1. TEST REPORT Digital Cable Meter
SatCatcher
Digipro
C Max
Professional
• compares favorable to professional meters
• comes with many useful accessories for the
installer
• easy to read screen even in direct sunlight
• includes Tilt measurement for professional
installations
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34 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 02-03/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 35

2. TEST REPORT Digital Cable Meter
An Accurate Instrument
With Many Accessories
02-03/2012
Satcatcher Digipro C Max
More than a cable meter: includes
everything a professional installer
needs
Accuracy is something further demands on a me- ate. It should also offer a time. Buttons are large
that every installer will ter: the instrument should wide choice of accessories and clearly labeled. The
value with a signal meter have a bright and readable making the work simpler POWER button has an edg-
but apart from that true display, and its keyboard and more efficient. To our ing around it what guar-
professional users have should be easy to oper- delight, the new Digipro C antees that the meter will
Max by Satcatcher fulfills not switch on accidentally
all those requirements. when pressed against a
Its display is exceptionally solid surface. The keyboard
bright and clear, you can consists of a numeric key-
operate its keyboard even pad, quick access buttons,
with gloves on your hands, navigational arrows and 4
and the number of accesso- function keys F1 - F4. The
ries they offer to the pro- function of these F1 – F4
fessional user is really sur- buttons depends on the
prising. particular menu or screen
The meter can be sup- you arrived at and is always
plied packaged in two ways. explained at the bottom of
In a metal box like other the display window. Speak-
Satcatcher meters or in a ing of the display, it is one
premium package with lots of the strongest points of
of extras included. For our this meter. This TFT LCD It
test we opted for the latter is very bright and clear. You
and were delighted at the will be able to read it even
many useful accessories. outside in a very sunny day.
The most unusual and most There is also a loudspeaker
useful for an installer is a embedded in the Digipro C
fully adjustable vest with a Max Professional, giving off
lot of pockets and straps. a significant sound volume.
It allows you not only to The Digipro C-Max Pro-
transport and use the me- fessional lets you either use
ter in a convenient way but a pre-programmed chan-
also to keep handy all sorts nel band plan or you may
of other tools an installer choose to blindscan the
must have. Apart for the whole bandwidth. The effort
vest, you get a plug type you put into the initial chan-
power supply, a car lighter nel band plan programming
DC charger, a neck strap will pay off in much quicker
with a piece of sheep skin measurements. To create
fur to avoid skin irritation, a band plan, you enter the
and a bad weather cover Meter Config menu and se-
for the meter along with lect Edit Channel item. In
an attachable sun shade. this screen, you edit the
Everything is neatly packed channel name (most of the
in a carrying bag so you installers would probably
do not need to worry that use the standard chan-
your meter accessories will nel designators like: S02,
disappear somewhere over S28, K32), its kind (analog
time. or digital), and a number
The workmanship of the of parameters as: frequen-
Digipro C Max is very good. cies, modulation, symbol
The enclosure is robust but rate, bandwidth. Of course
quite elegant at the same there is a different set of
36 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com

3. Table 1. Digital TV signal measurement results Table 2. Analog TV signal measurement results
Power [dBµV] MER [dB] Power [dBµV] S/N [dB]
Signal C-Max Ref C-Max Ref Signal C-Max Ref C-Max Ref
256QAM 474 MHz 87,1 87,7 38,8 36,7 Video 471,25 MHz 61,3 64,4 23,7 48,6
64QAM 474 MHz 87,1 87,7 37,9 36,8 Audio 477,75 MHz 50,4 52
256QAM 674 MHz 82,5 83 39,4 35,6 Video 576,25 MHz 64 63,7 26,1 17,7
64QAM 674 MHz 82,6 82,8 38,7 35,4 Audio 581,75 MHz 50,3 49,8
parameters for analog and visual assessment is rather ter takes as a noise refer- ■TELE-satellite expert Jacek
subjective and not very ac- ence level. As a result, S/N Pawlowski wears the installer's
for digital channel. In this vest from Satcatcher. The vest
way, you edit channel by curate, therefore there are and C/N can be compared offers multiple pockets for the
channel and save them in MER and C/N readings that only if measured with the installer - and even matches the
Digipro C-Max protective case'
the meter’s memory. Such correspond to the quality of same meter model but not color!
a list of the channels that the digital signal. when measured with dif-
are present in a given ca- Furthermore, the Digipro ferent models and makes.
ble network is called a band C-Max offers a spectrum MER is a much better sig-
plan of this network. Once view. It produces a clean nal quality indicator as this
you have created a cor- picture of the frequency value can be measured with
rect band plan for the ca- spectrum with adjustable different meters and you
ble systems you are about span and amplitude. You can expect similar results
to install and measure, you can set the following fre- with any product. Our gen-
can enter the Auto Meas- quency spans: FULL, 500, eral conclusion: Digipro C-
ure menu item and make 200, 100, 50, 32, 16, and 8 Max is a very accurate me-
the meter measure every MHz. Maximum amplitude ter and you can fully rely on
channel form the list one can be set from 60 to 120 its signal strength and MER
by one. dBµV in 10 dBµV steps. Di- measurements.
However, it is also pos- gipro C-Max creates a very A great highlight is an-
sible to scan an unknown readable spectrum picture. other positive feature: the
network. In such case, the It does not take long to Digipro C-Max not only
Digipro C-Max does a smart scan the whole bandwidth. takes measurements but it
thing: it recognizes fully Even the best looking can also play back digital
automatically all analog meter, and Digipro C-Max channel video and audio.
channels as well as the QAM looks great indeed, would Once it locks to the signal,
modes and symbolrates for not be worth its price if its it searches the NIT table
the digital DVB-C channels. measurement results were inside the transport stream
For analog TV channels it improbable. Therefore, we and based on the informa-
shows the video and audio compared the results pro- tions found there, the me-
frequencies along with their duced by the Digipro C-Max ter displays a list of TV and
signal levels and S/N ratio. with another high class ref- radio channels. The last re-
The measurement results erence meter. We are de- maining step is to select the
screen for a DVB-C signal lighted to announce that channel you want to watch
is naturally more complex. the results were in perfect and press a button. Of
You get not only signal fre- agreement. Please exam- course, this works only for
quency, QAM order, sym- ine Table 1 and Table 2. FTA channels as the meter
bol rate, channel power, Both for digital and analog does not have any CI slot
modulation error ratio TV signals, the channel or smart card reader and
(MER) and carrier-to-noise power results were prac- can not descramble PayTV
(C/N) readings but also a tically identical. Also the channels. The Digipro C-
graphic representation of MER measurements were Max does not display analog
the constellation diagram. matching one another very TV channels either but tak-
By pressing a button you well indeed. The only differ- ing into account how fast
can enlarge the diagram. ences we noted in the S/N the technology advances,
This is perfect to asses the measurements, this, how- analog channels will disap-
signal quality visually: the ever, is common between pear from CATV networks
tighter the green dots’ con- different meter brands. anyway quite soon. So this
centration in the center of That’s because S/N meas- is not something to care
the squares, the less noisy urements depend on the about.
the signal is. Of course, particular frequency a me- Finally we come to a truel-
38 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 02-03/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 39

4. 4 10 16
5 11 17
6 12 18
7 13 19
8 14 1. Main menu
2. Channel measure
3. Tilt measurement screen
4. DVB-C signal shown in spectrum view
5. Configuration menu
6. Band plans
7. One of the preprogrammed and plans
8. Editing a channel in a band plan
9. Options menu
10. Identifying digital TV signal chosen in
the spectrum view
11. 256QAM constellation and signal
measurement results
1 2 3 9 15 12. Closer examination of the constellation
allows you to visually asses signal quality
13. Meter searches NIT in DVB-C signal to
create a channel list
14. Channel list of the selected DVB-C
carrier
15. Meter displays channel video like a small
TV-set
16. A mix of analog and digital TV signal in a
real cable network
17. Analog TV signals
18. Digital TV signals
19. Detecting the parameters of digital
carrier
40 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com www.TELE-satellite.com — 02-03/2012 — TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine 41

5. ly valuable function of the levels as reference. Then
meter, which is so useful you move to various other
for the professional install- points of the network and
er: the tilt measurement. repeat this measurement.
Up to ten channels can be You will see the difference
selected for this. Usually, expressed in decibels be-
you would select channels tween the reference level
evenly distributed over the and the current level for
whole frequency range. Of every channel.
course, the selected chan- The tilt measurement al-
nels must carry a TV signal. lows you to quickly iden-
You first measure those tify signal level differences
channels in the TILT Meas- over a specified frequency
ure submenu somewhere in range. Then all you do is
the beginning of the cable insert an attenuator or
network, where all the sig- an equalizar in order to
nals are strong and rela- smoothen the differenc-
tively equal in amplitude. es according to the cable
then you press the REF but- system’s specifications.
ton to store those channels’ Thanks to this, you can
easily find out if the cabling staller all the features he
along with the distribution needs to properly align a
equipment does not intro- cable system. The accu-
duce excessive attenuation racy of the meter matches
in particular parts of the our professional reference
cable TV frequency range. meters and the accesso-
We found the Digipro C- ries made available by Sat-
Max to be a very mature cacther are an additional
meter, offering to the in- value to the installer.
TECHNICAL
DATA
Manufacturer SatCatcher Ltd, Unit 7, Salvesen Way, Hull,
East Yorkshire, HU3 4UQ, UNITED KINGDOM
Webpage www.satcatcher.com
E-mail sales@satcatcher.com
Tel +44-1652-408191
Model Digipro C Max
Function Digital and analog cable TV meter
Input frequency range 46 MHz - 862 MHz for digital TV
46 MHz – 870 MHz for analog TV
Input signal level range 40dBuV - 110dBuV for digital TV
25dBuV – 120dBuV for analog TV
Accuracy of level measurement 2 dB for digital TV
1.5 dB for analog TV
DVB-C symbol rates 1 – 7 Ms/sec
Modulation 16/32 /64/128/256QAM
Digital TV standard DVB-C/ITU-T J.83-ANNEX A/B/C
Channel bandwidth 4, 8, 20, 40 MHz, USA version: 6 instead of 8 MHz
Working time when fully charged 4 – 5 hours
Expert Opinion
Exceptionally accurate
+ Very bright and clear display
A lot of useful accessories
USB application available for editing band plan
Jacek Pawlowski
–
TELE-satellite
none Test Center
Poland
42 TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 02-03/2012 — www.TELE-satellite.com