107.3W Anik F1R 4140 V 30000

[TRG]

Im having trouble with the transponder listed in the subject line. The other transponders I'm interested in, 4020 and 4060 come in great with a quality reading of 75. I am using fine tuned 6 foot prime focus which is probably the problem. Receiver is GeosatPro MicroHD. I tried deleting the transponder and blind scanning and it wasn't found. Re-entered the TP info manually but still no signal. Any ideas other than my dish being too small?

 

[Cham]

4140 is 8psk, might be tricky with a 6' dish. Also none of the channels on that uplink are FTA on my last scan, can check again though maybe they added another stream..

 

[FTA4PA]

4140 is ITC and has been for quite a while. Cham, were you were thinking of 4040 which is not ITC? According to Sathint.com 4020 and 4140 are both 8PSK but 4020 has a FEC of 1/2 while 4140 has a FEC of 5/6. Possibly the higher FEC on 4140 may be the problem when using a 6' dish?

 

[lost_mesa]

Both CTV muxes, 4020 V and 4140 V are coming in fine at about the same signal strength on my 10 footer. microHD says they are both 8PSK, FEC of 5/6. The CBC mux at 4080 H has a FEC of 3/4. The Weather Network at 4100 V has a FEC of 7/8.

 

[TRG]

I forgot to mention that 4100 (The weather nation) is screaming in as well at 72+ quality. Basically all the transponders on this bird are strong. Yet not a peep from 4140. Odd.

 

[Cham]

Guess I need my glasses... looking at the screen I thought you were looking at 4160 which is the CBC backhaul, which is scrambled...for some unknown (but expensive) reason..

Getting almost 16dB s/n on 4140, good and strong here, but this is on a 10' solid reflector. Maybe some adjacent satellite interference?

 

[BigRyan]

Im having trouble with the transponder listed in the subject line. The other transponders I'm interested in, 4020 and 4060 come in great with a quality reading of 75. I am using fine tuned 6 foot prime focus which is probably the problem. Receiver is GeosatPro MicroHD. I tried deleting the transponder and blind scanning and it wasn't found. Re-entered the TP info manually but still no signal. Any ideas other than my dish being too small?

73% Signal Quality and I have a 6 foot prime focus solid dish and ALSO the GeoSat Pro MicroHD. Sorry I'm late to the party but just wanted to chime in since I have a 6' dish (SD180PM to be exact) like you and the same receiver.

 

[TRG]

This is very confusing to me. Ryan, do you notice a big signal difference between 4020 and 4140?

 

[lost_mesa]

I took a look at 105, 107.3 and 111.1 W with a spectrum analyzer. Nothing really jumps out at me as a problem as far as adjacent satellite interference goes. See what you think in the attached image.

I looked at both V and H as I've seen some indication that side lobes can pick up some of the opposite polarity, that the main beam won't.

There is a strong 4140 signal at 105, but it is horizontal. 111.1 doesn't look like it would be a problem, so maybe bump your dish a bit west? Also, if it was me, I might try turning the skew a bit one way, than the other. Also move the focus in, maybe 1/2 inch and try that. Probably stuff you have already tried.

I don't have any experience with 6 foot dishes, so don't know what the side lobe performance is like.

 

[TRG]

Thanks, Lost Mesa. When I have time I'm going to revisit the skew and focus alignment.

 

[BigRyan]

This is very confusing to me. Ryan, do you notice a big signal difference between 4020 and 4140?

Not really at the moment I'm getting 74% on 4140 and 72% on 4020 so only a 2% difference. I moved my dish east and west and they both drop about the same so I would not think lobe issues. Both transponders are V polarized. Seems like I remember channels on one transponder being H264 and the other being something different but I don't remember exactly what it was though. From what I can tell now they are exactly the same with Dolby Digital audio.

Do you have the dielectric plate in the feed horn? I removed mine a few years ago, could that make a difference maybe?

 

[TRG]

Argh.... I still cant get that transponder to lock. I think it may be time for a new LNBF. Mine is more than 8 years old and takes a beating in the New Mexico sun. I think I'll order a C2W-PLL from Titanium and see what happens.

 

[lost_mesa]

I get everything on Anik F1r with a 8.5 foot dish, Titanium LNBF and the microHD receiver. Solid signals here in New Mexico. But 8.5 feet will do a lot better than a 6 footer.

 

[MikeI]

No problems here in NM with the 7.5 kti dish in Rio Rancho with the sats. My lnb is old. Nice to see alot of fellow Lobos/Aggies around. There's only 1 person with a dish left on the west side that I know way down by West Mesa pool. Other dishes here in RR are all gone that I used to see.

 

[TRG]

UPDATE: This continued to bother me. As well as having problems with the PR MUX (described in a different thread.) Today I had some time so I set up a portable TV and receiver out at the dish. I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and never got 4140 V 30000 to lock. 4020 and 4060 continued to come in great with a quality reading of 75.

Last week when I was cleaning my garage I came across an Eagle Aspen B1 SAT STACK C-Band LNBF that I bought from Sadoun when he had a close out sale several years ago. It was still brand new in the box. So I decided to give it a try. I put the new LNBF into the scaler, no skew or focus adjust. Basically just laid it in there right up to the stop and I had a strong Q indication of around 60. Once I adjusted skew and focus I was up to 77. Then it dawned on me that I needed to change the L.O. from 5150 to 5150/5750 for the stacked LNBF. After that I did a blind scan and voilà 4140 V 30000 locked and scanned in all the channels. in fact the Q is a few ticks higher than 4020 and 4060. Why the heck it didn't work before is a mystery to me. My problem on the PR MUX is fixed now as well.

The Eagle Aspen is a real nice LNBF but it only has one output. I need two, so this is a temporary fix. The permanent solution will be a Titanium C2W-PLL.

For those interested the failed unit was a Geosat Pro C2. It lasted 8 years so thats not too bad. It just died being TP deaf at certain frequencies which seems odd.

 

[lost_mesa]

I have a spectrum analyzer that isn't very sensitive, so once tried an in-line amp on my 250' run of RG6 to boost the signal. I wasn't expecting any change in the BER on my receiver, and for the most part there wasn't. But one mux went from good to breaking up badly. Turns out the amp was oscillating at one particular frequency, which messed up that mux. No other channels were affected.