107 / 164 
10
11
12
13
14
15
107
TELE-audiovision.com—
05-06/2015 —
TELE-audiovision International —
全球发行量最大的数字电视杂志
need to take care of is ac-
tivating the GPS function of
your smartphone or tablet,
otherwise the device won’t
be able to determine the
current location.
With the help of the foot-
print function the Satbeams
mobile app can display the
footprints of all direct-to-
home (DTH) satellites world-
wide on a virtual globe. We
looked very closely at the
accuracy of individual beams
coming from one and the
same satellite. After all,
there’s a huge difference be-
tween channels transmitted
from ASTRA 2A and ASTRA
2F, for example, that need
to be received in Central Eu-
rope, even though both sat-
ellites carry British TV and
radio stations from 28.2°
East. While in one case an 80
cm antenna will do, the other
beam requires an antenna
diameter of at least three
meters in Central Europe. As
hoped, the app takes care of
those subtle (and not so sub-
tle) differences and precisely
indicates all relevant infor-
mation. Looking for some ic-
ing on the cake? Well, there
you go: Apart from a range
of technical details, the app
also immediately calculates
the right azimuth and eleva-
tion parameters for all satel-
lites.
We found it very useful
that more than one footprint
can be shown at the same
time, and the range of cus-
tomisation options for the
virtual globe is almost unlim-
ited. This way you may opt to
add borders between states,
a cloud cover between the
sky and the surface or night-
time view, if that’s to your
liking. One thing we found a
little quirky but interesting
nonetheless is that you can
change the way countries
are presented according to
their respective population
densities. The same level
of detail is available for the
footprints as well, which can
be presented with or without
full colouring, scaling lines,
etc. The entire screen con-
10. Presentation of a satellite’s footprint
without scaling rings
11. Presentation of a satellite’s footprint
with scaling rings but without colouring
12. You can even have the population
density indicated (the darker the red colour,
the higher the population density)
13. Simultaneous presentation of two
different footprints
14. Each satellite comes with a wide range
of technical details that can be called up at
any time
15. Settings menu of the app