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Flaky Channels

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    Gadgee

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    A few problems which may or may not be connected..

    (1) Seems that a few channels are flaky - most of them are not too important to me but CNBC broadcasts weekly coverage of all the USPGA golf tournaments and that is important!!

    The channels which are flaky are as follows;

    210 CNBC
    209 NHK
    211 CCTV
    207 CNN
    204 EURONEWS

    There maybe more but this cluster definitely break up and freeze.

    CNBC used to be OK till last week so I am wondering if the dish could have been moved out of position in some way and is now properly aligned. Is that feasible or could there be other explanations for the problem channels.

    (2) I did notice yesterday that the 'bars' on the Signal Info were fluctuating a fair bit which I put down to some heavy rain at the time. Are these measurement based on the channel being viewed at the time or are they overall?

    (3) In a snowstorm today I lost one of the tuners altogether (according to the Signal Info display). Normally the Signal Info and indicates Good or Normal on both tuners. It has now come back.

    Any pointers welcomed.

    | Sun 29 Nov 2015 18:43:00 #1 |
  2. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    A snowstorm indicates you may be in Scotland or Northern England.

    Checked CNBC (I guess the others are the same) are on a Pan European Wide beam transponder. While this does mean they can be viewed across much of Western Europe, it does mean as a result the field strength is lower than the UK spot beams, and gets weaker the further North you are.

    You don't say how big your dish is, however I suspect you need a larger dish than you currently have, though aligning it more accurately may well help.

    Using the signal diagnostics on my Foxsat-HDR (60 cm dish in the Midlands) CNBC reports 100% signal 100% quality.

    The signal indicated is that of the transponder currently being used.

    In the case of CNBC, the following channels (transponder is 11479 V).

    156 more>movies
    210 CNBC

    | Sun 29 Nov 2015 19:33:59 #2 |
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    Gadgee

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    Thank you Graham - I am in the North of Scotland as you surmised.

    I will see what I can do to get the alignment checked although it seems I might just have been fortunate in getting my golf on CNBC for the past few months. Maybe the advent of winter has degraded the signal(?)

    On the subject of winter, might the snowstorm today have led to the loss of a tuner? As I said, they are both back working fine now that the snow has stopped.

    | Sun 29 Nov 2015 19:58:21 #3 |
  4. REPASSAC

    REPASSAC

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    Gadgee - 14 minutes ago  » 
    Thank you Graham - I am in the North of Scotland as you surmised.
    I will see what I can do to get the alignment checked although it seems I might just have been fortunate in getting my golf on CNBC for the past few months. Maybe the advent of winter has degraded the signal(?)
    On the subject of winter, might the snowstorm today have led to the loss of a tuner? As I said, they are both back working fine now that the snow has stopped.

    Water, including that in snow, will block satellite signals.

    | Sun 29 Nov 2015 20:14:15 #4 |
  5. grahamlthompson

    grahamlthompson

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    As Repassac says water is a problem. The signals you get from a satellite dish are in the microwave frequency range. Just like your Microwave oven, water converts this energy into heat. Just like the railways the wrong sort of snow (wet stuff), can completely stop your dish collecting this energy and reflecting it into the lnb (which collects the microwave energy into the lnb collector horn). The worst situation is if the dish face is coated with wet snow.

    If your dish is accessible a broom will restore viewing virtually instantly.

    Repassac lives in Southern France, I doubt he has this problem very often ( ).

    Lucky man

    | Sun 29 Nov 2015 22:55:05 #5 |
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    Gadgee

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    Thanks for the info - I have to confess that I had overlooked the effects of water on the dish.

    Will do some reading up on the topic.

    Just surprised that I have not had cause to think about it before as snow and the odd downpour are not unknown in the Highlands. Yes, we are lucky too - beautiful snowy winters, lush greenery and hosepipe bans are unknown in the summer.

    I might have been lucky in the siting of the dish as it is in the lea of a hill just to the north, is sheltered behind the house, faces east and the prevailing wind is from the west.

    Still really sad about the demise of the golf programmes tho!

    | Mon 30 Nov 2015 12:20:13 #6 |
  7. REPASSAC

    REPASSAC

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    In good weather check out what signal quality you are getting on the main channels. You want to see quality as high as possible as that will give greater tolerance to rain and snow.

    As Graham says a larger dish may help as well.

    Even down here we get snow, but fortunately, most of the time, it can be seen far away on the tops of the Pyrnenees mountains.

    | Mon 30 Nov 2015 13:05:12 #7 |

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