Newbies Guide and Introduction to Understanding Lyngsat.com

In some of my previous articles, I wrote about how to navigate the lyngsat website for intermediate and advance users. In today’s post, the focus would be on doing the same for my beloved readers who are beginners or newbies into satellite tv installation. Apart from this, at times, it is tricky to interpreter the contents of lyngsat with respect to those visiting the website for the first time. Nevermind, I was once in your shoes, but now I know better and that is why I am doing this introduction to lyngsat for beginners post.

Introduction to lyngsat for beginners in Brief

The trick to match Satellite and orbital positions on Lyngsat.com

First off, to all Free-to-Air satellite TV enthusiasts and aspiring installers all over the world, lyngsat.com is a very important website to get useful information about satellite TV channels.

In simpler terms, this tutorial will teach you how lyngsat works and how to use it in a layman’s language. Suffice to say that, organizations like Globecast (which is an international Telecommunications giant from France) uses lyngsat.

To make this very comprehensive, I included at least two illustrations. When you first visit www.lyngsat.com you will be greeted with the featured image below:

Now since I live in Nigeria, I wrote this for people living specifically in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa. For residents of Europe, Africa and middle East, when searching for satellite tv information on lyngsat, the link to click on the homepage of lyngsat is the Europe link under column 73E – 0E as shown in the image above.

Notice that if you live in Sub-Sahara Africa the list of satellites receivable is mainly located in Europe and the “Atlantic” links on the Satellites row. So you can also click on the Atlantic link on the Satellites row instead of Europe. However, I will limit myself to Europe in this tutorial because that is where the bulk of the satellite receivable in sub-sahara Africa is located.

Definition of Basic Terms that will Help you Understand Lyngsat Better

Interestingly, you need a bit of your knowledge of geography. Satellite positions are named after the corresponding longitude line on earth. A Longitude is a geographic coordinate that tells us the east or west position of a point on the Earth from the prime meridian. It is an angular measurement and expressed in degrees.

All DTH(direct to home) satellite TV satellite signals are parked into an orbit that corresponds to the equator back to earth. So aiming your dish from anywhere on earth is just but aiming at a projection of the equator in the sky.

After clicking on Europe the picture below represents the exact image you will see. Notice that it now lists Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at the top.

Don’t Miss: Predetermine the size of dish/antenna to be used for any Satellite TV packages

Beginner’s Guide on how to use Lyngsat.com

Now there is a big list that starts from 72.1ºE(Intelsat 22) to 1.9ºE (BulgariaSat 1).

Example 1: How to decode satellite frequency bands on lyngsat

In addition,  there are two bands of satellite TV frequencies namely C band and Ku band. If we read to the right of the first satellite at 72.1ºE you will see the satellite name which is Intelsat 22 and right beside it,  you will see KU which means that this satellite houses both C-band and Ku-band frequencies.

Especially relevant: Definition of LNB Skew and LNB Clock Methodology for Beginners

Example 2:Using the satellite at position 52.5E Al Yah 1(Ku Band satellite)

From the image above, with the help of my arrow in the image, can you name the Dstv or Zuku/startimes satellite? I’ll give you a hint. DStv is 36ºE while Zuku is 4.9ºE.

Now, let me help you to answer my question; ” if  you can  name the Dstv or Zuku satellite?”

Most times, one satellite contains several packages. therefore my hint of 36 deg East and 4.9 deg may have confused you since under the orbital positions 36E AND 4.9E there are a number of satellites.

This is so because the satellites are close together so much so that most of them are receivable using a single satellite dish. The correct answers are Eutelsat 36B and SES5 respectively.

Now, if you click on the 36 deg East link, you will be directed to a list of all channels on the satellites Express AMU 1 and Eutelsat 36B. But if you choose to click on the individual satellite names then you will be directed to the individual list of channels and providers. For example, I opted to click only on Eutelsat 36B and I got all sorts of satellite tv packages with unique names. Among these are DStv channels as you can see in the image below.

Example 3:

Let’s now trace the orbital position 7 deg East and click on it or the satellite name Eutelsat 7C. You will notice that there are two satellites here that share the same orbital position. This is not uncommon.

Now let us go back and select the other satellite at that position which is Eutelsat 7B with receivable transponder frequency in most of Sub-Sahara Africa inclusive of Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Congo, Malawi, Zambia e.t.c. The Transponder frequency is 11356 H 45000. I bet you will see something similar to this with a few differences.

Conclusion

I think with the aid of highlighted images, I have explained the basics of lyngsat. If you want to proceed to the intermediate and advanced knowledge of lyngsat, you can read my article on how you can predetermined the dish size to use for any given satellite. A good free to air satellite receiver will handle the rest (frequency, symbol rate, FEC rate and the PIDs) provided your dish is pointed at that direction.

Furthermore, why not also check out our article strictly on all the 100% Free-to-Air channels that you can receive in Africa?