1.559 RX-ChannelSelect-CDB

The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB logical device controls the basic parameters of an IRD and an input switch for the IRD which selects frequency band and polarization. RX-ChannelSelect-CDB is comparable to the RX-ChannelSelect device, but is intendended for the use in a sat-nms NMS system. "CDB" in the driver name stands for "Central Data Base", underlining that all RX-ChannelSelect-CDB instances use one central satellite channel database located at the NMS server. The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device primarily is used for VLC configurations where several IRDs are connected to an L-band switch matrix which distributes the signals from multiple antennas. It however can be used for simpler applications as well.

The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device is complemented by the TX-ChannelSelect-CDB logical device which may be used to control the equipment of a (DVB) transmit chain in a similar way. Both ChannelSelect devices share the same channel database.

Although all individual IRD parameters are individually accessible with the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device, the typical way to operate the device is to select a satellite channel from the list and to select the proper input signal for the IRD. The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device assists the operator in this task with the following functions:

• The list of available input signals is dynamically generated by the device, the list entries are composed of "antenna name", "frequency band", "polarization" and satellite name. E.g. ANTENNA3-11Y-ASTRA19.2 denotes an 11GHz vertical signals, received from the ASTRA19.2 satellite through ANTENNA3. With motorized antennas, the satellite name is derived from the antenna's Antenna-Pointing device, telling the actually commanded satellite name.
• If you select a satellite channel from the database, parameters like frequency, symbol rate, DVB-S/DVB-S2 selection etc. are taken from the database and commanded to the IRD. Additionally the list of available inputs is confined to those signals which match the frequency band and polarization plane of the selected channel. You may remove this confinement at any time by selecting the "manual" satellite channel.
• The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device accounts for the LO-frequency defined for a selected input and sets the proper receive frequency at the IRD (in terms of L-band frequency). If you change the input, the LO-frequency may change as well and the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device commands a new frequency setting to the IRD.

Device window pages

The following table shows which device window pages are available with this individual device type. Tool-bar functions not mentioned here are described at the general description of device windows .

• --- The main control (channel select) page for the device.
• --- The channel database editor page.
• --- The fault page.
  • IRD Lock : The associated IRD is out of lock
  • Config File : The config file is not found, not readable or in a wrong format.
• --- The device info page.
• --- The maintenance page. The configuration parameters from this page are described below.

Operation (channel select)

Selecting an already defined satellite channel is a simple 2-step procedure:

1. Select the desired satellite channel from the list.
2. Select the input signal.

Instead of selecting the satellite and channel you also may enter the receive parameters at the frequency / pol / symbol rate / fec fields. The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device forwards these settings to the IRD. The input selection list gets confined to the inputs matching the frequency band of the entered frequency.

Operation (database edit)

With the second page of the device window of the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device channel definitions are edited, copied or deleted. All RX-ChannelSelect devices in a sat-nms NMS share one common channel database located at the NMS server. The VLC containing the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device requires an online connection to the NMS central database in order to make any changes to the database. Selecting channels at this page or changing any channel parameters do not change the receiver settings.

• Change certain parameters of a channel:
  1. Select the channel to modify
  2. Edit the settings
  3. Click 'SAVE'Please note that if you change the channel name (composed of the satellite / channel id entries), this will store a new channel definition with the modified data, the old channel is kept unchanged in the database.The channel name may consist of letters (a-z, A-Z), digits, space characters and some punctuation characters (,.-_). All other characters are turned to underscore characters when the channel gets stored.
• Save the actual receive settings as a new channel:
  1. Click 'READ' to fill the fields from actual receive settings.
  2. Optionally complete the transmit parameters for the channel.
  3. Enter the desired satellite / channel name.
  4. Click 'SAVE'
• Delete a channel:
  1. Select the channel to delete
  2. Click 'DELETE'

Local database copy

sat-nms VLCs may be operated locally by connecting an M&C client directly to the VLC. This may be used as a backup operation mode in cases where the NMS server is down or unreachable. To uphold the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB functionality even in this backup case, the VLC maintains a local copy of the channel database. This copy is used if the CDB at the NMS is unreachable. You cannot edit the channels in this local backup copy, but you can apply stored channels to the IRD.

There are two ways to update the local copy of the channel database at the VLC:

1. At the "Database" page of the device window of a RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device click "VLC UPD". This requests the complete database contents from the NMS server and stores it locally.
2. Administrators may configure a VLC to update the local database copy in regular intervals. To make a VLC update it's local database copy automatically, add a line cdb.channels.syncInterval=#.# to the file vlc.properties and restart the VLC. '#.#' is the time interval in hours.

EBU DREAMS channel list import

The channel database is capable to import channel lists from the EBU DREAMS software. The DREAMS channel lists are distributed as two CSV tables, on for RX and one for TX. In the sat-nms channel database these lists get merged. EBU channels are marked "read-only" in the database, they only may be changed by importing a new EBU channel list.

To import a pair of EBU channel lists, click the "IMPORT" button at the "Database" page of the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device's device screen. This opens a new window where the names of the files to import must be entered. The small buttons beside the file name entry fields open a file select dialog which lets you select the file names fom the directory.

After you have set the file names, click "READ". The software reads and parses the CSV files. It also matches corresponding RX and TX channels, because the sat-nms channel database stores only one entry for each channel containing both, the RX and TX parameters.

The software reports the number channels read from each file and the number of channels matched. Sometimes the numbers slightly differ, e.g. if the original channel names in the RX and TX lists are not really identical. You have to edit and repair the original files if you want to fix this.

If you are satisfied with the parsing result, click "IMPORT". This imports the channel definitions to the sat-nms database. All existing EBU channel definitions are deleted and replaced by the new ones. The user defined channels in the database remain unchanged by this.

Please note, that this procedure copies the EBU channels directly from the client PC to the NMS server, the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device is not involved in this and does not recognize the new channels immediately. This happens with the next regular update of the channel list, max 5 minutes later.

Configuration parameters

At the maintenance page of the device window there are a couple of configuration parameters which must be set to interconnect the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device with the IRD and the input switch.

To make the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device work, at least the frequencyId and symbolRateId fields must be set to the message IDs of the corresponding IRD parameters. If some other parameters are not supported by the IRD, leave the message ID fields empty, the same applies to the lock fault if a lock fault signalling in the RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device is not desired.

The configuration file format

The RX-ChannelSelect's configuration file is a plain text file which defines the matrix / switch input assignments. As this is a system wide assignment, you usually will edit one common configuration file for all RX-ChannelSelect-CDB devices connected to one input matrix.

In the file all empty lines and lines starting with a '#' character are ignored. All other lines are treated as table rows where the cells are separated by space characters. Each row describes one matrix input as follows:

Example:

#  Example configuration file for a RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device
#
#
#  input no.    polarization       freq. limit [MHz]
#  |            |                  |
#  |   antenna  |  LO freq. [MHz]  |
#  |   |        |  |               |

  01   ARD      X  9750.0        < 11800.0 
  02   ARD      Y  9750.0        < 11800.0
  03   ARD      X  10600.0       > 11800.0 
  04   ARD      Y  10600.0       > 11800.0 

  05   NDR      X  9750.0        < 11800.0 
  07   NDR      X  10600.0       > 11800.0 

  17   SNGR     X  9750.0        < 11800.0 
  18   SNGR     Y  9750.0        < 11800.0 
  19   SNGR     X  10600.0       > 11800.0 
  20   SNGR     Y  10600.0       > 11800.0 
   
  09   EBU      X  10000.0       < 11800.0   
  10   EBU      Y  10000.0       < 11800.0   

  11   W1       X  9750.0        < 11800.0 
  12   W1       Y  9750.0        < 11800.0 
  23   W1       X  10600.0       > 11800.0 
  24   W1       Y  10600.0       > 11800.0  

  13   ASTRA    X  9750.0        < 11800.0   
  14   ASTRA    Y  9750.0        < 11800.0   
  15   ASTRA    X  10600.0       > 11800.0   
  16   ASTRA    Y  10600.0       > 11800.0  
    
  21   EB_12V   Y  10600.0       > 11800.0   

  22   W1_V     Y  10000.0       < 11800.0   

  

The RX-ChannelSelect-CDB device parses this file on startup and when it receives a new name for the configuration file. So when you change the configuration file in the running M&C system, the best way is to restart the M&C server process to make all devices read the configuration file again.

Variables defined by this device driver