Thread: Montana PBS Unstable

Lately, Montana PBS quality on my Pansat 3500SD has been flakey.



It sometimes bounces between Q85 and no signal within a few minutes. At other times it stays around 80 for hours or even days. Other channels on AMC21 do not do this.

Any ideas?

Rain fade? I have no problems here on my 1.2 channel master. What size dish do you have? Have you tried to bump it east or west? The Montana pbs channel is a little weaker than the others so needs to have your dish more spot on especially when it rains.

Its stable on my setup with a Sq of 98% i never have any issues with

Montana PBS. i use a high end anolog signal strength meter. so being

licensed Ham i know how to check for Sq. i never trust on board meters.

check dish alignment ect

Originally Posted by dennise

Lately, Montana PBS quality on my Pansat 3500SD has been flakey.

It sometimes bounces between Q85 and no signal within a few minutes. At other times it stays around 80 for hours or even days. Other channels on AMC21 do not do this.

Any ideas?

Don't have any issues with Montana PBS doing that on my Pansat 3500SD, but I do recognise the issue you are dealing with, as I have dealt with it before.

As well, I am not surprised that you are have problems with it, for the following reasons. There seems to be some channels that the Pansat may do that with, and there are a few signs that indicate it may be one of those (and on my system Montana PBS has one of those indicators).

Does it also take a few seconds sometimes to lock in?
Right now Montana PBS is blasting at 99 on my Pansat on my 60e dish (they must have fed the squirrels). It is taking a few seconds to lock in. What is strange is that if Montana PBS is say at 45, it will lock in immediately. Have seen this before on certain other channels (Whitesprings TV and KTWO when it was on 123, come to mind), it is almost like the Pansat is overwhelmed by the signal. I notice that you mention the problem appears when the signal is stronger (though not by much).

If you go to the dish and give it a slight bump, does the signal completely disappear, and then re-appear, or when aligning the dish the signal doesn't gradually change in strength, but you have to wait for it to re-appear? (Don't recall if Montana PBS is doing this on my system or not, but on other channels I have seen this happen).

Solutions? Do a slight re-alignment of the dish and see whether that corrects it, it has worked for me in the past (Whitesprings). If the problem still happens, note the weather conditions, especially if there is a slight wind, which would be just enough to cause an ever so slight dish movement. As well, check your coax, as sometimes these "problem" channels seem to be more sensitive to slight signal degradation.

EDIT: LOL! The signal on Montana PBS has collapsed (squirrel died?) and is now at 45, and IS locking in immediately!

I agree with Keith...My Pansat 1500 does the same thing when there is a 99 signal

ALso the reason the signal did skyrocket was that KTWO next door at 123W is gone (and that was at 12104 V 2222 which caused issues)

Well guys ...... all good comments and ideas, but I'm still stumped.

I'm using a Fortec 90cm dish (about 36") on a mountain in southern California at 5,600 ft. It only seems to be PBS on AMC21 that is giving me such a wide and unstable range of signal quality. I see no correlation with local weather here, but when the signal goes bad it's usually in the evening. Is is common for sat sigs to vary a lot with time of day?

I have heard mentioned that the PBS uplink might explain this behavior. Right now (9PM PST on Tuesday Nov 10) PBS is unwatchable here while other channels on AMC21 are OK. I know a tropical storm is/has moved through the south east. Might this weather affect the BPS uplink?

I tried bumping my (motorized) dish slightly east and west, but see no improvement.

Montanna PBS is a main channel that we watch very often and I hate to give it up.

Any other ideas?

Originally Posted by dennise

I have heard mentioned that the PBS uplink might explain this behavior. Right now (9PM PST on Tuesday Nov 10) PBS is unwatchable here while other channels on AMC21 are OK. I know a tropical storm is/has moved through the south east. Might this weather affect the BPS uplink?

I tried bumping my (motorized) dish slightly east and west, but see no improvement.

Montanna PBS is a main channel that we watch very often and I hate to give it up.

Any other ideas?

There must be uplink problems for Montana PBS (I assume a Montana uplink site) as I am getting a low signal quality of a jumpy 16 to 30 right now (still viewable). Montana PBS does vary greatly, it is usually in the 60s, but can be as high as 99, and sometimes is around 45.

Another way to possibly correct the 80 to zero bouncing is to manually scan the channel in at a higher or lower frequency. For example, I get it at 12104, so I would change it to 12102 or 12106 and see it that eliminated the problem. If I remember correctly, you must delete the channel first, then manually change the transponder, and manually scan.

Originally Posted by dennise

Lately, Montana PBS quality on my Pansat 3500SD has been flakey.

It sometimes bounces between Q85 and no signal within a few minutes. At other times it stays around 80 for hours or even days. Other channels on AMC21 do not do this.

Any ideas?

Here in Puerto Rico I have a 4.5' footer and it has been unstable for a couple of days now!

I noticed it last night. I did a rescan and Montana PBS showed up on the list so I thought they changed some numbers. When I went to it, it was some ledgeaslature proceeding. This morning I am getting good video and a 70% signal.



ledgeaslature: I know this is no where near the correct spelling, but I think you know what I am going after. Besides, nobody told me I had to know how to spell when I took this job.