RTN again

[pedrogarcia]

Looking at Sat beams and Lyngsat it would seem my 1m dish was adequate for AM9. Still what chance have I got when NASA's website thinks AM9 is at 85w.

I can't imagine how long it would take locating AMC9 83w by hand - I'm in SW Michigan and aligned my 1m dish on AMC9 using the hughes tp on 12060 vertical with my Satlook NIT spectrum analyser. I noticed it is really difficult to locate as the Bell spikes for 82w start to appear as I peak the signal for 83w. The other way 85w spikes show within a 3/4 millimeters of dish movement.
Having peaked the signal RTN still manages to slip below my 40% threshold and break up.
It is a pity RTN can't use a decent transponder and a far higher Symbol rate and get some real quality.

 

[Blindowl1234]

I agree with you RTN needs a better signal, better TP, better something. I was getting a signal just barely, before the leaves showed up on the trees this spring...now nothing at all. I do get the other feed or whatever it is on there. Hopefully their signal will get better? Blind

 

[tvropro]

Looking at Sat beams and Lyngsat it would seem my 1m dish was adequate for AM9. Still what chance have I got when NASA's website thinks AM9 is at 85w.

I can't imagine how long it would take locating AMC9 83w by hand - I'm in SW Michigan and aligned my 1m dish on AMC9 using the hughes tp on 12060 vertical with my Satlook NIT spectrum analyser. I noticed it is really difficult to locate as the Bell spikes for 82w start to appear as I peak the signal for 83w. The other way 85w spikes show within a 3/4 millimeters of dish movement.
Having peaked the signal RTN still manages to slip below my 40% threshold and break up.
It is a pity RTN can't use a decent transponder and a far higher Symbol rate and get some real quality.

I doubt its RTN's satellite transponder that is causing issues. They are probably running a small uplink dish I would think and are not saturating the transponder fully. There Link Budget is designed around at least a 1 meter dish so anything smaller on the receive end will suffer. Heck my 90 cm Primestar is just enough at times and that dish is hot. Luken is working on a shoestring budget so don't expect things to change.

 

[Cham]

I just can't quite get enough signal to lock with my 33". It is so close!
Bud gets about 90% which is fine but most Ku transponders are 99% on the 10' reflector. I would think you should have at least a 39"dish, likely works well with the 4'.
-C.

 

[B.J.]

Looking at Sat beams and Lyngsat it would seem my 1m dish was adequate for AM9. Still what chance have I got when NASA's website thinks AM9 is at 85w.
....

I'm curious what NASA web page you're referring to? The NASA J-Track page shows it at 83.
But whatever, NASA hasn't been responsible for tracking sats like that for several years. It used to be that NASA-OIG was the final word for keeping track of sats, but now that has responsibility has been given to Space-Track. But I guess the web page you were using was using some very old list that reflected where AMC9 originally was.

 

[Corrado]

I noticed lately that my local RTN I receive OTA has been having trouble with their satellite signal. It often freezes and one time I saw an onscreen message briefly that said "no signal", that they transmitted out along with the programming. This was occurring even with clear weather here.

 

[pedrogarcia]

I'm curious what NASA web page you're referring to? The NASA J-Track page shows it at 83.


http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=2003-024A

this was a link from N2YO.com on AMC9 so I am sure you are right and strangely it is taking ages to load so I guess someone in NASA also reads Satguys site.

 

[Diamond Jim]

You know.....it just dawned on me, since the Equity channels were about the only channels (that I know of) that aired RTN and now they don't, just who is RTN putting this signal up for....besides us?

 

[pedrogarcia]

I doubt its RTN's satellite transponder that is causing issues. They are probably running a small uplink dish I would think and are not saturating the transponder fully. There Link Budget is designed around at least a 1 meter dish so anything smaller on the receive end will suffer. Heck my 90 cm Primestar is just enough at times and that dish is hot. Luken is working on a shoestring budget so don't expect things to change.

You could well be right but unless Luken can demonstrate reaching some decent demographics there will be no commercial backing. until his signal improves. Where and who does the uplink?

I have now tried an ivacom quad QDF031 on my 1m dish and there is no improvement. I consider these to be the best LNBs although I don't like using them here as the feed horn makes great wasp nest.

 

[B.J.]

Originally Posted by tvropro
I doubt its RTN's satellite transponder that is causing issues. They are probably running a small uplink dish I would think and are not saturating the transponder fully. There Link Budget is designed around at least a 1 meter dish so anything smaller on the receive end will suffer. Heck my 90 cm Primestar is just enough at times and that dish is hot. Luken is working on a shoestring budget so don't expect things to change.

You could well be right but unless Luken can demonstrate reaching some decent demographics there will be no commercial backing. until his signal improves. ..

Re saturating the transponder, it seems to me that they probably get cheaper rates if they use up less power on the transponder, since they're sharing it with other signals,. The signal is no weaker than other signals on the transponder, which is probably what is intended, since if they pumped in more power, they'd cause adverse affects on the nearby signals. They were probably given a good deal on a slot in a transponder shared by other similar signals.
Re attracting commercial backing, it seems to me that since they're not aiming at home viewers with amateur equipment, that the intended recipients will have plenty of dish size to deal with the so called weak signal.

 

[pedrogarcia]

Re attracting commercial backing, it seems to me that since they're not aiming at home viewers with amateur equipment, that the intended recipients will have plenty of dish size to deal with the so called weak signal.

BJ, commercial backers don't care whether their audience are FTA or subscriber they want to reach everyone and believe me FTA is increasing and D&D are loosing subscribers faster than they want to admit.

 

[bassist]

I'm in SC & I "hand-aimed" an 80 cm Fortec to get 83w. I took some trial & error. But here's how I managed. 1st I found 82w (which is hard to find in my locale) with an old DTV lnb. I replaced the DTV with the little red sat tracker II lnb & found 85w and peaked that signal. Then I slowly nudged the dish left (south). After 4 or 5 trials, 83 locked in. If you're up north I would imagine that it would be more difficult because 83 would be much lower on the horizon.

 

[kb2kir]

For info:

Threw up another 1.2 meter Channel Master on 83w with a $9.00 LNB.
Nailed it on the second try. 72% on Coolsat 6000
Looks like 1.2 may be minimum for reliable reception?
Same dish with SNH-031 gives 94% on 123w with the Same receiver....

 

[jericho07]

You know.....it just dawned on me, since the Equity channels were about the only channels (that I know of) that aired RTN and now they don't, just who is RTN putting this signal up for....besides us?

We just got an RTN affiliate here in Nashville , and it is on Charter Cable.

 

[Diamond Jim]

Thank you, something I didn't know.

 

[TimLones111]

There are also RTN affiliates in Toledo, Columbus,Cincinnati and Steubenville, Ohio as well as Pittsburgh and Tampa..If it hasnt already, RTN is due back in the Buffalo, NY area soon..

 

[AcWxRadar]

I have ordered a GeoSatPro 1.2 M dish from SatelliteAV. I am going to set that up and see if I can boost the strength of the RTN signal high enough to overcome the interference from LEO-1. Of course that is not the only reason that I purchased this dish, but it will give me more information on the RTN subject that I can share with everyone who is interested.

I am also going to hang a C-Band LNBF on this dish and see what I can pick up there. We are already able to pick out a few C-Band channels with the 1M Winegard and a homemade scalar ring. With the larger 1.2 M dish we might get a few more C-Band channels with acceptable quality and maybe a few more Ku Band channels as well.

RADAR

 

[Tron]

I remember when Gary was first setting up the RTN uplink on 83w, he was asking here if anyone near Chattanooga had a 1.2 meter dish for them to use for reception testing. That indicates that they expect the downlink dish used to be at least a 1.2 meter dish.

 

[Corrado]

I wasn't under the impression that the current RTN affiliates were using the AMC9 ku band feeds. I was thinking they more of a backup feed we are lucky enough to access.

Back in January when Luken took over RTN from Equity, my local RTN-WTEN had the red screen of death for about a week. Later when it returned, it mirrored the RTN-east feed for a little while. Now it airs programming on it's own schedule. It even airs the old, on the hour RTN screen that still has Gomer Pyle, Get Smart, Mission Impossible and Hawaii 5-0 pictured with the WTEN logo.

I never hear the DTMF signal tones OTA either. I'm glad the onscreen RTN bugs are gone too and we can still see the end credits.

 

[Inno]

I put a 30" dish on AMC9 over the weekend and I was not able to get RTN with it. This thread probably explains why, not enough signal! I was only able to get some test patterns on the NBC news feed transponders.
I'm waiting for a new disecq switch to arrive from Sadoun (they shipped it out very quickly!!!) and then I may play with it a bit more. Perhaps the 30" won't quite be enough, anyone?