New to the Directv Family

[Grigato]

Hi ya'll, I'm officially a new member of the Directv Family as of today. I dumped my former cable provider (Suddenlink) after they changed and dropped a lot of the Viacom/other channels that I miss and enjoy watching. So far I'm very impressed and am loving my new Directv service! I have a question though that maybe someone can answer for me....... when I go to "signal strength" that shows the 1-32 transponder numbers readings, are there certain numbers/transponders that I need to pay attention too and if so what number reading are they supposed to be at?

Here is an example what I'm talking about:

1-8: X X X X X X X X
9-16: X X X X X X X X
17-24: X X X X X X X X
25-32: X X X X X X X X

Thanks!!

 

[bmetelsky]

Welcome!! I'm sure you'll love the service and equipment. In regards to your question, I'm not sure. I've had Directv for years now and never really needed to look at those numbers. I guess they did a good job when they installed and aimed my dish.

 

[Jimbo]

Welcome to the site.
What Sat do you show no numbers on ?
That sounds like it for some reason didn't read.
The Majority of your signal should be high 80 ' s and 90's, having a few low is normal.
Any the have a (s) are for spot beams and is common to not be as high as only a few are pointed at your city area.

If you have no numbers on whatever sat that is, you would be missing channels from that Sat.
Is this by chance the 110 Sat, if so, it's not being used by Directv anymore.

 

[raoul5788]

to Satelliteguys Grigato!
The numbers on 101, 103ca/cb and 99ca/cb should be in the 90s with maybe some 80s thrown in. The other 99 and 103 satellites have spot beams, most of which aren't pointed in your direction so don't worry about those. 110 is being used Jimbo, but for Puerto Rico, so those numbers are likely to be really low, too.

 

[texasbrit]

to Satelliteguys Grigato!
The numbers on 101, 103ca/cb and 99ca/cb should be in the 90s with maybe some 80s thrown in. The other 99 and 103 satellites have spot beams, most of which aren't pointed in your direction so don't worry about those. 110 is being used Jimbo, but for Puerto Rico, so those numbers are likely to be really low, too.

No, the 101 sat has spotbeams also.
On 101 a correctly aligned dish will show most signals in the high 90s or even 100. A few transponders, spotbeams pointed at different cities, will show lower signals even zero depending on where you are located.
As Chip says, 99ca/cb and 103ca/cb should all be at least in the high 80s, maybe mid 90s.
99s and 103s carry only spotbeams so it is quite normal to see most of the transponders with low or zero signals, don't worry about those.

If you have a dish that sees 110/119, as Chip says 110 is only relevant if you are in Puerto Rico. 119 should have some transponders at or close to 100 but most will be lower or zero (spotbeams again).

 

[raoul5788]

As soon as I posted about 101, I knew I forgot about the spotbeams on it!
Same for 119, especially since I have a swm13 lnb.

 

[whitewolf8214]

to Satelliteguys Grigato!!

 

[Grigato]

Thanks ya'll for the FAST and HELPFUL responses! Here are the satellite level readings I'm getting on my receiver. Let me know if they are good or not. Thanks!

 

[texasbrit]

They look fine but you are looking at the wrong screens.
The 101 screen is the correct one, but there are screens just like that for the other satellites. Next to the 101 at the top right you will see a +/- Click the plus button and it will move you to the next satellite screen and so on. There's also a +/- that will allow you to look at the signals on the other tuners - two tuners if you have a DVR, five tuners if you have a Genie. The other tuners should have basically the same signals as tuner 1.

 

[Grigato]

So my signal levels from the pictures I posted are all fine and good even though I was looking at the wrong screen?

 

[texasbrit]

Look good to me. But the reason for looking at the screens which show ALL the transponders is in case there is a problem with just some of them.

 

[Grigato]

Thanks again Texasbrit for your rapid and helpful responses! I never had satellite before, so this is my first time. I have always had cable tv. But I understand what your saying about the screen that shows all transponders, that it's there incase there is a problem I'm having or experiencing......correct? I have another question though......as you and many other people know, I'm new to satellite. So my question is when I have light to moderate rain showers in my area, my satellite/tv is pretty much fine. But when I have heavy downpours and heavy showers, my satellite goes out for like maybe a couple of minutes or so and then after the rain lets up a little/slows down, my satellite comes back on. So my question is if this happens or happened to you before, and if it's normal? Thanks!

 

[Jimbo]

Thanks again Texasbrit for your rapid and helpful responses! I never had satellite before, so this is my first time. I have always had cable tv. But I understand what your saying about the screen that shows all transponders, that it's there incase there is a problem I'm having or experiencing......correct? I have another question though......as you and many other people know, I'm new to satellite. So my question is when I have light to moderate rain showers in my area, my satellite/tv is pretty much fine. But when I have heavy downpours and heavy showers, my satellite goes out for like maybe a couple of minutes or so and then after the rain lets up a little/slows down, my satellite comes back on. So my question is if this happens or happened to you before, and if it's normal? Thanks!

This is a condition that happens when the storm is between your dish and the Satellite.
Typically it only happens when the storm is severe ... Very wet snow in the winter will also cause it to happen once in a while.

I rarely ever lose signal, but if I do it's not for long.
WhenI do, I know to go out and pick up anything in the yard that I don't want to be wet.
Often times if it goes out, you'll look outside and it's not raining, but the storm is in between ... seeing the dish typically points to the SW, most of the storms also come from the SW.

 

[Grigato]

This is a condition that happens when the storm is between your dish and the Satellite.
Typically it only happens when the storm is severe ... Very wet snow in the winter will also cause it to happen once in a while.

I rarely ever lose signal, but if I do it's not for long.
WhenI do, I know to go out and pick up anything in the yard that I don't want to be wet.
Often times if it goes out, you'll look outside and it's not raining, but the storm is in between ... seeing the dish typically points to the SW, most of the storms also come from the SW.

True that. But regardless, I was told that if you have heavy torrential downpours or severe weather, that you will lose satellite signal. It's normal and part of having and being with satellite......am I right?

 

[texasbrit]

If there is severe weather between you and the satellite (red areas on the radar) this can affect your signal and sometimes you can lose the signal completely. One tip - the HD channels will go out before the SD ones, because the frequencies are more susceptible to attenuation by raindrops. Your system is probably set up to hide SD duplicates, if you change that when there is HD signal loss to show all channels you can watch the SD version of many channels.

 

[Jimbo]

True that. But regardless, I was told that if you have heavy torrential downpours or severe weather, that you will lose satellite signal. It's normal and part of having and being with satellite......am I right?

Sometimes, sometimes not.

Look at it this way, 99.9% of the time you'll have a signal.

If there is severe weather between you and the satellite (red areas on the radar) this can affect your signal and sometimes you can lose the signal completely. One tip - the HD channels will go out before the SD ones, because the frequencies are more susceptible to attenuation by raindrops. Your system is probably set up to hide SD duplicates, if you change that when there is HD signal loss to show all channels you can watch the SD version of many channels.

Good point Tex.

 

[DS0816]

Grigato,

Welcome!

I hope you will continue liking and appreciating the service from DirecTV.

 

[JUCJ85]

Sometimes, sometimes not.

Look at it this way, 99.9% of the time you'll have a signal.

Good point Tex.

What Jimbo said, 99.9% of the time you will have a good signal. I live in New York where we get some severe storms, and it goes out maybe 1-2 times a year from that, and it's only for like 5 minutes, and in the winter, it hardly goes out, which surprised me.

 

[Grigato]

Hi ya'll, thanks again for all the quick and helpful responses! I have a quick question though and was just wondering how would ya'll say my satellite signal is?: PS: (I'm not having any problems at all with my Directv. I was just curious and wondering what ya'll think. Thanks!)

101:

1-8: 99 100 98 88 98 100 99 100
9-16: 99 100 99 79 99 100 98 100
17-24: 98 83 99 86 99 100 100 100
25-32: 99 0 98 99 99 100 99 100

99(ca):

1-8: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
9-16: N/A N/A 0 N/A 96 0 96 0
17-24: 95 96 94 96 0 N/A 0 N/A
25-32: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

99(cb):

1-8: 92 95 89 95 91 91 92 95
9-16: 92 92 94 95 96 95 N/A N/A
17-24: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
25-32: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

103(ca):

1-8: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
9-16: 96 90 95 95 95 95 94 95
17-24: 95 95 95 96 95 95 96 98
25-32: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

103(cb):

1-8: 96 97 95 95 95 95 95 95
9-16: 95 95 95 95 95 95 N/A N/A
17-24: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
25-32: N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

 

[texasbrit]

Those signals are excellent, no issues at all...