transponders move to 1N within the next few Months. I suspect we'll see some interesting transponder moves at 28.2E come the end of October.