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lcda4

Last reply Oct 22, 2008 · posted in DIRECTV General Forum

DTV SWM Installation With Line Of Sight Issues

I have a standard DTV dish that handles 2 DTV Tivos and 2 DTV DVRs one of which is being upgraded to an HD DVR. An installer and his supervisor had come out to install the new HD dish. After they took their readings from my roof the supervisor told me that I couldn't receive a HD signal because the line of sight window was too small. He explained further by telling me that I am currently receiving a signal from only 1 satellite while HD requires the feed from 5 satellites. While the techs were discussing the situation further with each other and someone on the phone I was thinking about Verizon's Fios which is available in my area. That was when the supervisor came back to me and said that I was able to get a HD signal by way of a SWM setup. He said that instead of a 5 satellite feed I wiil be receiving only 3 which would accomodate my small window. I asked the supervisor if the quality of the picture and/or sound would go down in any way and he said the only thing I would lose are the Spanish and International Channels which I don't need anyway. I also found out that the SWM dish uses single lines that are split for each receiver which concerned me because I have 4 DVRs. I did find out from this website that others with a similar DTV SWM DVR setup had sucessful installations so I am not worried about this subject.

Because the installer did not have the equipment and was not qualified to do the SWM setup I was rescheduled for the installation on Thursday. I don't have much time because I have to agree to a two year contract so I'm trying to reach out for more facts and for a second opinion.

Also, what is considered to be an acceptable signal strength for HD by DTV's standard? Currently I am receiving a signal of 93% & 94%

Thank you in advance for your much needed help, Luke

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jtwex

Oct 22, 2008

You will be receiving signals from the 99, 101 & 103. Acceptable signals & the 'best they can get' are two different things; one governed by laziness/schedule & the other by quality. If your LOS is clear for these birds I would think your signal strength would peak around 95 & the low side around 80. DTV requires 70 for an acceptable install but all this does is bring rain/snow fade into your life quicker. Maybe, at the end of the day that is all your LOS can produce but I would ask that they spend a little more time peaking these signals if they come in low. Pay close attention to what/how they align the dish & maybe you can make your own adjustments down the line to improve the quality. Some receivers used to show lower signal readings on the receivers than what was actually obtained but I think the newer software has corrected this. I've seen installs done perfectly with everything near 100.

My bullseye leveler has my alignment slightly off but I get the following:

101 - 94
110 - 85
119 - 92
103s - 88
103c - 96
99s - 80
99c - 90

If I wasn't working with a cement chimney mount I would remove & fix the alignment & obtain higher readings. I could also try adjusting the 119 but since it has no 'fine tune' adjustment it's a pain in the azz.

Zynergi

Oct 22, 2008

SWM doesn't change the PQ at all, it may increase your number reading a tad since its a powered system.

SWM does allow you to only have 1 line to function your DVR's, so a 1x8 SWM splitter will properly operate your 4 DVR's. I wouldn't concern yourself too much over the obvious competence issue that arised, but at least they were honest with you about it, verses hacking your house up.

SWM is the latest and greatest technology from D* and if you have R15's you may get a R22/R16 upgrade to make them compatible. The down side is a SWM LNB setup can only operate 8 tuners max, so if you add a 5th DVR you would have to self-purchase a SWMultiswitch8 and even then it only gives you 11 tuners, but can be stacked to provide more., but again there is a cost to you.

I am not sure if the r10 (tivo) you have would work with the SWM LNB either (I doubt it) so if you have that Sups number I would call him and probably D* to see about getting your "older" equipment updated. Worst case if you go this route is you would have a 2nd work order which they can do at the same time.

Scott Greczkowski

Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge

Last reply 13 minutes ago · posted in The Chit Chat Club

Song Name Game Part 3!

Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne

Get it?

An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....

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Reactions: c-spand

FTA4PA

Today at 8:59 AM

Detroit Rock City - Kiss

Reactions: dishstaller

sdfntx

Today at 10:19 AM

I Care About Detroit - Smokey Robinson & the Miracles

dishstaller

Today at 10:32 AM

I Wanna Talk About Me - Toby Keith

Bobby

46 minutes ago

98.6 - Keith

harshness

13 minutes ago

I'm Easy - Keith Carridine

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reubenray

Last reply Today at 10:36 AM · posted in Computers and Gadgets

Laptop Shutting Off When On Battery?

Lately my eight year old Dell laptop has been shutting off even when I have a full battery. I have had to keep it plugged up all the time to keep this from happening. Any idea what is causing this? I replaced the battery about three years ago.

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arlo

Today at 10:09 AM

A recalibration might be needed. Even if it shows full, the individual cells may have become unbalaced. And the BMS chip in the battery reports false information to the pc.
Try this. Start it up in the bios/uefi and leave it there until the battery dies and it shuts off.
It might just keep running longer than in Windows. Or run for a short while and shut off.
If it's the first case. Probably just needs a balancing. If the latter, the pack might just be dead.
Not throwing stones but perhaps just a cheaply constructed battery with substandard cells. Could be.

Patience. Keep restarting it in bios/uefi until it won't fire up anymore.
Then plug the charger in and let it complete a full charge. And see what happens. If it's better.
Do the same thing one more time. Run it until it dies dead-dead. Then just let it charge, pc shut off.
When charged, it might be better. It might not be.

There are bench jigs that read the actual BMS and override it to let a tech manually monitor and charge the separate packs. They can also reset any "time bombs" in it that cause an otherwise good pack to show bad.
Maybe Santa will be good to me some year.

You might just need a new battery. Maybe the PC power management chip is going. A Dell common thing.
Leaving a laptop plugged in with a full battery is known to reduce the life. Asus for one recommends that you don't leave the charger plugged in all of the time even when shut down. And setting Windows to charge the battery to 85% instead of 100% increases life.
That's all I got.

dishstaller

Today at 10:36 AM

arlo said:
That's all I got.

That was quite enough....I definitely learned something from your post. Thanks

TRG

Pub Member / Supporter

Last reply Today at 10:27 AM · posted in Computers and Gadgets

Starlink Router question

I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

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b4pjoe

Saturday at 2:12 PM

TRG said:
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

If you can't get into the router to reserve an IP address just don't use DHCP on the device that needs connected and assign it to a specific IP address in the network settings.

Reactions: harshness

HipKat

Saturday at 11:07 PM

TRG said:
I set up a music server for my brother a few years ago. It's basically a small headless computer but it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

They are not. Your best bet is to set up a third-party router, attached to the Starlink for your server, that you can get into, like a Linksys, etc

Reactions: Foxbat

Foxbat

Sunday at 12:44 AM

TRG said:
…it needs to have a DHCP IP address reserved for it in the router settings. This was easy to do in his DSL router. He's switching to Starlink now and I was wondering if these setting are easily accessible in the Starlink router. I'm pretty sure he will be getting the latest V5 router.

The Starlink V5 Install Kit I just got comes with the Mini Router. It is pretty limited in what it can do. For example, it can provide only one IP subnet at a time, no Guest Network, but it does support the pass-thru to a third-party Router. You can also split the Wi-Fi into separate 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz SSIDs to help some IoT devices that don't support 5 GHz bands to work.

The larger Starlink Router that still comes with the V4 Kit does support a Guest Network with separate IPv4 Subnet, but it's $120 from Starlink. And it still won't do DHCP Reservations.

harshness

Sunday at 11:46 AM

If you can restrict the DHCP address space to assign addresses to one end of the subnet (i.e. x.x.x.50+), you can manually assign the IP address on pretty much any operating system. This is a default behavior on several popular routers. As the Router Mini only supports 235 devices, I expect that's already done.

Another option is to use a router that supports PoE to power the antenna. This article discusses that option (under PoE Power heading):

Starlink V5 Is Here: What RVers Need to Know

Overview of the new Starlink V5 model along with comparison to the previous V4 model along with a recommended setup for mobile internet users.

mobilemusthave.com

Reactions: Foxbat

Foxbat

Today at 10:27 AM

Now that I've had the v5 kit with the Mini Router, it's not as bad as I first thought. Yes, no DHCP reservations, but you can set up multiple SSIDs that have separate IPv4 subnets, and like the big brother, you can select from 192.168.x.0/24 or 10.x.0.0/16 (where "x" is 1-4).

You can also split a subnet and have different SSIDs for the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels to handle some IoT devices. I haven't discovered what subnet the 2nd NIC on the router assigns, I'm guessing it's the first subnet.

dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply Today at 10:27 AM · posted in The Chit Chat Club

I think we could all use a laugh - Rodney Dangerfield on Carson

Good...simple humor. Enjoy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E92AtfTLge4

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJy0WnejlF4

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Jimbo

Today at 12:37 AM

Not Rodney, but a laugh ...

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WHEcmortfK0?feature=share

dishstaller

Today at 10:27 AM

Sorry for posting the wrong link. Just corrected it.

dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply Today at 10:17 AM · posted in The Chit Chat Club

At least 64 dead in Spanish passenger train collision

Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

At Least 64 Dead After Two High-Speed Trains Collide In Spain | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

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Jimbo

Yesterday at 11:24 AM

dishstaller said:
Terrible tragedy. You would think that they would have safe guards in place that would prevent something like this from happening. I guess if you are going to ride in a passenger train it might be best to get a car near the rear.

At Least 64 Dead After Two High-Speed Trains Collide In Spain | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

They will have to look at the switching sections to determine WHY 2 trains were on the same track ... at the same time.

dishstaller

Today at 10:17 AM

Thought this article might be of interest to some of you who might travel via train.

The safest seat to sit on in a train

Safety experts have shared top tips on train safety after a fatal railway crash in Spain killed 69 people, including where the safest place is in an emergency.

www.dailymail.com