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

[Alexis Iglauer <aiglauer@web.de>]

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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