1. TEST REPORT Satellite Meter
Horizon HDSM USB PLUS
"even a total dummy can use it"
Let’s be frank, when it came, we were amused. yellow color! We thought: “No, this can not be
What was this? It was small - no more than 1/2 really useful – probably just a toy for the ama-
of a cat (see the photo). The simple case resem- teurs who do not care how much time they spend
bling the ones you could buy in every electronic playing with their satellite dishes...” How wrong
Do-It-Yourself store and the front panel with only we were!
arrow buttons did not promise much. And this
itor
llite ed
E-sate of the
of TEL
la xed
c at ension
The re all dim eter
er y sm llite m
s h ow s the v U S sate
S B PL
DSM U ORIZO
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Full of skepticism, we started lead, USB lead or a mains power built-in accumulator using the to your battery. Although the
to examine the accessories. cord (all included in the pack- mains lead. The manufacturer manual recommends continuing
The leather bag had a strap to age). Yes, the power supply unit clearly states in the user manual the first charging for 24 hours,
hang it on your neck but you is built in! No more headaches that we are getting the unit not we noticed that after approxi-
can also fasten it to your belt. with connecting a box to another charged. During charging, the mately 1.5 hour, the accumula-
There are openings in the bag box and to a wall outlet. Despite meter was showing us the per- tor charge rose from 10 % to
through which you can attach a having the power supply unit centage of battery capacity. 100%. Of course, we could not
cable, should it be a car charger inside its case, HDSM USB PLUS Another thing worth mentioning wait 24 hours before giving the
is not heavy at all. Everything is the intelligence built into the meter a try. Right after charg-
is based on Velcro and is really charging circuit. You can leave ing, we started.
practical in everyday use. your meter for an extended
period of time without a fear Operating the meter could
We started with charging the that something bad will happen not be simpler. You connect the
2007
10 - 1 /
1
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B PLU
SM US ffer
ON HD could o
HORIZ th ink one e
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We did r so ea
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a satelli
36 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-1
1/2007 — www.TELE-satellite.com

2. TELE-satellite World www.TELE-satellite.com/...
HORIZON did a wonderful job in Download this report in other languages from the Internet:
‫ﺍﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ‬
giving the installer all data he needs
Arabic www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/ara/horizon.pdf
Indonesian Indonesia www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/bid/horizon.pdf
Bulgarian Български www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/bul/horizon.pdf
with a simple push of a button: German
English
Deutsch
English
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/deu/horizon.pdf
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/eng/horizon.pdf
Spanish Español www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/esp/horizon.pdf
French Français www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/fra/horizon.pdf
Greek Ελληνικά www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/hel/horizon.pdf
Croatian Hrvatski www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/hrv/horizon.pdf
Italian Italiano www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/ita/horizon.pdf
Hungarian Magyar www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/mag/horizon.pdf
Mandarin 中文 www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/man/horizon.pdf
Dutch Nederlands www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/ned/horizon.pdf
Polish Polski www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/pol/horizon.pdf
Russian Русский www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/rus/horizon.pdf
Turkish Türkçe www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-0711/tur/horizon.pdf
cable from LNB to the input F some of the satellite beams in
connector, switch the meter on, one location and quite different
select with the arrow buttons beams in the other location. This
the satellite you want to align means that the meter may need
Signal Level and Channel BER before correction your dish to and that’s it. Now, to use different transponders
you can rotate your dish until for identifying the same satel-
you hear a sound generated lite in the UK, Spain or Poland.
by the meter and see the level We found no explanation of that
and quality readings. If you find in the manual, so we turned to
nothing, increase or decrease the Horizon webpage (www.
the dish elevation angle and horizonhge.com). Only then
start rotating it again. In prac- did everything become clear.
tice, it takes you at most a The meter is preprogrammed
minute to find the desired sat- with the set of transponders
ellite. In our tests it did not take depending on the target coun-
us more than 5-15 seconds but try. In other words, different
we already had some experi- transponders are stored in
ence where to look for which HDSM USB PLUS memory when
satellite and what to do with it is sold in the UK and differ-
Carrier to Noise Ratio and the Post Viterbi BER the elevation setting for every ent when it is sold in Poland. In
of them. fact, in the download section of
Horizon site, we found 14 dif-
When you turn your antenna ferent preconfigured downloads
by a big angle, it is sometimes including Russia, Brazil and
good to observe the meter - China. We know from our expe-
not only wait for the “success rience that choosing the right
sound”. When you notice an transponders for a particular
increase in signal level, you location (country) requires a lot
may want to start switching the of time and effort. Horizon did it
HDSM USB PLUS to other satel- for us. Thanks!
lites (left and right arrows) until
you identify the satellite your When the meter identifies
antenna is currently looking the desired satellite, it plays
at. This gives you a clear hint a short sound and below the
Frequency Spectrum whether to turn it more to the signal level bar, it displays an
East or to the West. additional one showing signal
quality in %. Below the 2 bars
The meter stores in its we can see the channel BER
memory 64 transponders from value displayed (QBER). This is
32 satellites (2 transponders the BER before the Viterbi error
per satellite: one with horizon- correction. Generally, QBER
tal and one with vertical polari- should be below 1.0 E-2, oth-
zation). Additionally, you can erwise we may observe video
enter manually one additional distortions.
transponder – the one you care
most in your routine instal- We may switch the meter
lations. When doing this, you to show another set of values.
will notice that the choice of Instead of the signal level, signal
LOF’s is very wide – the meter quality and QBER, we may have
Constellation Diagram
is compatible with C, Ku and Ka C/N ratio and the post Viterbi
Bands. quality expressed in % and post
Viterbi BER value (VBER). While
We were asking ourselves the VBER is not very practical
how it was possible that HDSM (it rapidly jumps from very bad
USB PLUS “knew” which trans- to very good values), the C/N
ponders to use when identifying ratio can be used for compar-
satellites in our location? As we ing different antenna setups.
all know, in different regions of For example, you may see how
the world, you receive different inserting a multiswitch in the
satellites. Even if the same sat- reception setup influences the
ellite is receivable in different C/N ratio.
locations, it is quite common
that you are able only to receive Apart from these modes,
LNB Cable test
www.TELE-satellite.com — 10-1
1/2007 — TELE-satellite & Broadband 37

3. the meter may show frequency
spectrum graph. This view
may be useful when aligning
antenna for very week signals.
In the spectrum mode, we may
change the span (with up/down
arrows) in the following steps:
60, 120, 240, 480, 960 and
1200 MHz as well as the center
frequency (with the left/right
arrows) within the band.
For those who prefer to evalu-
ate the quality signal graphically
rather than numerically, Hori-
zon implemented an additional
mode in the HDSM USB PLUS
meter. It is the QPSK constella-
tion diagram. The more concen-
trated dots in every quarter, the
better the signal (less noisy).
In this small “a quarter of a
cat” volume, Horizon managed
to pack even more. You may
connect the HDSM USB PLUS
after a DiSEqC switch and using
the meter menu, you will be
: the
able to select satellite A, B, C to use
Re a d y sy
or D. Not sure about the cabling ak e it ea
b elt s m meter,
y the
and/or LNB condition? Run the to car r of
p of ro
LNB/Cable test. The meter will f. i. on to
detect both short circuit and
open circuit (no consumption of
power typical for an LNB).
differences from up to 1 dB in TECHNIC
Important for the profession- signal level measurements. DATA
als is the ability to log the meas- Note that the HDSM USB PLUS Manufacturer Horizon Global Electronics Ltd.
urement results. This facilitates readings are calculated from the
Fax +44 (0) 1279 417025
reporting the work done at true digital Q+I values - other
remote locations. HDSM USB instruments may use analogue E-mail sales@horizonhge.com
PLUS can be reprogrammed sources for their readouts and Web page www.horizonhge.com
via the USB port (what is evi- their readings may differ signifi- Model HDSM USB PLUS
dent from its name). In this way cantly from HDSM USB PLUS.
Function Antenna alignment meter
we may upgrade to newer ver-
Input frequency 950~2150 MHz
sions of the firmware, download You may fully trust the meter
the logged values or upload the when it tells you that one C/Ku-Band compatible Yes (DVB-S)
transponder settings should antenna setup is better than Signal level -65 dBm to 25 dBm
we decide to take the meter to the other one. You may also Symbol Rate 1~45 Msps
Brazil for vacation. be sure that the antenna align-
LNB supply 250 mA nom., 500 mA max.
ment done with HDSM USB
We did a few measurements PLUS is the best possible if only Number of pre-programmed satellites 32 (horizontal & vertical polarization)
to find out how accurate the you were patient enough to fine Power supply 100~240 V, 50/60 Hz, 0.31A max.
meter is in comparison with tune the azimuth, elevation and 12 V DC, 0.8 A max.
another instrument. We found LNB skew.
Operational time when fully charged 5 hours typ.
Experts Conclusion
+
The meter is very handy and light. However, the
most important feature of HDSM USB PLUS is its
ease of use. We did not even think one could offer
a meter so easy to use having all necessary set-
tings correctly preprogrammed by the manufac- Connect the car charger,
Peter Miller
turer! Good job! Do not be tricked by its toy-like TELE-satellite and/or your laptop to
appearance. It is a real, very useful meter. DVB-S2
Test Center the USB plug. The mains
Poland
plug is on the other side
will be offered soon, also readings of MER will be
of box.
offered in a future software release.
-
Horizon could make the sound announcing the transponder
lock a bit louder.
38 TELE-satellite & Broadband — 10-1
1/2007 — www.TELE-satellite.com