reception issues

[jcarr]

Just had a new Hr22, R15 and slimline 5 installed. My signal levels are all 95 or better. Mount is rock solid. Had the Direct service tech out last week and he replaced cables from the dish to the house, this made a big improvement but I still get a couple of dropouts/pixelizations per night, is this normal for the new HD systems? The first tech had incorrectly made the connectors at the new dish and the replacements from the second service visit made a big improvement.

My other items to consider are the cables from the ground blocks to the receivers, a faulty lnb, or is this as good as it gets?

My old HR10-250 that was removed never had this issue.

 

[skyviewmark]

Depends on how bad your freezes/dropouts are. Right now all systems have some issues with this in some fashion. I have Dish Network and DirecTV.. Both have OTA. The dropouts and freezes occur on Satellite and OTA. Some days better than others. But it continues to happen.. I am not talking about signal loss here.. Just freezeing and pixelation. I susect it has something to do with the encoders resetting.. But I am not that tech savy about that end of the transmission.. I just know it happens.. and it's not just a problem with one company. It's across the board to both sat companies and OTA as well..

 

[Jimbo]

Depends on how bad your freezes/dropouts are. Right now all systems have some issues with this in some fashion. I have Dish Network and DirecTV.. Both have OTA. The dropouts and freezes occur on Satellite and OTA. Some days better than others. But it continues to happen.. I am not talking about signal loss here.. Just freezeing and pixelation. I susect it has something to do with the encoders resetting.. But I am not that tech savy about that end of the transmission.. I just know it happens.. and it's not just a problem with one company. It's across the board to both sat companies and OTA as well..

Then it's a problem coming from the source, the station itself, or the parent company, where ever the original feed is coming from.

You would have to get into the specific station to diagnose any further.

jcarr,
Is it a particular channel or a bunch of them ?
Local or network ?

 

[jcarr]

jcarr,
Is it a particular channel or a bunch of them ?
Local or network ?

The problem seems to be on any channel. I am not using an OTA so everything is over the dish. The problem is a brief pixelization or glitch in the sound. Sometimes but not often it covers 1/2 of the display but is gone in a flash. I have seen it on both receivers, more often on the HR22 but I watch it more often.

 

[jdspencer]

Please provide the signal strengths for each TP on each satellite.
This can help pinpoint which sat(s) have a problem, if any.

 

[jcarr]

Please provide the signal strengths for each TP on each satellite.
This can help pinpoint which sat(s) have a problem, if any.

Here are the signal strength numbers. I live in central Kansas if that helps on the spot beams. I noticed several dropouts in a row while watching American Idle, I noted a large lip sync sound difference just prior to the break ups. It also seemed to be about a minute prior to a commercial break.

thanks for the help
sat 101
97 96 95 33 96 100 96 100
96 97 97 0 97 100 95 100
96 0 97 0 96 100 95 100
95 0 97 63 96 100 95 100

sat 110
na na na na na na na 90
na 95 na 95na na na na
na...
na...

sat 119
na........
na........
na....95 100 95
100 99 97 98 100 97 0 98

sat 99c
94 95 89 89 91 92 87 88
90 91 88 88 93 94 na na
na.......
na.......

sat 99s
0 0 0 0 0 0 na na
na.......0 0
76 84 0 0 69 76 0 0
na........

sat 103s
0 0 0 99 0 99 na na
na......95 94
0 98 95 95 15 0 95 86
na.......

sat 103c
95 96 92 94 92 95 89 92
92 95 91 94 92 95 na na
na........
na........

 

[Zynergi]

Signals look fine... best to check them during the problem time. Is your Receiver plugged into a surge suppressor or UPS? If its momentary like seconds every once in a while then that is normal. The signal is traveling just to you from 22,300 miles away, being transmitted up at the same rate and transmitted from the source to D*'s uplink center from 2000 miles to 24000 miles.. so you are watching a signal that has traveled over 62,000 miles before you get to view it, so some type of interferance would be expected. Not often or on a schedule but it does happen.

 

[DallasBill]

I only get minor pixelization from NatGeo HD on both Echo and Direct.

 

[jcarr]

Signals look fine... best to check them during the problem time. Is your Receiver plugged into a surge suppressor or UPS? If its momentary like seconds every once in a while then that is normal. The signal is traveling just to you from 22,300 miles away, being transmitted up at the same rate and transmitted from the source to D*'s uplink center from 2000 miles to 24000 miles.. so you are watching a signal that has traveled over 62,000 miles before you get to view it, so some type of interferance would be expected. Not often or on a schedule but it does happen.

The signals were checked close to when I saw a problem. I do not have a surge protector or a UPS. I do have a dedicated 100 amp dedicated service to my theater so I*R voltage drop is not an issue. Zero issues tonight with overcast and rain, go figure.

 

[oldford]

Dish grounded or not? Remotely possible that static charge builds up and when flashes off, wipes out signal briefly. If grounded, try lifting ground for test. If not, then try ground block on coax near dish.

GL, Eric

 

[jcarr]

Dish grounded or not? Remotely possible that static charge builds up and when flashes off, wipes out signal briefly. If grounded, try lifting ground for test. If not, then try ground block on coax near dish.

GL, Eric

That is a good suggestion. It is grounded but I have reason to suspect the connection.

 

[oldford]

Worth a try. If the system is grounded to your entrance panel/AC gnd, and then to a rod or something else out at the dish or ground block, there could be a difference in potential between the 2 "grounds" causing all kind of wierd behavior.

GL, Eric

 

[sonydude1966]

Could it be this:

D* Verified MPEG4 720p Image Breakup - AVS Forum

I've noticed this on the 720p channels since last November and it's still happening.

 

[jcarr]

Thanks for all your suggestions and info.

 

[jcarr]

Update - since I started this thread the problem is all but gone. I did not change anything but the issue seems to be corrected. The only thing I can correlate is we went from a drought to dealing with an extreme wet ground for the past few weeks. I may need to sink a ground rod if the problem comes back when the dry ground returns.