Atn-Filmnet Decoder

EE March 1989 ATN-FILMNET DECODER by P.N.P. Wintergreen Anyone in Western Europe in possession of a private reception sys- tem for TV satellites must, at some time, have noticed that some channels can not be watched unless an appropriate decoder is bought or rented. Hence, working on descrambler circuits is a popular and highly interesting pastime with technically inclined owners of satellite TV receiving equipment. In line with this month"s feature article on video, this article discusses an ATN-Filmnet decoder that is remarkable for its re- liability, selectivity, automatic switch-over capability and low cost. Thanks to its versatile design, the decoder is suitable for use with many commercially available indoor units. ATN-Filmnet is a satellite pay TV chan- nel owned by Esselte, a Dutch/Belgian consortium. The channel, which is trans- mitted via ECS-4 transponder number 9- W-V at 11.138 GHz, is intended mainly for feeding into large cable-TV networks in Holland, Belgium, Scandi...