G10 signal help

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jollyrgr

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Aug 25, 2005
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Possible Help Please w/G10R

As far as the MPEG-2 FTA I can be considered a newbie (just getting my first DVB receiver in July 2005). But I've had a 10' C/Ku band dish for over a decade. I am very good at getting things working and can usually do so without a manual. But something is biting me when it comes to FTA. Let me explain.

My big dish is a Weingard mesh dish in excellent shape. I am using a Echostar SRD-6000 receiver for the analog signals, polarity control, and positioner. Dish is aligned and I can get the analog C-Band and Ku Band birds correctly and with no sparklies. This all works fine.

I have connected (for now) the Ku LNB (0.6 dB) to my MPEG-2 DVB receiver. I've figured out how to use the Lyngsat parameters to program the MPEG receiver but continue to experience receiving issues. I put in the DRO frequency for Ku LNBs of 10750 MHz. I move the dish to the proper location (confirmed by seeing the proper satellite transponders on C-Band) and start programming the individual transponder frequencies and SR parameters into the DVB receiver. Sometimes I leave the FEC automatic, other times I use what is given. I bring up the signal meter, peak the dish position, and change channels on the C-Band receiver to get the proper polarity and maximum signal. The receiver will get a LOCK and will pull down a bunch of channels. I can then change to different channels and get a steady signal. My problem is not figuring out HOW to program the receiver, it is figuring out HOW to keep the channels.

For instance I was able to program G10R Ku transponders 1, 5, and 15 and watch the various channels. (The Tube was real interesting as it was a music video station that actually played music videos!) All the channels were coming in fine except for a couple that did not have audio but I was not interested in those anyway. I come back the next day without ever having moved the dish or without changing any programming and all the stations associated with TP1 were gone but everything else was fine! So I do a search for TP1 again and can't get a lock. So I try reprogramming TP5. TP 5 reprograms and locks right away. Thus I know the receiver is working fine as is the LNB. The polarity works because when I change channels or play with the skew on the C-Band receiver I can watch the signal strength vary on the MPEG.

I did note that even though the signal strength was stronger it was jumping quite a bit and I could not get a "QUALITY" reading (thus no lock)on TP1. TP5 worked fine.

On the signal strength meter of the MPEG receiver there are wild fluctuations in the signal strength; and no quality lock. I figured it must be the way I have the dish aligned and hook up my SAT FINDER meter. When I first programmed in the three transponders without using the SAT finder meter I was getting a signal strength of 57% or so. I use the SAT FINDER to tweak the dish to a sweet spot where I get a much stronger signal (about 65%). Still no lock. I give up and watch something else. But the next night I found none of the stations on TP 5 are available. I cannot reprogram any of the shows on G10R.

Is there something up with the way the MPEG signal is received that, even with a stronger signal you can't get a lock? Can someone explain what might be causing this? I moved the dish to a different satellites and can tune in previously programmed channels most of the time. Other times I must tweak and rescan before I can watch those channels. What is it that causes this?
 
Hello and WELCOME to the SatelliteGuys.US FTA forum :welcome

I am just starting out with C-Band after just getting my first BUD, but I know KU alignment is much more critical than C-band. I would suggest going over all your angles again and use KU to line up the dish to the Clarke Belt.

The channels on G10 with no audio use (Digital) AC-3 audio.

Nice to have you here :)
 
PSB said:
I am just starting out with C-Band after just getting my first BUD, but I know KU alignment is much more critical than C-band.
Nice to hear you got your BUD Peter, Congrats :) What size did you end up getting?

Now, back on thread...
Try playing with the skew on your analog reciever, i found that made all the difference in between getting poor SQ and strong SQ on the transponder that the tube is on G10/ Ku. What i do is get the analog reciever all ready to change skew, then switch over to my MPEG reciever and watch the signal quality as i change the skew. With my setup changing the skew more than doubled the signal quality, from 30 (lots of breakups) to ~65 ( steady watchable signal). I think i can get a higher sq, i just have to find the time to get up on a ladder and peak my corotor feedhorn (FD and centering) some more. Hope this helps :-D
 
Got a wee 6' BUD, just small enough to sneak into the yard without the wife noticing : )

Came with a nice LNB (Cal Amp) and a Pansat : ) ($30 total)
 
I do exactly what hydro does as far as the skew and alignment goes. But what I do is watch the C-Band on one picture, the DVB on another. The Ku LNB is directly connected to the DVB receiver (throught the SAT FINDER). I move the dish using the analog receiver and watch the signal strength on the analog receiver C-Band, on the DVB receiver and on the sat finder. Once the dish is peaked East to West I adjust the skew. One thing I did notice after posting this is that if I move the dish slightly west of G10R and get a weaker signal I can sometimes get a momentary jump in quality on 11,720MHz. Could EchoStar 9 be causing interference? The closest transponder in frequency on ES9 is at 11,724 MHz so I did not think that was close enough to be a concern. But the two xponders are the same polarity.
 
Iceberg said:
yep. The G10 TP at 11719 has interference form the Echo 9 satellite :)

How do you tell if a transponder on one satellite is causing interference with a transponder on another satellite?

I'm not questioning your judgement, I'm just wondering how you figure that out? Or is it something you just have to "know"?
 
In this case, a representative from Equity Broadcasting explained the problem here a few weeks back.

As it turns out, there is no difference in uplink strength between the "weak" transponder The Tube is on and the "stronger" transponders Equity is using.

The much larger (5 meter) dishes the broadcasters use are able to reject cross-pole interference much more efficiently than our smaller dishes are.
 
Solution Yields More Questions

Iceberg said:
yep. The G10 TP at 11719 has interference form the Echo 9 satellite :)

Thanks Iceberg, you solved my problem! For many years I've been using the information from the Lyngsat web site for my C-Band system and now my DVB receiver. The site says that G10R TP1 is 11720 MHz which is what I used. You posted that it is at 11719 MHz so I gave that a try. The receiver locked on to this TP and programmed the channels without any fine tweaking east and west or extreme care when adjusting the skew. In fact the quality bar jumped more than half way up the scale where before I might get blips or just a small quality reading scale. I can now allow for a bit more slop in getting the dish pointed and the skew adjusted. I tried a few other transponders and some I set a couple notches below what Lyngsat says, others I set higher. Others (TP5 for instance) were right on the money.

This eludes more questions. Is the information at Lyngsat wrong? Or could it be that by programming slightly off the center frequency I am eliminating interference from an adjacent satellite?

When first setting this system up I did play with the LO setting for the LNB setting it a couple MHz higher and lower than the 10750 MHz "standard" but this made little difference. Considering some of the TPs I had to set higher in frequency and others I set lower, I don't think that the LNB frequency is off. Suggestions? Any quick and dirty tricks that can be used to determine the LO of the LNB?

THANKS AGAIN!!!
 
jollyrgr said:
This eludes more questions. Is the information at Lyngsat wrong? Or could it be that by programming slightly off the center frequency I am eliminating interference from an adjacent satellite?

Lyngsat isn't wrong. Equity (the owner) does have it sent out as 11720 but each LNB may be off a little bit. I just scanned it again last night and it locked in as 11718 :)
 
good info

so the 11720v tp on g-10r is not "weaker" per say, but is getting noise from the echo bird at 119 west. I did not realize that. I always thought that that transponder was just weak. So a larger dish with better cross-pol isolation would greatly increase signal quality.
 
Actually, its a transponder on Dish's 121w that interferes with G-10R. An Equity representative explained this back in the summer. Basically, we kept urging him to "crank up 11720!" and he responded that all of the Equity transponders were putting out the same power and that cross-pole was doing us in :)
 
the Dish frequency is 11724 V, where the G10 is 11720 V so thats why we have the issue

There is a TP on 121 that is real close to 11799, but the signal on 121 is Horizontal polarity, so theres no issue

We had the same issue last year for North Dakota hockey feed on G3. There was an adjacent signal that made the 30" dishes crap out...but the 36" had a solid signal :)
 
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