Fade/Loss of signal at night

B

bogjumper

Member
My Satellite Setup
Silvercrest SL65 FTA receiver, 1.3 dish
My Location
COIN , MALAGA, SPAIN
I am down in southern spain and have set up a 1.3m dish with a local box Silvercrest SL65 for FTA. Get Astra 2 fine but am having a problem with the signal fading as follows. Come the night then ITV1 - fine 80/60 Str/Q , ITV2 the same, ITV3 can be a bit blocky, and ITV 4 just disappears or at very best is totally blocky. Its signal strength and quality has halved whilst the others remain the same. Any advice pse. Would it be that 4 reduces its output strength at night.
 
Welcome to the forum bogjumper

Have a read of this thread it may answer your questions at this moment in time.
 
Hi , Im new to this but have got a working system here in Southern Spain except for problems with reception on ITV4 going blocky and disappearing at night. Its fine for the childrens programs with about 80/60 str/Q but drops to 40/25 approx at night. ITV 3 can go off tune some times as well. It occurred to me that it might be my LNB which is bogstandard. Can I have some advice on quality LNB needed. Many thanks
 
Sounds like possibly a dish alignment/quality or lnb problem, I can't find any reports for Malaga itself, but I believe that in Marbella a 1.2m quality dish will receive the Astra 2D channels.

What is the make of your dish and LNB? A couple of pictures would probably help. :)
 
The best lnb's i have found are inverto & invacom and mti,

What make dish do you have at the moment and do you have the feedhorn for it as for your size dish you should be useing a feedhorn & c120 lnb, If not the best lnb-f would be sharp 0.3db or invacom 0.3db

Here are some lnb-f's on ebay
EBAY sharp 0.3 item number 150108057553
EBAY invacom single output item number 270106052010
EBay invacom quad output item number 110021522407






bogjumper said:
Hi , Im new to this but have got a working system here in Southern Spain except for problems with reception on ITV4 going blocky and disappearing at night. Its fine for the childrens programs with about 80/60 str/Q but drops to 40/25 approx at night. ITV 3 can go off tune some times as well. It occurred to me that it might be my LNB which is bogstandard. Can I have some advice on quality LNB needed. Many thanks
Click to expand...
 
Have merged these two threads as they are about the same problem and directly relating to reception of Astra 2D, my post above is in reply to the first post, not the one immediately above. :)

It becomes very difficult to follow if multiple threads are running on the same problem.
 
The satellite is moveing at the same speed as the earth so at night it uses its batteries more than the solar panels so a dip in power and as the satellite gets older it gets worse,


Orthoclipse said:
Does anyone know why marginal signals get worse at night? Is it an atmospheric/solar effect?
Click to expand...
 
I don´t know much about astronomy but because the satellite orbits the earth so far away surely it doesn´t see night and day as we do. The bird is passing behind the earth at the moment and it is switching to battery power. This is because we have just passed the spring equinox. I believe you should look at the thread about similar problems in the Canary Islands in this forum.

Good luck
 
Yes, there are several competing theories on why this is. A search will bring up some (occasionally heated) discussions. :)
 
Another strange one is nilesat here in the uk it gets stronger in the night and weaker in the day:confused: ,
 
I Live In Southern Spain And Had The Same Problems With The Silvercrest. I Am On A 1.3 Dish. I Changed The Lnb To A Avimur 0.5db I Have Had No More Trouble With The Receptio,,,.try It.
 
Dear all

I must thank you all again for your assistance. The lnb is .6 Silvercrest and the dish a normal 1.3 aluminium or metal in good condition. I have spotted a Spanish site offering a .1 lnb for 10e so I will try that. Funnily enough the past few nights have seen a slight improvement in that I had a reasonably decipherable picture. Anyway I will sign off on this one until I have made changes.

Cheerio

bogjumper
 
Watch out for places offering LNBs with unbelievably low noise ratings at unbelievably low prices, they are often very poor in reality.

The advice from the experts is stick to good reliable makes, and models with a good performance record in fringe areas. A 0.3db Invacom quad may significantly outperform that 0.1db one you saw advertised.
 
Don't bother buying a 0.1 lnb for €10. It will be a complete waste of money.
Consumer protection is very weak in Spain. Many merchants are completely shameless in the way they rip off customers.
 
From reading up a bit more on this, it would appear that satellites are in full view of the sun for most of the year. So any drop in power from the panels occurs over the period of a year and not over the course of 24 hours. Good explanation here:
h**p://celestrak.com/columns/v04n09/

Which points more towards small fluctuations or inclination in a satellites orbit over a 24 hours period which would be more noticeable in marginal areas with fringe reception. It would also give a better account as to why some satellites are worse during the day and better at night.
 
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