Costa Blanca, 2E/2F, seasonal signal fluctuation.

[Huevos]

Mine is on the 50mm we use for the 1.4! Fam, but the design of the mount assembly is ****, (under engineered) so it acts like a jelly fish in this wind!

You mean the mount on the back of the dish, right? The wall bracket is good though. TBH, the whole dish is a bit of a lightweight. Paper thin tin foil that doesn't take a lot to bend.

 

[Archive4]

You mean the mount on the back of the dish, right? The wall bracket is good though. TBH, the whole dish is a bit of a lightweight. Paper thin tin foil that doesn't take a lot to bend.

Nice to see that you are still being nice, I was thinking more Rizla cig papers than tin foil. Yes I was referring to the dish mount, rather than the wall bracket. That said, I was at my friends house this morning where the 1.37 Fam was being shaken so much that was also pixelating because of the wind.
Glad it doesn´t normally last too long as will seriously upset signal records!

 

[Huevos]

Was strong enough to rip one of the lamps off the top of my gateposts.

 

[joddle]

Strange things going on last night - despite SS of 90% and 100% SQ on my Manhatten, and better on my Pace 2600C, Freesat 101 (BBC1) started breaking up later in the evening 10:30pm ish - no real cloud (we normally can get a signal even in heavy rain) Checked dish - solid as a rock, no airships floating around, no birds nesting on the LNB - then around 10 mins later all back to normal again and no repeats !!!! Anyone got any theories????

 

[Huevos]

Strange things going on last night - despite SS of 90% and 100% SQ on my Manhatten, and better on my Pace 2600C, Freesat 101 (BBC1) started breaking up later in the evening 10:30pm ish - no real cloud (we normally can get a signal even in heavy rain) Checked dish - solid as a rock, no airships floating around, no birds nesting on the LNB - then around 10 mins later all back to normal again and no repeats !!!! Anyone got any theories????

If you can't bring yourself to throw the Manhattan Freesat down the toilet, at least put an attenuator inline. Those data transponders are over 80dBuV so are flooding the frontend of a lot of STBs. By comparison spot beam transponders are only in the mid 60dB range.

 

[Huevos]

Brian, re-set-up an LH110 for a guy in La Florida end of last week after the wind. Got all spot beam transponders to lock. Signal is really cooking down there at the minute. Over 10dB on BBC Two England.

 

[joddle]

No the Manhatten's not going down the toilet - its reliable and works well for me and besides both of the Paces also pixelated at exactly the same time and now somone has explained possibly why! - bad weather over the uplink in the UK. Should have though of that possbility myself perhaps!

 

[Archive4]

Brian, re-set-up an LH110 for a guy in La Florida end of last week after the wind. Got all spot beam transponders to lock. Signal is really cooking down there at the minute. Over 10dB on BBC Two England.

That´s better than a lot of the ones around Quesada / Rojales, what LNB was on it? That said I haven´t been round them taking measurements as nobody has called me to say they have lost signals. Have had a few GI 1.4´s that have had problems with the top dish face to mount bolts working loose and causing loss of spot beams, not been called to any Famavals yet with that problem so may be down to design difference

 

[Huevos]

now somone has explained possibly why! - bad weather over the uplink in the UK.

That is complete nonsense. Uplink level is monitored in real time and power turned up and down as necessary to maintain a clean signal at the satellite. Do you really believe a system transmitting to more than 10 million households wouldn't have the power to get through a bit of weather? We're not talking about a news crew transmitting out of a war zone here. This is a proper reliable broadcast setup, with the downlink on every transponder being monitored 100% of the time.

 

[timo_w2s]

No the Manhatten's not going down the toilet - its reliable and works well for me and besides both of the Paces also pixelated at exactly the same time and now somone has explained possibly why! - bad weather over the uplink in the UK. Should have though of that possbility myself perhaps!

I seem to remember reading your post at the time and thinking the same possibility but weather was fine in the east south of the UK at the time so didn't say anything, the evening was clear and crisp, certainty nothing major was happening that I was aware of.

 

[joddle]

Huevos - I would assume from your superior experience you must be correct - so then something else must have caused the problem. The uplink was not to blame and the SS and SQ were the same as normal at my location; yet three receivers all exhibited a partial breakup for a short while all at the same time on the same channel - odd methinks when its not happened before or since either in weather much better or much worst that the night in question.

 

[timo_w2s]

If the signal levels didn't change at your end then it could have been a brief technical issue with the channel.

 

[joddle]

Maybe - but in that case I would have expected others to have reported the same thing!

 

[Huevos]

the SS and SQ were the same as normal at my location; yet three receivers all exhibited a partial breakup for a short while all at the same time on the same channel - odd methinks when its not happened before or since either

Most likely LNB fault or local interference. Also sometimes SQ can be pretty much normal but you can see interference on the constellation diagram which does caust the STB to lose lock.

If you think the interference is on the satellite try phoning someone in a different town that can confirm.

Or you can check my signal quality table.
http://satellites-xml.org/signal-graphs/28E-SNR-table.php

 

[Huevos]

That´s better than a lot of the ones around Quesada / Rojales, what LNB was on it? That said I haven´t been round them taking measurements as nobody has called me to say they have lost signals. Have had a few GI 1.4´s that have had problems with the top dish face to mount bolts working loose and causing loss of spot beams, not been called to any Famavals yet with that problem so may be down to design difference

A B.E.S.T. believe it or not. Dish was on a crushed 40mm wall bracket (very shaky). I changed to one of the semi-heavy duty ones we use for the Famaval 1.4m offset.

 

[Archive4]

OK I have a theory that may explain Joddle´s experience, but would like some input from someone who is a specialist in receiver/STB design.
I understand about amplification and attenuation, having spent 22 years with BT, over 15 as a special faults manager. What I need is some input from someone who understands the STB design.
We all know sometimes the stronger txps can overload the STB, many references to members having to put attenuators in line for, for example, Sky News or Pick, because of overload ( i.e. too strong a signal for the box to deal with, most having a max threshold of approx -29dB ) and having no problem with the weaker signals on the spotbeams.

Is it possible, if the data txps (i.e. 11778) or even South beam txps (i.e. 12207) get to such a high level, even if the box tuner is on 10817, that it can cause the "box" to wobble? Especially since many boxes watch all txps, esp data txps for guide and txp change info, to which "us watchers" are oblivious?

Just a theory!

 

[Archive4]

Sorry about the smiley face, another one of those keystroke combinations I don´t know!

 

[timo_w2s]

Sorry about the smiley face, another one of those keystroke combinations I don´t know!

Fixed the smiley issue for you, it's the forum software thinking the "B" and ")" should be converted to a smiley. It catches me out all the time when I'm writing dB and ending with a bracket!

 

[Archive4]

Fixed the smiley issue for you, it's the forum software thinking the "B" and ")" should be converted to a smiley. It catches me out all the time when I'm writing dB and ending with a bracket!

TKS, I will stop using brackets!

 

[timo_w2s]

OK I have a theory that may explain Joddle´s experience, but would like some input from someone who is a specialist in receiver/STB design.
I understand about amplification and attenuation, having spent 22 years with BT, over 15 as a special faults manager. What I need is some input from someone who understands the STB design.
We all know sometimes the stronger txps can overload the STB, many references to members having to put attenuators in line for, for example, Sky News or Pick, because of overload ( i.e. too strong a signal for the box to deal with, most having a max threshold of approx -29dB ) and having no problem with the weaker signals on the spotbeams.

Is it possible, if the data txps (i.e. 11778) or even South beam txps (i.e. 12207) get to such a high level, even if the box tuner is on 10817, that it can cause the "box" to wobble? Especially since many boxes watch all txps, esp data txps for guide and txp change info, to which "us watchers" are oblivious?

Just a theory!

You may be on to something, although not sure why it would only happen just for a brief moment. I think it was Finnish member @popolon who has had issues with the strong Astra 2A north beam transponders drowning out some lower UK spot beams on his huge dish in Finland with some of the RF from the higher band bleeding through to the lower band. I can't remember now if it was discussed here or on the Finnish forum but basically the IF of the LNB from the high band north beams matched the missing UK spot transponders in the lower band.