Enigma2 and ku blindscan in NA

I thought about messing with the satellites.xml file, but that is a bit more than I want to get into right now. It may be something I explore later.

As for the satellites.xml file getting too big? That would take a very long time, especially if you delete all the satellites in the .xml that you cannot use. Two satellite .xml files that contain satellites and transponders for the entire world take about a MB in space. The average E2 receiver has many MB of free memory.

So far I am enjoying the way it is set up now. Deleting the transponders that are already in lamedb saves a lot of time in service scanning, plus it is much easier to see what channels are feeds or are 16 APSK.
 
Finished installing this new feature. Everything seems to work as I expected. A nice addition for finding new channels without having to rescan everything.

This feature should work with any enigma2 receiver that has blindscan.

BS_lamedb_scan.webp
 
It depends.
This feature will not decrease scan time on a satellite that has not been scanned, or on a satellite that has no channels in lamedb.
This feature can cut scan times by 50% or better for satellites that have previously been scanned or on satellites that already contain channels in the lamedb file.

Remember, this feature looks for new transponders or transponders that do not have channels stored in lamedb. Blindscan still finds the same amount of transponders. The only difference is enigma2 goes into the lamedb file, and looks for transponders that have the same orbit position as the blindscan was configured for. The transponders that were matched in lamedb are deleted from the list of transponders found in the blindscan.

The Service Scan searches the transponders for services or channels that were found in blindscan. The Service Scan does not take as long when some of the transponders that blindscan found are removed. The Service Scan is what takes the most time in an enigma2 blindscan. Anything that can be done to speed up the Service Scan will greatly improve the overall blindscan speed.

There is a draw-back or issue with everything you do. This feature is no exception. Any channel that is added to a transponder will be skipped IF that same identical transponder exists in lamedb for the orbit position being scanned when this feature is being used.
 
I placed some time stamps on these screens so it is easier to keep up with how long a scan takes. The channels on 105 West can take forever to scan, and this same issue existed on 139 West. It looks like it is fixed now, so a complete blindscan of this satellite takes around 15 minutes. The transponders that are found can be scanned in around 10 minutes, and will give 0ver 2000 radio channels. No other fta receiver that I know of can scan like this.


105W_Scan.webp


105W_Scan_End.webp
 
I placed some time stamps on these screens so it is easier to keep up with how long a scan takes. The channels on 105 West can take forever to scan, and this same issue existed on 139 West. It looks like it is fixed now, so a complete blindscan of this satellite takes around 15 minutes. The transponders that are found can be scanned in around 10 minutes, and will give 0ver 2000 radio channels. No other fta receiver that I know of can scan like this.


View attachment 13833


View attachment 13834
 
Here is a rescan of 105W with the transponders that have channels stored in the receiver removed.

Setup Screen
105W_BS_Menu.webp

Scan Start
105W_Scan_Start.webp

Scan transponders with no channels
105W_Tp_Scan.webp


Scan end
105W_Finish.webp

The rescan of 105W took about two minutes.
I have spent time testing this new feature today, and it is Very Easy to find the 16APSK feeds using these settings. No other fta receiver that I know of has a scan feature like this.
 
Did a scan of 99 West this morning and got this:
99W_DEM_Scan.webp

9W_DEM_Now.webp

It looks like I have the bugs worked out of this new feature,and wi be glad to share it with those that want it. Again, the only problem I see is: Transponders in lamedb are not scanned. IF the transponders in lamedb add channels, they would be missed because the lamedb transponders are not scanned. How often do transponders have channels added?

Blindscan is a crapshoot on every receiver that I have owned. It will probably always be that way for the foreseeable future.
The Enigma2 blindscan of transponders is not that slow, but the Service Scan that follows the search for transponders can take a long time. Not scanning the transponders that are in lamedb cuts the average overall blindscan time by 50% or more.
 
I was going to try the SDG blind scan plugin this afternoon, but I ran in to a hiccup with SDG after online updates. I posted the problem at their site.

I will most likely flash SDG this weekend and hopefully the problem will be rectified and I can try the plugin.
 
OK.... looks like problem solved.

This weekend.... will backup SDG, then scan C band 101w and ku 97w, then install plugin and rescan both items and compare results.

Big thanks to athoik for resolving the problem.

Thanks.
 
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Another problem is transponders on other satellites or weak transponders. I noticed 3962v being logged on 99West blindscan. This transponder belongs on 101 West. The receiver may take several minutes to resolve a weak transponder such as this.

Filters for neighboring satellites are already part of the blindscan plugin. Enabling these filters will increase the speed, but you may filter out something you want. Another possibility would be to add transponders that you do not want scanned to the ku satellite located at the same orbit or create a dummy satellite if no ku satellite exists.

My idea is to speed up the blindscsan for feeds without making it too complicated to use or without adding so many filters that services we want are not scanned.

View attachment 13871
 
Why not have an option to search only 16 and 32 APSK transponders? :smoke:

16_32 apsk_scan.jpg.webp


123W_32apsk.webp


This feature works as expected, scanning only 16 or 32 APSK transponders.
 
Very, very nice!

Good thing you don't do smoke rings, cause....

A guy traveling through the prairies of the USA stopped at a small town and went to a bar. He stood at the end of the bar and lit up a cigar. As he sipped his drink, he stood there quietly blowing smoke rings.

After he blew nine or ten smoke rings into the air, an angry American Indian approached him and said,
"Now listen buddy, if you don't stop calling me that I'll kick your ass!"
 
In order to work, it depends on the receiver chip set for some reason. The Vu+ use to get them with out problems until the uplink started playing games with resets every month or so. Last week they were all in the clear, today zilch. Good thing my ota sub-channels pick them up.

My A3 has no problems with glitching on these channels when the uplinks apply their resets. Haven't tried any other receivers.
 
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