Thread: Nimiq 4 strength

Here in SW Florida, we are totally dark on 82. I only get signal on TP2. I sure hope this is a last temporary test before switching over.

Getting very intermittent signals here in Kansas on 82.

now I get decent results on 82 except for a couple TP's on 82

the ones that are good are between 72-73
bad ones are either 0 or 63-64 (again 63 is threshold)

One odd behaviour is that when I run a transponder check on sat 82, it returns wrong satellite with Bell ExpressVu 91 as the sat. for each transponder.

When I run a swith test it shows that 82 is not available, but then when I retest individual TPs on 82 I see TP 3 @ 99% and TP 2 @ 67% with everything else as 0.

How bizarre!

In the city of Minneapolis I get a signal on 12238, 12253, 12296, 12311, 12355, 12369, 12413, 12428, 12471, 12486, 12530, 12544, 12588, 12603, 12646, 12661. No signal or not tunable on the other ~1/2 of the transponders. This was at 9:40PM local time. I am using a 20" dish500.

Nimiq 4 was launched on September 20th. That is only 18 days ago. It seems too soon for it to be in service already. Where did they conduct the testing?

Originally Posted by frag999

In the city of Minneapolis I get a signal on 12238, 12253, 12296, 12311, 12355, 12369, 12413, 12428, 12471, 12486, 12530, 12544, 12588, 12603, 12646, 12661. No signal or not tunable on the other ~1/2 of the transponders. This was at 9:40PM local time. I am using a 20" dish500.

What channels are those?

I checked again tonight and it seems that bird is wobbling a bit in orbit as some of the transponders my Bell 9200 found weak during the day are now boucing around lower than 45% and not locking in now at night. I went out and made sure my dish was peaked on 82 with the same results. I may need a 1m dish here in Denver to keep those locked in. I will going back up north to Vancouver in a week and will see if the signal has gone up there.

I still haven't gotten my new smart card from Bell so because of that and this lack of signal at my southern home, it may be time to totally switch to Starchoice...
It's really disappointing that they could've built a new bird that served both northern and southern areas. Leave it to them to turn away a bunch of cash from the south.

Originally Posted by DaveFormula

One odd behaviour is that when I run a transponder check on sat 82, it returns wrong satellite with Bell ExpressVu 91 as the sat. for each transponder.

When I run a swith test it shows that 82 is not available, but then when I retest individual TPs on 82 I see TP 3 @ 99% and TP 2 @ 67% with everything else as 0.

How bizarre!

You will get weird readings if you aren't getting a reliable signal from one of the sats. The receiver gets "confused".

An update as of 10 PM Pacific. The transponders that were 86 to 88 this morning have dropped in strength to the low 80's. However the transponders that had the lowest readings this morning have all increased from the upper 60's and low 70's to the mid 70's.

As for whether what we are seeing actually is Nimiq 4.......who knows? I take photoman 76's point about the short length of time between launch and now, but all these new reports of signal strength anomalies sure are strange. Maybe we're still on the old satellite and it's about to blow up!