No signal

[northgeorgia]

After months of perfect or near perfect operation, I am now without C-band.

Last night, I noticed my V-box wasn't moving the dish anymore. I waited until this morning, and also thought it would be a good time to connect the new ASC1 as my mover. There were some frustrations, but after redoing the connections to the actuator and the ASC1, I finally was able to move the dish.. I programmed in a few satellite positions and had some intermittent troubles. Traced it to a bad coax connection to the ASC1 from the STB. It began to move flawlessly --

But then, there was no signal! The receiver moves the dish but receives a flat "5" on Quality (0 on Signal). Blind scanning any satellite yields no transponders.

1. I rechecked my connections.
2. I moved the dish to a stronger transponder on one of the satellites I programmed in on the ASC1. Nothing.
3. I turned off the STB and ASC1, connected the LNB line directly to another STB. Same signal result on that satellite. No transponders found during a blind scan.
4. I thought, perhaps in my zeal to get the actuator moving again, I failed to turn off the ASC1 and burnt out the LNB. I replaced the LNB with the one I won recently in the contest. Nothing.
5. Is the coax bad? I tried another piece of coax to the LNB. Same result: I can move the dish, but no signal.
6. Perhaps the dish moved on the pole a bit? I found this highly unlikely as everything seemed tight and snug as it had been before. But this yielded nothing.

I've been trying for six hours and I'm running out of daylight and ideas. The only thing I can think of is wait until next weekend and trying moving the new LNB around in different positions (although I put it in what seems to be precisely the same position as the old one); barring that, I'll have to go out to the dish and start all over with finding a signal somewhere. I just don't understand what I'm missing. Any ideas?

 

[northgeorgia]

From what I recall in this ordeal, I had just moved the dish to the Luken mux on 87W, optimized the signal, and saved it. When I tried to move it to Venesat/Simon Bolivar on 78W, it showed no movement (kept the same strength). Same deal when I tried to move it back west to any other of the sats I had programmed in. That's when I discovered the wonky coax connection from the STB to the ASC1. As I said, I reconnected it, and it moved as expected. But it's also when the signals died. So although I did attempt to to move the dish on the pole a bit in step 6 to see if the signals would come in (they didn't), it seems unlikely that is the issue as the dish was on a channel in the center of the arc when the signal died out.

The likelihood of having two bad pieces of coax and/or two bad LNBs (especially as one just came out of the box) seems pretty far fetched, too. But I suppose it's possible. If the weather and daylight cooperates tomorrow, I'll try connecting that piece of coax onto my Ku-band system directly from the LNB to a standalone spare STB. Unfortunately, I already zip-tied the cable onto the big dish, so it'll be more of a project than it seems. With a 175 foot run (had to get away from the tree line) of RG-11 cable, it will be pricey to replace, should that be the cause.

At dusk, I tried connecting another run of cable that I knew worked well (RG-6, probably 175 feet or so) to try the Ku-band dish on 95W. Now, with a combined estimated 400-ft line of partial RG-6 and RG-11, that was probably a silly way (no, let me say, certainly a ridiculous way) to test the coax. But, the results yielded no signal. So I do have a suspected cause now. Next attempt will be snipping the RG-11 loose and doing a direct connect to the Ku-band dish to see if with the shorter run there is still no signal.

I know whatever the issue is, it must be something simple I'm not thinking of.

 

[. Raine]

What receiver are you using? Maybe the lnb power got turned off in the menu somehow? My receivers usually show a high signal whenever a lnb is connected. 5% seems real low.

If you have a ohm meter, you could disconnect both ends of your coax and measure between the center pin and shielding, it should be open. Then short one end of the coax and measure between the pin shielding on the other end, you should get a fairly low resistance.

 

[northgeorgia]

What receiver are you using? Maybe the lnb power got turned off in the menu somehow? My receivers usually show a high signal whenever a lnb is connected. 5% seems real low.

If you have a ohm meter, you could disconnect both ends of your coax and measure between the center pin and shielding, it should be open. Then short one end of the coax and measure between the pin shielding on the other end, you should get a fairly low resistance.

LNB power is on (Amiko Mini HD RE). I'm starting to suspect I did something to the coax during a moment of carelessness. Now that the sun is down, that'll be an after-work project sometime later this week.

 

[northgeorgia]

Update: yeah, it was the coax. I had the wrong one plugged it all this time. Duh! Sorry! I have to learn it pays to walk away from something for a while to clear your mind.

 

[northgeorgia]

Moderator, please feel free to delete the panicky Sunday "well duh" thread.

 

[Juan]

Moderator, please feel free to delete the panicky Sunday "well duh" thread.

Might help others with a similar problem

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[northgeorgia]

Might help others with a similar problem

LOL!

 

[KE4EST]

Nah, not going to delete it.
I feel your frustration though, I have that happen to me from time to time.
I'll working on something and all of a sudden things are not going correctly.
I can spend hours worrying about it, then walk away come back and in a few seconds sometimes, see the issue right away and laugh at myself.

I was programming one night, had been at it for hours and could not get something to work correctly. No matter what code I changed nothing would make it work like I wanted.
I went to bed, the next morning I walked over to the computer and in less than 30 seconds after firing up the IDE, I did a face palm, literally changed one value in the code...compiled the code again and it was flawless.

 

[waylew]

I had the wrong one plugged it all this time

Been there,,Done that

 

[. Raine]

I'm good for plugging the wrong power cord in with stuff. A few times I've taken the cases off of things and pulled out my meter and then it's, oh, I see why there's no power, I plugged in the wrong cord! Happens to all of us in some way or another, I think.