REVIEW OF THE EUROSAT HORIZON SR-2000 SATELLITE RECEIVER by Robert Smathers, roberts@nmia.com (specs summarized at the end of the review) This receiver handles analog satellite transmissions. It has no capability to receive digital DVB or Digicipher II transmissions. After years of suffering with a satellite receiver (Uniden UST-5000) that gave me video tearing and fluttering in bright or white pictures as well as worries every time the electricity went out and the receiver would not turn back on easily, I have been in the market for a replacement satellite receiver. Searches had not proven to useful since the receivers I found were beyond the price range that I wanted to pay. Recently, I heard about the Eurosat Horizon SR-2000 receiver. The features looked great and the price looked really super for the features it had, so I went ahead and got one. The mailman delivered it one Thursday afternoon and I eagerly tore into the package to unpack the receiver and to read the manual. DESCRIPTION OF THE EUROSAT HORIZON SR-2000 The receiver is a all-metal enclosed piece of equipment, measuring 13.38 inches wide by 2.36 inches high by 10.23 inches deep. The front panel has a power switch, a four digit LED readout, a LED for Stereo or Mono reception, a LED for Wide or Narrow bandwidth, a LED for what is called "J17" de-emphasis, a LED for Horizontal polarity, an infrared remote control "eye" to receive the remote's signals, and channel up/down buttons. The back panel has a power cord coming out of it, a CH3/CH4 switch for the modulator output channel, "TV ANTENNA IN" F- connector, "TO TV" F-connector, +5,GROUND,PULSE polarizer connections, C/KU video switch, Baseband Out RCA type socket, Video RCA type socket, Right Audio Channel Out RCA type socket, Left Audio Channel Out RCA type socket, LNB Power ON/OFF switch, and an RF INPUT (950-2050 MHz) F-connector. The remote fits nicely in the hand and the buttons are spaced about right for a many button remote control. The remote is a infrared one (not a UHF). Two AAA sized batteries power the remote control. The remote has on it a Power button, a "MODE" button to cycle through the modes of operation and programming, a "V/H" button to select polarity, Skew up and down buttons to control the polarizer skew, "P/L" for parental lock, "50/J17" for a deemphasis control, "W/N" for audio bandwidth, keys numbered 1-0, Channel up/down buttons, and a "BAND" button to select video bandwidth. FIRST IMPRESSIONS Upon connecting it up, I started to play with it. There are 150 memory locations and I flipped through them. Out of the box, the Eurosat is programmed at the factory for various IF frequencies and left/right channels. They are listed in the appendix of the manual for reference. I decided quickly that it was going to be a chore to flip through all the pre-programmed settings to get the channels I wanted, so started to program the receiver to my liking. PROGRAMMING THE MEMORY LOCATIONS I decided to make memory locations 1 through 24 to be my C- band channels. Each memory location can be programmed individually. For memory location 1, I made it C-band transponder 1. I made sure memory location 1 showed up on the front panel display, and I typed in the block IF frequency, the left channel audio frequency, the right channel audio frequency, and I found an active channel 1 video transponder and decided what pre-emphasis and audio bandwidth I liked the best and hit the store button to store the settings for memory location 1. It took me about an hour or two to program in all new settings for the first 24 memory locations. Not having had a programmable receiver before, I don't know if this is about right for a programmable receiver, but I do enjoy the flexibility I get in setting things the way I want them. In each memory location, the block IF frequency, left audio channel, right audio channel, polarity, skew, deemphasis, audio bandwidth, and video bandwidth can all be programmed into memory. The pain with programming is that you have to stick a pointed object into the "STORE" button hole on the remote control to store it. This is probably a good feature because you won't be able to easily store settings you don't want if you are fumbling with the remote control in normal usage. There is no way to shift memory locations, so it is best to leave plenty of room if you want to "insert" new settings for a memory location. It is best to plan ahead how you are going to use the channel locations so you can program the receiver to your liking and not be disappointed when you will have to re-program many locations so you can set up a certain memory location for a service. If you are looking at this receiver for a C-band only system, you can program in your regular video channels 1-24 and then you can use the rest of the memory locations for favorite audio channels. You can program in one audio channel per memory location and then you can get to that one quickly if you are on the satellite that service is on. If you are looking at this receiver for a Ku-band system as well as C, there are not really enough memory locations to handle all Ku-band formats. You can do most, but you will be missing one or two types of formats. I would feel better about having 200 or 250 or more memory locations. The block IF frequency, left audio channel, right audio channel, and memory location can be entered by direct entry from the remote control. That makes it easy to get to any memory location quickly. It works great if you are one satellite and want to quickly punch up a pre-programmed audio service. VIDEO FINE TUNING The fine tuning is a very useful feature. In my experiences, I don't know if its my LNB factory tuning, the drifting, or if the uplinkers are off frequency, but I find on most video that I have to fine tune to get the best picture possible. The fine tuning occurs in .25 MHz increments by using the channel up/down buttons. The LED display on the front panel shows the frequency and also had little "dots" that go up or down -- those dots represent .25 MHz -- if your display shows 1410 with 3 dots, you are looking at a frequency of 1410.750. Direct entry from the remote control allows you to punch in a number but you can't enter the .25 of a MHz -- if you wanted to tune 1405.25 for example, you would direct enter "1405" and then use the channel up until one dot shows up in the display and then you are on 1405.25. The speed for the fine tuning can be quite variable. Sometimes it is a bit slow, but for some reason other times it gets to be quite rapid. Experience shows that when you are very close to the true frequency, it is slow while if you are on the edges of the video carrier or not in an area of video carriers, the tuning is faster. AUDIO The audio channels are displayed to 2 decimal places. Audio bandwidth is fine for your programming and wider audio subcarrier channels, but for narrower to half-way between narrow and wide audio subcarrier channels, the performance is poor to good, but not great. Omega Radio Network comes in great, Cable Radio Network is o.k., and the WGN/Interstate radio service on Anik E2 is fair to poor. If you want those narrow audio subcarriers, you are much better off using your Drake or Janiel Stereo Processor or even your all-purpose radio. This receiver is really great for those wide audio subcarriers (ORN, Yesterday USA, CHFI) and program audio. The audio channel circuitry also works super for those "extra-wide" Canadian CBC and other channel audio. No problems there with distortion. If you plan to use the modulator to listen to the audio on your TV speaker, I am pleased to report that both channels get sent out to the television. This is really useful for feeds where you get narration on one channel and natural sound on the other or where two different audio subcarriers are inter-mixed. You will be able to hear both left and right channels coming out of the television speaker. Really great effect for baseball games when you can hear the announcer and the crowd noise at the same time. Deemphasis settings are very flexible. J17 is a deemphasis setting where the highs are cut out. It works great for those channels where video is a bit sparkly and cause noise in the audio. The J17 circuit quiets things down in most cases, but you end up more with a sound that is like a AM radio station than one that is more like a FM radio station. I can live with that to get a quieter, less-hiss sound on the weaker channels. POLARIZER The polarizer controls work with your normal Chapparal standard +5/Ground/Pulse systems (the "blue box"). The polarizer does horizontal and vertical and the skew display gives you a two digit number that goes from 00 to 99. You can use the remote to set polarity and then use the skew up/down buttons, or you can program it into your memory location to have the polarity/skew setting set up permanently for any given channel. VIDEO The video quality is super compared to what I was used to. Video is bright and sharp looking. I get no video tearing or fluttering. A vast improvement that what I was used to with the UST-5000. The only problem I had with video quality was with the video level that was set at the factory. It was too bright and "washout" and non-existent yellows. It was hard to see the wrinkles on Pastor Murray's face on National Christian Network. His face was lacking contrast. I found a video gain pot on the circuit board and I decreased the video gain to my liking. There is plenty of contrast on faces and the yellows now exist. Turning down the video gain also "masks" the sparklies that I had on weaker channels -- my LNBs are both good but not super in rating so masking is a must for me for some of the weaker stuff. VIDEO BANDWIDTH Video bandwidth was a big feature that I looked at when I decided to buy this receiver. There are two bandwidths -- one is 18 MHz and the other is 27 MHz. The narrow bandwidth is useful for those half-transponder transmissions and for tuning up the video on a channel. The half-transponder usage is good -- not super but it does a heck of a lot better than the 27 MHz bandwidth setting. I guess if I wanted super half-transponder reception, I should go buy a good Drake rack-mounted receiver like the local television station here has. But, considering the price of this receiver, the 18 MHz works better than I could ever have expected. The narrow bandwidth is also very useful for finding the center frequency of a video carrier. I use it all the time on color bars to tune the center frequency as best as I can. The 27 MHz one works just right for the C-band and the majority of Ku-band stuff. The problem you will have occurs on Ku-band where those rare Ku-band uplinks have video bandwidth of 36 MHz. You'll wish you had a bit wider bandwidth than 27, but 27 and 18 work for the vast majority of the video you'll come across on the satellites. MISCELLANEOUS COMMENTS The Eurosat Horizon SR-2000 receiver is meant to be a slave receiver. There is no positioner with the unit. The unit does have a LNB power switch which is very useful. You can have the switch so power goes to the LNB or there is no power to the LNB. If you are using it as a normal receiver, you want the power to go to the LNB. If you are powering the LNB from another receiver and are splitting the LNB input between two receivers, you would want the LNB power switch off. The tuning range is 950-2050 MHz. This can be a great receiver if you have a LNB that has a tuning block IF frequency other than 950-1450 MHz. If you have one that would be 1000-1500 (just made up), no problem. You can use this receiver and tune that just fine (whereas your Drake and Uniden and others would only be able to tune part of that range and not the whole range). If you happened to have a 930-1430 LNB, though, that would pose a problem since you can't tune down to 930. You would get most of the services, but you could not get all. CLOSING COMMENTS For the price, this receiver is really great. The audio and video are crisp, I like the remote control, I like being able to have a frequency readout, I like having selectable video bandwidth so I can get those half-transponder Ku-band transmissions much better, I like having the J17 deemphasis for more sparkly video services, and I like having the tuning keys so I can fine tune whatever I watch for best picture possible. The Eurosat Horizon SR-2000 is a feature packed, super receiver for the money. If you wanted absolute super quality, you could go spend close to a grand for a Drake or a Tracker or a Chaparral. But you get really good performance and features for less than $200 with the Horizon SR-2000 -- really much bang for your buck. I am glad I purchased this receiver, and I would not hesitate to recommend this receiver to anyone who is on a budget or wants a low-cost slave receiver. (If you have any more questions, let me know and I'll answer them in another version of this review -- I want to cover as many facets of this receiver as I can.) SPECIFICATIONS - Complies with Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC rules. - Complies with Class B limits per radio noise emissions for digital apparatus set out in the Radio Interference Regulation of the Canadian Department of Communications. - 150 memory locations - IF Input of 950-2050 MHz (250 KHz steps) - Phase Locked Loop tuning - Parental lock - RF input impedance: 75 ohms - Input level range: -60 to -30 dBm - IF frequency: 479.5 MHz - IF bandwidth: 18 MHz/27 MHz (switchable) - Video output level: 1V peak-to-peak - Video impedance: 75 ohms - Video deemphasis: CCIR 405,525 Lines - Video diff. amplification: 5% max. - Video diff. phase: 5 degrees - Video C/Ku band selection - Audio subcarrier frequency: 5 to 8.5 MHz (tunable) - Audio bandwidth: 230 KHz/150 KHz (adjustable) - Stereo/mono selection - De-emphasis: Mono: 50uS/J17 (switchable) Stereo: 75uS - Audio distortion: < 2% - RF Modulator Standard: NTSC M - RF Modulator Output channel: VHF 3 or VHF 4 (preset CH3) - RF Modulator Impedance: 75 ohms - RF Modulator H output level: 73 dB uV (typical) - Parental lock - Power Supply: AC power 117V +/- 10%, 60 Hz - Power consumption: 30 watts - LNB supply voltage: vertical 14 volts horizontal 18 volts (400 mA max.) - Satellite input: F connector 75 ohms - Terrestrial antenna input: F connector 75 ohms - Terrestrial TV output: F connector 75 ohms - Audio output connector: 2 x Chinch (L+R) - Video output connector: 1 x Chinch - Baseband output connector: 1 x Chinch - LNB power selectable switch (0V, 14/18V) - Mechanical polarizer repetition rate: 20 - 22 ms - Mechanical polarizer pulse length: .8 - 2.2 ms - Ambient temperature: +5 to +40 degrees C - Dimensions (WxHxD in inches) 13.38x2.36x10.23 - Weight: approximately 6.62 lbs. - Accessories: Infrared remote control 2 AAA batteries 1.5V RF cable - Front panel display - end of review -