Thanks for the response, Ice! Yep, that FEC makes it really difficult. On the other side of the spectrum, I can watch NHK World on 58 degrees with, get this, a signal level of 30%. I guess it's all in the error correction (7/8 versus 1/2).
I'm getting NHK with my minibud even if it shows 0%-1% Quality. The image and sound are very stable and very rare pixelation.