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TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Leading Digital TV Industry Publication

— 03-04/2015

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TELE-audiovision.com

DVB-S

Measurement

65. The same measurement

screen, but with a DVB-S trans-

ponder this time.

66. Starting from the main mea-

surement screen you can tap on

the channel information field to

call up all available channels.

From here you can then select

any of those channels.

67. During everyday use all

you’ll ever need is the main

measurement screen that

already shows all you need to

know about the locked trans-

ponder at a glance. Gone are

the days when you had to

switch back and forth between

numerous different views on

a tiny LCD screen that only

showed you some strange

abbreviations and symbols

whose actual meaning you had

to look up and memorise first.

The Spaun Sparos 711 gives

you a single huge screen that

contains the whole lot.

68. Starting from the main mea-

surement screen you can tap

one of the four quadrants of the

screen to get to the correspon-

ding sub-menu. Seen here is the

detailed measurement screen

once again.

69. If you tap on the live video,

on the other hand, this section

will be enlarged to full-screen

mode. It is here that you can

access additional functions.

Note the information in the

upper left corner: Channel

name, resolution and CODEC

used are displayed here.

70. The SERV button allows you

to change channels within the

active transponder.

71. The NIT button calls up all

available network data. As you

can see here, we are currently

receiving HISPASAT 30.0° W.

72. Tapping on the spectrum in

the main measurement screen

activates spectrum analyser

mode.

73. The span can be set in steps

of 1 MHz all the way to 1250

MHz. No matter which span

is selected, the spectrum is

always real-time.

74. We were impressed with the

details of the spectrum, even

when we selected a span of 500

Mhz.

75. When the spectrum is used

in expert mode you’re offered

the MODE button that allows

setting up the spectrum analy-

ser with a number of additional

operating modes.

76. For instance, you can select

normal or fast mode. Of course,

the RBW filter needs to be

adjusted accordingly, among

other things, but you as an

installer don’t need to spare

a single thought on that. The

meter will take care of it, all

you need to know is whether

you prefer a fast spectrum with

slightly reduced resolution or a

smaller spectrum with optimum

resolution.

77. The same spectrum with

a 500 MHz span in fast mode.

While the resolution is slightly

lower, the real-time spectrum

reacts extremely quickly to all

signal changes. This is ideal for

satellite antenna alignment.

78. HISPASAT transmits many

feeds, and in the spectrum we

noticed a transponder with a

particularly small bandwidth.

Even though we were not in

possession of all the required

reception parameters the Auto

Lock function of the Spaun

Sparos 711 nonetheless locked

the signal quickly and reliably.

79. The meter took less than five

seconds to find out the cor-

rect reception parameters and

thanks to the genuinely low-

threshold tuner the signal was

locked without further ado.

the edited lists are imported

back by the meter. There is no

need to actually hook up the

meter itself to the PC.

But is this process really

so much more efficient? In a

word: yes! For starters, you

don’t need any drivers for the

PC to recognise the meter. And

gone are those driver prob-

lems that invariably seem to

pop up, especially when you’re

on a tight schedule. In addi-

tion, several Spaun meters

can be set up identically with

the same USB stick, without

each and every one of them

having to be brought to the

office for programming with a

PC. It is even possible to save

different configurations onto

different USB sticks. This way

it is possible to keep a number

of useful set-ups for specific

jobs, which might come in ex-

tremely handy if your installa-

tion jobs involve systems with

widely differing specifics. Or

you may devise a meter setup

that is easy to use even for

laypersons: In such a case,

the meter could only include

a protocol list, and the person

operating the meter attaches

the antenna cable, taps on the

MEASUREMENT MAP button

in the main menu, waits un-

til all transponders have been

evaluated, taps on the DISK

symbol and voilà – mission

accomplished! An expert can

later check out all collected

data at the office.

Another thing we highly ap-

preciated: There’s no false

sense of secrecy in the way