PBS Channels Signal terrible in AMC21

[pendragon]

Not to beat a dead horse, but I was curious if my conjecture that PBS tends to tweak their uplink just before the top of the hour in between feeds was true. Today, starting at 0100 EST, I ran a program on the 12180V 30000 transponder that logs any periods of non-zero Bit Error Rates (BER). Here's the raw output:

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:58:59 GMT bit_errors=310677
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:00 GMT bit_errors=21072
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:00 GMT bit_errors=1450
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:01 GMT bit_errors=97
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:01 GMT bit_errors=5
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:26 GMT bit_errors=124113
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:27 GMT bit_errors=8424
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:27 GMT bit_errors=571
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:28 GMT bit_errors=38
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:59:28 GMT bit_errors=2
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:03 GMT bit_errors=1023578
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:03 GMT bit_errors=1023578
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:04 GMT bit_errors=3136531
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:51 GMT bit_errors=380914
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:52 GMT bit_errors=26200
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:52 GMT bit_errors=1791
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:53 GMT bit_errors=120
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:59:53 GMT bit_errors=8
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:58:54 GMT bit_errors=188673
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:58:54 GMT bit_errors=12863
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:58:55 GMT bit_errors=884
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:58:55 GMT bit_errors=60
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:58:56 GMT bit_errors=3
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 15:58:52 GMT bit_errors=389438
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 15:58:52 GMT bit_errors=26287
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 15:58:53 GMT bit_errors=1781
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 15:58:53 GMT bit_errors=121
Sat, 08 Dec 2012 15:58:54 GMT bit_errors=8

How about that? Note that to get EST from GMT, subtract 5 hours. This type of tweaking is pretty rare, most days I never see any non-zero BERs.

 

[Trip]

The feeds other than 12180 are uplinked from various sites across the country, so those can and do experience wide variations over time. And, in fact, if you watch, right at the end of a program on some of those other feeds, you'll see the whole signal go down for a few seconds before another uplink site replaces it.

12180 shouldn't be seeing issues like that, since it comes pretty much strictly out of the PBS NOC facility. Though if they were going to do any tweaking, that would be the time; when the PBS affiliates are doing local promos.

- Trip

 

[robosat]

Hi Radar.

Thanks a lot for all your help and explanations. Moving just a little bit (upper) my 3 feet dish some 2 weeks ago seemed to solve the problem for now. I´ve already done all you suggested weeks ago without success. Don´t know the exact dates where I couldn't catch any channel (except that SD07). Right now I´m receiveing a 90 Level and 70 Quality Signal. Strange thing was that months ago I received well other channels from other satellites, but for AMC21 just that SD07. Anyway, hope that signals remain as are now a long time.
Regards...