[linux-dvb] DVB-S in South Africa --- cannot tune

[Alexis Iglauer]

Hi

I am having very little joy in getting my DVB-S card to work under linux to receive the DSTV services which are broadcast in South Africa.

First off, my setup works fine under Windows98 (dual boot machine). I have a Fujitsu-Siemens card and the CI module for it. The card is reported in the logs as:

Dec 22 14:35:11 furriner kernel: DVB: registering new adapter (Siemens/Technotrend/Hauppauge PCI rev1.3).

I have only seen the CI initialised once, when using the driver from linuxdvb.tv, but that was followed immediately by other errors:

Dec 22 12:59:37 furriner kernel: CI initialised
Dec 22 12:59:37 furriner kernel: RM::ERROR: unknown subcommand received via cmd IF
Dec 22 12:59:37 furriner kernel: RM::ERROR: unknown subcommand received via cmd IF

I have so far tried various drivers, all without success:
1) I am running a debian-untested system with the 2.4.16 kernel, which has dvb drivers available via apt.
2) I have compiled the 0.8.2 drivers, the drivers from the vdr homepage (siemens_dvb-0.9.4-2002-05-20) and the nightly snapshot (dvb-20021221.tar.bz2). I can compile, I can "make insmod", I can just not seem to tune to anything.

The log entries from "make insmod" show:
-------------------
Dec 22 22:25:46 furriner kernel: DVB: registering new adapter (Siemens/Technotrend/Hauppauge PCI rev1.3).
Dec 22 22:25:46 furriner kernel: PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:0b.0
Dec 22 22:25:46 furriner kernel: DVB: registering frontend 0:0 (Alps BSRV2)...
Dec 22 22:25:46 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/frontend0 @ minor: 3 (0x03)
Dec 22 22:25:47 furriner kernel: bootarm: debi test OK
Dec 22 22:25:47 furriner kernel: bootarm: load boot code
Dec 22 22:25:49 furriner kernel: bootarm: load dram code
Dec 22 22:25:49 furriner kernel: Writing DRAM block 0
........
Dec 22 22:25:49 furriner kernel: Writing DRAM block 81
Dec 22 22:25:49 furriner kernel: bootarm: load dpram code
Dec 22 22:25:50 furriner kernel: DVB: AV7111(0) - firm f0240009, rtsl b0250018, vid 71010068, app 00012502
Dec 22 22:25:51 furriner kernel: outcommand error 1
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: outcommand error 1
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/demux0 @ minor: 4 (0x04)
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/dvr0 @ minor: 5 (0x05)
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/video0 @ minor: 0 (0x00)
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/audio0 @ minor: 1 (0x01)
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/ca0 @ minor: 6 (0x06)
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/osd0 @ minor: 8 (0x08)
Dec 22 22:25:52 furriner kernel: DVB: register adapter0/net0 @ minor: 7 (0x07)
-------------------

The "outcommand error 1" is worrying me a bit as one of the previous threads indicates that this could be a hardware failure. It could (according to that thread) also just be the inability to tune. As I said, the hardware works in Windoze.

On a TV connected to the composite out of the card I see a coloured pattern as the firmware is loaded, then I see "(c) 2001 Convergence Integrated media" and then a black screen (which is good, the TV would show a blue screen if there was no signal). When I "make rmmod" I get the blue screen again. Do I maybe need to explicitly enable to composite output to see a picture there?

In the older drivers (0.8.2) I changed the init_chan values so that the driver attempts to tune to an existing service available in South Africa when the driver loads and not to ntv --- no luck.
----------------
else if (init_chan==3) {
// MNet
ChangePIDs(dvb, 0x0200, 0x0280, 0x0000, 0, 0x1ffe);
secSetTone(dvb, SEC_TONE_OFF);
secSetVoltage(dvb, SEC_VOLTAGE_13);
para.Frequency=11594000-9750000;
para.u.qpsk.SymbolRate=27500000;
para.u.qpsk.FEC_inner=FEC_5_6;
}
-----------------
I can see by the debug log entries of the frontend that it is attempting to tune to the right frequency on the L-band, but I still don't get a lock.

I have not yet found the place in the code where to set this up for the 0.9.4 driver.

I have tried to tune using "scan" and ntuxzap from the driver distribution, as well as with dvbscan from dvbsak.sourceforge.net and with dvbtune. I can see the correct frequency/polarisation/symbolrate (for the channels broadcast on PAS7 here) being passed to the frontend, but I get no signal lock.

For example, using dvbscan from the dvbsak package:
------------------
furriner:/usr/src/DVB/sf.apps/dvbsak/src/tools# ./dvbscan -S 27500 -t 11594000 --dvb-polarization V -p
Driver API version detected: 3
Frontend device: /dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0
DVR device: /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0

DVB-S: 11594.000 MHz, symbol rate 27500 ksym/s, modulation QPSK
Str[********* ] SNR[***** ] BER: 9FFFF6 unc: FFFF
Frontend was unable to lock to a TS.
furriner:/usr/src/DVB/sf.apps/dvbsak/src/tools#
------------------

Are there any additional diagnostics I can do? Is my hardware faulty? Could this be a timeout issue? A signal strength analyser shows me that I do have a signal at that frequency and that it should be strong enough.

I would really appreciate any advice you may have as this is driving me nuts. Surely I should be able to read the channels off the satellite, or at least get a lock. Surely this can't be that difficult.

Thank you
Alexis



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