Is this drop-off in signal strength on certain transponders a sign the satellite is dying, or could it be controllable if those tp's are sending few/if-any channels?

Transponders can lose power output with time. Other issues are reduced power from solar panels due to damage and reduced battery capacity which affects the amount of power available when the satellite is in Earth's shadow. There have been cases where up to half the transponders were deactivated due to component failure or to extend the usable life of a satellite.

And if nothing is being sent from 82W in coming months, can I gain anything by repointing my 20" dish with DPP quad LNB slightly to optimize 91W signal?

In that case, it may be be better to use a 24" dish with a legacy LNB. Depending on the receiver, DPP equipment may not be necessary for just one satellite.

 

Transponders can lose power output with time. Other issues are reduced power from solar panels due to damage and reduced battery capacity which affects the amount of power available when the satellite is in Earth's shadow. There have been cases where up to half the transponders were deactivated due to component failure or to extend the usable life of a satellite.

In that case, it may be be better to use a 24" dish with a legacy LNB. Depending on the receiver, DPP equipment may not be necessary for just one satellite.

I have the standard 20" dish with DPP quad, and it feeds a single receiver - a 9241. A single line of coax runs from the dish thru the house to the receiver location, then a DPP separator feeds both inputs on the 9241. I'm unlikely to upgrade the receiver, but have a spare 9242 in storage in case the 9241 dies. I thought those units required DPP input, but its been many years since I messed with the equipment, so could be mistaken. I also have some legacy LNB's and SW21 switches that could take the two outputs of a single LNB onto a single coax to the receiver - will the separator still work in that case?

 

New info for this thread on the April bill from Bell:

Starting June 1, 2025, On Demand content and Pay-per-view movies will no longer be available through your Satellite TV receiver(s). Don't worry, On Demand content is still available through the Fibe TV app and you can still enjoy Pay-per-view live events. Also note that the way recordings can be managed is changing. You'll just need to manage them through your PVR and the Fibe TV app separately. For more info on the Fibe TV app, please visit bell.ca/apptv

I guess this further reduces the required number of transponders to send the current service, and eliminates many HD-PPV-movie channels that now don't need to be moved to Nimiq-6.

 

Bumping this one up...

I posted a longer message on the Installation Forum - but relevant to here: I'm now seeing no signal on all transponders from 82W except for tp21, which still gives a signal strength of ~ 65. Are others seeing similar? (Can someone with good line-of-sight check? ) Partly curious as to whether all the other transponders have died or shut down in the last couple of months - but also as I used signal strengths on 82W for pointing the dish!

Thanks!

 

I can confirm that only tp21 is active on my unit with 90 power.

 

Several people have reported similar issues at Bell.ca Sat 82 transponder issue

It seems the channels are being transferred to 91 and 82 will be out of service.

 

Several people have reported similar issues at Bell.ca Sat 82 transponder issue

It seems the channels are being transferred to 91 and 82 will be out of service.

Thanks for the info

 

Having issues with low signal strength on 91W, thread here:

https://www.digitalhome.ca/threads/getting-a-better-signal-through-trees.296717/?post_id=3179966&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-3179966

Figured I'd ask here too, can someone with a clear view of 91W confirm their signal strength on TP11?

Thanks.

 

I get a signal strength of 75 on all 91W transponders. My dish hasn't been tweaked in years, so maybe I could get higher. But TP11 has exactly the same signal strength as all the other transponders.

 

Mine are also at 75% percent as well, well see maybe i can bump it up as well

 

Up to 97 from 75 with a bit of tilting the dish up.

 

Nimiq-4 at 82W shutdown by October, 2025

I posted about Nimiq-4 at 82W a couple of years ago. In summary, Bell's initial 15-year contract with Telesat expired in October 2023. Bell renewed for 2 years with an option for a third.

I checked Telesat's Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results Call and they confirmed "that satellite has about another year plus of life on it, but it's not our expectation that Bell will renew when that contract comes up in October. They'll consolidate their activities on Nimiq 6."

 

It looks like there's only four transponders left on 82W: 15, 16, 20 & 21.

Any way to see/find out what channels are on those?

 

What signal do you get on those 4 tps? This weekend I could see 15 and 21 (signal level 48 and 68 respectively), but nothing on 16,20. Mind you, I'm the shoulder of the satellite footprint as well as having minor tree issues in summer for my line of sight with 82W. (As opposed to major tree issues with 91W - seems we have that in common! )

I'd be surprised if there's any channels left on those tps. I thought everything had migrated to 91W earlier this year. Certainly from my limited selection of channels (digital starter, US networks, TSNs and Sportsnet's) everything I've checked has been coming from 91W for some months.

 

This might give you a clue which channels to check, but it's not up to date: https://www.lyngsat.com/packages/Bell-TV-82W.html

 

Thanks, saw that but it's quite out of date, doesn't even show transponder 15.

There's also this but it too is out of date, shows mostly previous SD channels.

Satbeams - World Of Satellites at your fingertips

Satbeams - Satellite footprints, news and charts

www.satbeams.com

 

No signal from 82 on my system

 

Same here. I checked every transponder.

 

With the loss of signal on 82, 91 still has allot of SD channels left, in the neighbourhood of around 50 to 75. Clear up some of those channels and Bell would have some space for other channels

 

I doubt Bell has much excess capacity, but I'm not a satellite subscriber, so I can't check. It might help to read post 1 of this thread.

I use this site occasionally - https://channel.bell.ca/

It lists the unique satellite channels. My guess is that if you see any duplicates, they are actually remapped to the same transponder.

 

Bell could also improve picture quality, which really went downhill when it increased compression and switched to 720p for most HD channels.

 

This what I noticed since the loss of 82 and everything moved over to 91, so maybe hang onto those SD channels

• Pixelation and Jitter on HD Channels: particularly during live sports or action-heavy scenes, stuttering, and a "jittery" or choppy picture. possible sign of aggressive video compression.
• Worse Picture Quality on HD than SD: despite their lower resolution,SD appear "cleaner" and more stable than their HD counterparts.

 

Thanks, for now we are just watching the SD channels and see how that goes, they appear to be OK and a bit better than the HD for now. I have 100% signal strength on some of the CTV channels in HD so strength is good. Thanks for the link. I have a 9400 receiver which is 9 years old, so maybe it is showing signs of issues as well.

 

Yes, it was the original station resolution which was typically 1080i and it was the MPEG2 signal without much, if any, compression. The picture was much better. The irony was that the 6000 receivers used at the time had a poor quality graphics overlay chip that caused a lot of picture degradation. I had an adapter called a 169time that bypassed the graphics chip to delivered the original picture and it was very good. Then the picture quality started to deteriorate as compression was used to add extra HD channels. Just before Bell switched to MPEG4 they lost half a satellite and adopted a new scheme called adaptive compression which resulted in a lot of issues similar to those in post #25. 720p was adopted a bit later.

It's starting to look like Bell Satellite is slowly being switched to a combined IPTV and satellite service. I've even considered subscribing again and using the Bell Fibe app to watch TV. It wouldn't be much different than what I have now, probably more reliable on the IPTV side but it would cost more.

 

Yes, it was the original station resolution which was typically 1080i ...

Outside of OD, Bell has been 720P since I created the following FAQ 17+ years ago.

FAQ - HDTV & 4K Formats

Updated 2023. 9,521 Previous views. HDTV Formats This question comes up frequently, so here are the formats that the various television stations "broadcast". The term broadcast is in quotes because many of these channels don't broadcast at all, but they send signals to service providers (or...

www.digitalhome.ca

 

I switched out my HDMI cable to a monster cable, to be honest not allot of difference between SD and HD

 

Nimiq 4 at 82 is now completely gone from receivers when you do a check switch (6,1,1) or System Info (6,1,3). All channels is now only on Nimiq 6 at 91

 

That will make dish aiming much easier. You only need to get 91 now.

 

There are approx 100 SD channels still see DR Dave link above Channel

 

How many channels are actually still SD on Bell. It's hard to get TV Listings with Zap2it being gone.

 

It's hard to get TV Listings with Zap2it being gone.

You can still get the same TV Listings using a direct Gracenote link instead of Zap2it. You can even use the same user id and password.

https://tvlistings.gracenote.com/grid-affiliates.html?aid=cha

Gracenote/Zap2it didn't always delete old channels. Plus I think I read that some SD channels were upgraded to HD in place, without assigning a new channel number. Other SD channels may be remapped to the HD channel.

 

So is 82 Sat totally dead? If so what are Bell's options? It not like they can launch a sat next week? From my understanding it takes 4+ years from building to launch?

 

As I posted about 3 weeks ago, Nimiq-4 at 82W has at least a year of useful life left. Telesat said that Bell decided not to renew their contract for another year and to consolidate their activities on Nimiq-6.

Nimiq-6 was launched in 2012 and could provide service until 2030 if it also lasts 18 years.

I don't see Bell (or Rogers) paying to launch another geosynchronous satellite in 2030 to provide satellite TV until 2045. Linear TV will be long dead by 2045.

Bell has already introduced their satellite TV customers to cloud PVR recording (similar to the new Fibe TV) and will probably transition them completely once Nimiq-6 reaches end-of-life.

 

so what is the problem with 82 being shut down? is it negatively affecting your service? very likely not. if your service continues to work then what is the problem?

 

From other posts, it sounds like HD channel quality has gone down a lot and the SD channels that were supposed to be shut down to make enough space are still there. I went through the same thing about 15 years ago when Bell had satellite issues. It's not pretty. At that time, Bell leased an unused, retired satellite parked in orbit to compensate for the partially failed satellite.

@MCIBUS, there is a good chance that Bell Satellite will be shut down in 4 years. The same goes for Shaw Direct. The answer is to use fibre or cable. For those that cannot do that, LOS satellites will likely be usable for TV and streaming by then.

 

I have Fibe TV, I ws just curios as to what happen tio 82 and what Bell was going to do?