Weak RTN

[LoTech]

I live in Southeastern Kentucky, and I've been tinkering with KU FTA for about three months now, but I am still having problems with RTN. I have a SG 2100 motorized Winegard DS 2076 dish and Coolsat 5000 v1.00 receiver.

I've fine tuned my dish alignment, skew, checked for obstructions, and re-leveled the pole, but I am still getting low signal quality on RTN East/West on AMC9. The news feeds on AMC9 come in with a quality of 79-84 when I catch them, but RTN still refuses to go above 68 on a clear day (lower at night). All the other Sats come in with quality in the mid 70s to mid 80s.

I'm out of ideas. I really hate seeing pixelation and picture freezes while watching a good show.

 

[turbosat]

Those news feeds, or a lot of them I see there, peg the meter here 95=99quality. That's on a 1m dish. your dish might be just a little on the small side for RTN as its always lower than those newsfeeds. But RTN usually comes in around 80-90quality on a clear day. Maybe someone else who has that same dish can comment.

edit: I lived in Glasgow for 2yrs, what part of KY are u in?

 

[LoTech]

I lived in Glasgow for 2yrs, what part of KY are u in?

I live in Whitesburg (200 miles due east of Glasgow) in the Appalachian foothills.

 

[Mr Tony]

LoTech
I have the same setup here in Minneapolis (you didnt list the LNB but I have a Sadoun .4 dual) and RTN is around 71-72 steady

Have you tried to bump the dish E-W to see?
What are some other quality readings on other sats?

 

[LoTech]

I'm not at home right now so I can't double check any other sats, but the lowest quality reading I remember having on the other sat was about 74. My LNB is a ROC CSS11G .3 dB.

I've bumped the dish E-W and adjusted the elevation to get the best signal I can on AMC9 (which is my True South sat.) I checked Lyngsat ifor my part of KY and EIRP(dBW) > 50. According to this I should be able to pick up RTN on anything larger than a 50 cm dish.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just not doing something right.

 

[gabshere]

several things to try

lnb in or out adjustments on the holder

update to 1.01 it has slightly better motor control on 1.2 for small adjustments ( also find the version 1.00 incase you want to go back). for me when i tried fine tuning adjustments version 1.01 moved about 1/2 the distance as the version 1.00 so it was almost micro movements.

find a larger dish , primestars 84e and the 1 meter most can be had for free and already have a lnbf so you could diesqc it into your current system easily.

 

[Diamond Jim]

My RTN signal varies from day to day.

 

[tvropro]

On my 90cm Primestar with the NJR LNB my RTN is very stable day in and day out. It may have helped that when I first aligned it RTN was weak as heck and I got that sucker dead nuts on for RTN.

 

[Blindowl1234]

RTN for me averages between 32-39. It stays in without breaking up but I have trees pretty close by. This summer I'm thinking of going to a 36" dish though. Blind

 

[LoTech]

I just upgraded to v. 1.01 firmware. I was able to do fine adjustments to get RTN at a quality of 69. Now I seem to have another problem. Now any time I do a manual scan, it erases all of my channels. Not just the channels on the sat I'm scanning, but all of them. I have to blind scan in order to keep my channel lists.

Scratch that. The whole system just crashed. Had to re-install v 1.00. Has anyone else had trouble with v 1.01?

 

[gabshere]

i have no problems with it ( except with one tp on 91 every once in a while) and there are later versions out there that are not put out from coolsat , they should also work i tried a couple and they worked ok but went back to version 1.01 (and they didn't gain any channels that wasn't available with 1.00 & 1.01)

i'll look around for my copy of version of 1.01 and you can see if it has the same problem

but if you can make a fine tune adjustment on that sat and gain a little bit its possible its off slightly across the arc and a whole dish adjustment might be in order ... so usals can hit it dead on.

 

[FTABman0]

I have noticed the same thing here in the Mid-Ohio Valley about 15 miles from Parkersburg WV. Some of my signals that were around a quality of 95-90 to 80% most of the time some now are down in the range of 50% or so. I was watching a show last night and I got intermediate freezing and break up of the channel and some others. I have noticed it is on a few transponders and not the whole bird.

Like Ice suggested I too bumped the motor and it never helped! The good news is I know that it is not my setup! I am tweaked the best I am going to get so I really don’t think it is your box or a problem with your setup LoTech, since we are in about the same area I think it is weather or something affecting it, I have seen this before and I can’t tell you how many times I thought it was something here and tried to fix it and it was not broke and made things worse.

It will come back up it always does, just my chime in to say that for me and friends here where I live in my area we watch the RTN bird and they too have low signal and quality on some RTN'S. Got to be something about the area we are at right now! Keep us posted when it comes back up to normal, I will post when mine does!

The pictures show that some transponders on that satellite are low while others are booming in. I called a buddy of mine while writing this before post and he has the same thing going on and he lives in Clarksburg WV and just got off the phone with my brother in Nelsonville Ohio and yes you guessed it, he has some quality issues on some transponders and channels where they were high numbers, now they are half at best. Looks like a duck… walks like a duck! Have a good evening guys!​

 

[Mr Tony]

I've noticed the same with the "RetroJams" TP on G10 (12114)...much lower than the other 2 Equity Tp's

 

[FTABman0]

Tony, do you think it is a geographic thing on certain places in the US for this time of year? WX or something?​

 

[LoTech]

Last night (and for the last month) RTN was running at about 65-66 quality. This morning when I got up to watch the Virginian, it was running 70-71.

Tony, do you think it is a geographic thing on certain places in the US for this time of year? WX or something?

I didn't make any changes or move the dish, so perhaps it is some geographic anomoly. Is anyone else getting a boost in signal?

 

[turbosat]

Mine's down to 40/40 now, this morning when virginian was on, it was booming. We still got some pretty good cloud cover with some light snow clearing the area, but it wasn't affecting it earlier! Even the AMC9/3F color bars are down to 80 quality, usually 99.

 

[panek75]

My quality also changed since last night.Using a ps 150m and a 90cm dish and i was getting around 53-55% on the rtn channels and today there around 63-65% (clear skies yesterday and cloudy today).The color bar channel is also up from 70% to 80%.

 

[Mr Tony]

mine actually went UP recently...been stuck at 72 and now its flicking between 74-75 on the Coolsat 5000 meter

 

[turbosat]

back up

Checked again on AMC9 , RTN's levels back up , 65-70/99 , don't think it was
weather, I think my motor was off a little when I looked earlier. Its booming again now.

 

[FTABman0]

Again this happens at least with my setup every year about this time. I would say it is some geographic anomaly of some kind yes! Ice, mine too went up today on the Jams channel transponder!

When I first got into this hobby, I too first thought it was a set up problem of mine and made things worse adjusting. I have learned a couple years ago that on this bird, this is normal for this time of year and I leave it alone! :up