Octagon SF8008 Supreme

[el bandido]

Decent Blindscan results.

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[el bandido]

Octagon SF8008 Supreme has the ability to show signal below lock with some changes to enigma2. Other enigma2 receivers can also show signal below lock If the drivers are modified, and changes are made to enigma2. Provisions to show signal nelow lock will be available in Antenna setup as shown below.

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[el bandido]

Record a whole mux? No problem. This is why I purchased a decent Terabyte internal SSD.
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[el bandido]

The signal below lock feature is useful for knowing if a signal that you want exists on your satellite dish.

I would like to find a DVB-S2 transponder on 121w. The transponder is 4160 H, 34286 SR, 16APSK, 9/10 FEC. Around 13 db is required to lock this transponder, and I do not have that much signal. It is possible the signal power will increase on this transponder, Or I can look at fine tuning my dish system. But the signal has to come up quite a bit. I doubt the signal can be increased a lot in tuning the dish. But at least I know how strong the signal is now and I also know the signal is present on my satellite dish without connecting a signal analyzer.

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[el bandido]

The SF8008 Supreme takes a long time to blindscasn the transponders and/or scan the transponders found in blindscan. Let's take at look ande see if we can find out why.

A very recent blindscan of 121w found 3 transponders in about a minute and a half. The total time, blindscan to find the transponders and then scan the transponders found was over 8 minutes. Shown below is the scan report.

                         Scan Report 

< File created on Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 21:20:38 > 
< Satellite =  121.1W C-band Galaxy 31 >
< Receiver =  SF8008-Supreme >
< Enigma2 Image = Tnap 5.1 > 
< Kernel Version = 4.4.35 > 
< DVB Driver Date = 2024-01-04 > 
< Blindscan Frequency Range = 3625 to 4800 MHz > 
< Blindscan Symbol Rate Range = 1 to 60 Msps > 
< Blindscan Only Free Channels or Services? = False  > 
< Tuner = Tuner A: AVL62X1 (DVB-S2) >


< 'DVB-S2 16APSK 3920H / 34286 / 2/3' > Tp# 1

< 'DVB-S2 QPSK 4020V / 29999 / AUTO' > Tp# 2

< 'DVB-S2 QPSK 4152V / 8300 / AUTO' > Tp# 3< 

Blind Scan Time = 8 Min. 18 Sec.
0 Channels ( TV = 0  Radio = 0)  3 of 3 Transponders Scanned.

The three transponders that blindscan found were loaded into the receiver's satellite.xml file so they could be viewed in signal finder or Positioner setup.

Transponder 3920H Has No Lock.
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Transponder 4020V Has No Lock.
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Let's turn signal below lock Off.
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Now let's look at 4020V again.
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Two things to point out here.

(1) Having the ability to see signal values below lock shows you more of what is going on, and also shows that indeed what was found in blindscan does have a signal.
(2) The SF8008 Supreme is having problems or issues with signals that have no lock. From testing this receiver, I would go further and say the SF8008 Supreme is also having problems or issues with weak signals, but I have not yet been able to prove that.

It should not take 8 minutes to find three transponders and scan them.
The SF8008 Supreme performs poor in this area. Maybe it is something they will fix....Maybe not. We will see... But I would rather have a receiver that drags like this as compared to a receiver that rejects these transponders completely. Finding transponders is the key, or half the picture. The whole picture is to find transponders and their channels in a reasonable amount of time.

[el bandido]

The Edision MIO 4K shows the 4020V transponder at 121w as multi-stream. Looks like the SF8008 Supreme is not capable of understanding multi-stream.

Notice the time difference. Edision took a little over a minute to do the job compared to the SF8008 taking 8 minutes.

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                         Scan Report 

< File created on Saturday, February 10, 2024 at 22:58:51 > 
< Satellite =  121.1W C-band Galaxy 31 >
< Receiver = edision osmio4k >
< Enigma2 Image = Tnap 5 > 
< Kernel Version = 5.15.0 > 
< DVB Driver Date = 0211-10-3a > 
< Blindscan Frequency Range = 3625 to 4800 MHz > 
< Blindscan Symbol Rate Range = 1 to 60 Msps > 
< Blindscan Only Free Channels or Services? = False  > 
< Tuner = Tuner A: Availink AVL6261 (DVB-S2X) >


< 'DVB-S2 16APSK 4020V / 30003 / 2/3 MIS 18' > Tp# 1

< 'DVB-S2 8PSK 4125V / 7501 / 3/4' > Tp# 2
< (1)ATL HDENC18 />  1:0:1:1:A0:FFFF:955901D:0:0:0:

< 'DVB-S 4151H / 13235 / AUTO' > Tp# 3
< (2)4151H SID 0x01 />  1:0:1:1:1:0:9551037:0:0:0:< 

Blind Scan Time = 1 Min. 16 Sec.
2 Channels ( TV = 2  Radio = 0)  3 of 3 Transponders Scanned.

[el bandido]

The Edision MIO 4K, MIO4k+, and Mini 4K all use AVL6261 which is similar to the SF8008 Supreme. Modifications have been made to allow the Edision to receive transponders down to around 500 Symbol rate, so I would expect similar capability for the SF8008 Supreme. But I seriously doubt the SF8008 Supreme will ever scan or lock a transponder below a 400 symbol rate because I don't think Avalink AVL62X1 supports a symbol rate that low.

We can take a modified driver for the Edision MIO 4K and outperform the SF8008 Supreme --At least on one satellite. Currently the SF8008 Supreme can find a transponder and scan it with a symbol rate of 833. The modified Edision is good to around 500 symbol rate. A blindscan of 117w shows the difference, with the Supreme logging more transponders, but the MIO 4K logging more channels.

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The SF8008 Supreme finds the transponder with a 833 symbol rate, but misses the transponders with the 600 (6XX) symbol rates. Manual entry of any transponder with a symbol rate below 833 in my SF8008 Supreme results in No Signal. We've been lied to before and we are being lied to again in the low symbol rate area of the SF8008 Supreme.

[eastof111]

Might be a good idea to send your test findings to their email. Would be very interesting to see their response, if any.

[el bandido]

Obviously the SF8008 Supreme cannot do Multistream on 121w, but it is advertised to do exactly that on their website.

- DVB-S2X 4K UHD & Multistream (T2-MI direct input)

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Don't get me wrong. I find the SF8008 Supreme to be at least a decent FTA receiver. I just Do Not like it when things or features are advertised that either do not exist or do not work. The SF8008 Supreme seems to have a couple of those...

[EnoSat]

If there are problems with the processing of some signal, fullTS is usually required or provided for correction
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