PIXILATING LOCALS - HD ONLY

[MikeinBaja]

OK, this one is driving me nuts! (a very short drive).

Trying to help a friend square away a weird problem in San Diego. SDO locals (from the transponder list stickey) are on 103 TP 16. I repeaked his dish (Slimline AU-9) with my Birdog - excellent numbers from all birds and getting 100% on 103-16 on his box, yet still getting the pixilation on all the HD locals .

SD version of the locals and all other channels are fine. LOS is unobstructed and I did swap out the LNB, checked and redid the ground and took each connection in the line apart - no problems there.

Any suggestions? If the B band converter or the box was going, wouldn't the pixies be on all the HD, not just locals?

Old guy hates strangers in his home and I really don't want to have him call D.

 

[jdspencer]

Any chance you can use a different output from the dish?

Which receiver model is being used?

Remember the HD locals are on a spot beam, whereas the national locals are on CONUS.

 

[MikeinBaja]

Any chance you can use a different output from the dish?

Which receiver model is being used?

Remember the HD locals are on a spot beam, whereas the national locals are on CONUS.

Thanks for the reply. Obviously, the board is as stumped as I am with this one.

Changed out the LNB with the one from my own house (which I KNOW is good) - location is smack in downtown SDO (so I know he is in the DMA). Signal from the spotbeam is 100% on 103 TP 16. None of the other sat TP's that are in the DMA are below 90, so I know the alignment is absolutely nailed.

He has arranged for me to "borrow " an RF sniffer tomorrow at my suggestion, searching for something spurious (old guy has a ton of local juice) about the only thing I've not eliminated yet.

Receiver is an H-20, not sure of subset model - not that old though, I put it in about 18 months ago when I did his HD upgrade.

For the record - this isn't a paid job - not even expenses. Flew as his wingman in the early 70's (was my squadron commander for awhile) and he was one of the best fighter pilots I've ever known - which one hell of an admission from an old stick.

But this sat problem has me stumped.

 

[jdspencer]

I assume no multiswitch is being used.

The only other suggestion is to try a different receiver.

 

[MikeinBaja]

Took a different receiver with me today that I know is good - same problem.

Set up a second temporary dish on a tripod with new coax - same problem.

Very interesting playing with the RF sniffer (never used one before). Got BIG and pretty powerful spikes across a fairly wide spectrum. Was later in the day when I discovered this, so plan to stroll around his neighborhood tomorrow morning and see what I can track down.

Whatever it is certainly is blasting a fair amount of RF across a fairly wide spectrum. Gotta be the problem.

More to follow.

 

[aztracker]

I am having the exact same problem here in Phoenix! Signal levels are normal (in the high 70s and 80s) on most transponders. It is happening on the local channels in both HD and SD and on both of my receivers. No other channels are affected, just the locals. It's driving me so crazy I have had to resort to watching them OTA.

 

[MikeinBaja]

I am having the exact same problem here in Phoenix! Signal levels are normal (in the high 70s and 80s) on most transponders. It is happening on the local channels in both HD and SD and on both of my receivers. No other channels are affected, just the locals. It's driving me so crazy I have had to resort to watching them OTA.

If your best signals are in the high 70's and 80's, your dish needs fine tuning. You may want to look at the transponder map and find out what transponder & sat your locals come from and see what your strength is on that one. Very well could be your issue - but I'd certainly start there.

Most of the time issues like this are hardware related: alignment, poor connections or degraded line of sight as trees or other "stuff" grows.

Unfortunately, I've already ruled all that stuff out in this particular case.

 

[texasbrit]

If your best signals are in the high 70's and 80's, your dish needs fine tuning. You may want to look at the transponder map and find out what transponder & sat your locals come from and see what your strength is on that one. Very well could be your issue - but I'd certainly start there.

Most of the time issues like this are hardware related: alignment, poor connections or degraded line of sight as trees or other "stuff" grows.

Unfortunately, I've already ruled all that stuff out in this particular case.

The Phoenix problem is nothing to do with your installation. from all the posts it looks like the problem is in the DirecTV Local receive facility or uplink. Nothing you can do to fix this.

 

[MikeinBaja]

GOT IT!

Took a different receiver with me today that I know is good - same problem.

Set up a second temporary dish on a tripod with new coax - same problem.

Very interesting playing with the RF sniffer (never used one before). Got BIG and pretty powerful spikes across a fairly wide spectrum. Was later in the day when I discovered this, so plan to stroll around his neighborhood tomorrow morning and see what I can track down.

Whatever it is certainly is blasting a fair amount of RF across a fairly wide spectrum. Gotta be the problem.

More to follow.

Well, took a short drive then a walk with the sniffer and isolated the problem to a particular facility. The broadcasting equipment that is/was causing the interference is DOD (Navy) and it's generally along the signal path, although not really in the true line of sight.

Spent a few hours on the phone, finally getting in touch with a friendly Navy tech who came out & verified that it was messed up. Don't know what he subsequently did - but the problem is now GONE!

No idea what it was for (and had the good sense not to bother asking) but if you know anything about San Diego there is a huge Navy presence here.

So ends one of the strangest problem I've ever seen.