TELE INTERNATIONAL - TELE-satellite International Magazine

most of which are already programmed with
the major channels on all satellites between
42° east and 34.5° west.
On the front of the receiver, a large fourdigit
display indicated the current channel
id. When programming the receiver, it indicates
the current values.
Also positioned on the front are the emergency
operation buttons. Since the receiver
is rather small, it features only two Scart
connectors. One for your television set and
one for a VCR or decoder. Two phono jacks
supply your stereo with the proper stereo
sound. Although a mono block LNB in fact
consists of two LNBs in one housing, still
only one cable is used to connect. A rather
remarkable specification is the reception
frequency range which stretches from 800
up to 2250MHz. This is a rather large spectrum.
Terrestrial signals can be combined
with that of the receiver. Unfortunately,
Amstrad decided to use an old-fashioned
adjusting screw for setting the appropriate
output channel.
The remote control is much bigger than
we expected. It has 16 keys and a numeric
keypad. In daily use however, you will only
use five of them. The rest is used for programming
stuff like 22kHz, satellite A or B,
sleep timer or other programming facilities.
In practice
Putting the parts of the dish together is
very easy. However, we missed some information
on the appropriate elevation angle.
But since we are dealing with a smaller
dish, this also means the opening angle is
much larger, making it therefore easier to
find a signal using the famous trial and error
method.
For central Europe, put the dish in a
more or less 11 o’clock position and the
first signals should be received. Amstrad
assumes you will use a universal LNB with
this receiver and therefore the values are
pre-programmed, but these can of course
be changed to 10.0, 10.75, 11.47 and
5.15 (for C-band reception). But since we
are talking about a complete kit here, why
should we be willing to change these values?
In fact, this is the only programming
you would have to do prior to start using
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the receiver. Although the receiver can be
reprogrammed according to your personal
needs, there is no need to do so when using
it in conjunction with the supplied dish and
mono block LNBF. DiSEqC (v1.0) takes care
of the selection of the right satellite. The
SAT 401 doesn’t feature an on-screen display
but the front display makes programming
real child’s play.
For every channel, the video level can
be set in two steps. Audio frequencies are
simply chosen from a prefixed list and for
de-emphases you can choose from 50µs,
75µs, J17 or Stereo (Panda compatible).
Although not really being Wegener Panda,
the system performs well and offers a crystal
clear sound. The quality on audio level also
shows on the video side of the receiver.
A fine tool is the offset function on the
remote control. It enables you to fine-tune
the audio and video frequency. Some LNBS
tend to get out of their real spectrum and
can be easily corrected this way. For video
shifts up to ±10MHz can be corrected. For
audio this is ±50kHz.
For those of you always falling asleep
when watching the television late at night,
another fine feature will help you: the sleep
timer. It turns off the receiver after a period
between 30 and 120 minutes. A parental
lock prevents your child being shown all
the wrong things this world has to offer.
The included mono block LNBF is identical
to the MIT we tested in the previous TSI.
Besides the well-designed housing it is also
easy to install. All fine adjustments are not
needed anymore since its construction takes
care of this. It is really plug-and-play; install
the dish, connect the cable, align the dish
and that’s it.
Conclusion
For those looking for a good but costeffective
way to start with satellite reception,
this complete kit of Amstrad is a good
choice. Because of the dual LNB in one
mono block it offers not only the channels
from Astra but Hotbird as well, or any other
satellite combination where the separation
is about 6 degrees. The included manual is
your guide in times of trouble and therefore
offers a troubleshooting section. Because
the power supply is in fact oversized for this
receiver, it never gets overheated. It accepts
only 230 volts, which is the reason why
there’s no Global Approval for this receiver.
Additional phono jacks for video output
would be nice.
Clear video Klares Video
C-band
compatible
C-Band-
kompatibel
SAT 401/SDU 80
Manufacturer/distributor
Amstrad GmbH, D-60437 Frankfurt/M
Information fax
069-95007195
LNB input rate
800-2250 MHz
Channel memory
400
LNB inputs
1
Threshold
< 6dB (static)
Bandwidth
27 MHz
C-band compatible
yes
video level
2 steps
DiSEqC
V1.0
22 kHz
yes
14/18 Volt
yes
Audio reception
5.0-9.0 MHz
De-emphases
50/75 µs, J17 and stereo (adaptive)
Global offset fine-tune
for both audio and video
Stereo audio out
yes, phono (RCA)
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