To allocate a very small aperture terminal (VSAT) to a modulation and coding pair (MODCOD) in a second generation digital video broadcasting satellite (DVB-S2) adaptive coding and modulation (ACM) system, a hub periodically transmits pilot frames of alternating MODCODs, which are identified by the VSAT. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) at the VSAT site maintains telemetry of good and bad frames. A processor may then poll this telemetry to determine an optimal MODCOD to be allocated to the VSAT.