No or bad signal to Hotbird 13E

[boobsguru]

Hi everyone,

yesterday since around noon time I started having major problems. I'm using two Seatel 6004 antennas and DAC2200.

The image iz frozen and only occasionally I get the video and audio going. I tried pointing the antennas to a different satellite and repointing them to Hotbird 13E. Sometimes it happens that it works for a few seconds and after that it gets stuck. Both antennas are set to Auto THRS of 88 and target NID 0000. One antenna's current NID is 1234 which would mean it's looking at the wrong satellite. I tried turning off targeting, setting up AZ and EL - it worked for a few seconds so I set it back to targeting and a few seconds later it lost it again.
The other one's AGC varies between 1800 and 2100 but it doesn't work regardless. Sometimes I get it for some seconds and the I lose signal.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Analoguesat]

Hiya, welcome to the forum.

Presumably these are on a boat - probably quite a big boat? Obviously we dont want anything identifiable posted but I suspect Im not far off my guess

To be honest these things are probably outside the scope of our board. Most of us have no experience of these ultra specialised antenna, although we have managed to help a few folk with similar motorised antenna over the years by dint of trial and error.

 

[boobsguru]

H

Hiya, welcome to the forum.

Presumably these are on a boat - probably quite a big boat? Obviously we dont want anything identifiable posted but I suspect Im not far off my guess

To be honest these things are probably outside the scope of our board. Most of us have no experience of these ultra specialised antenna, although we have managed to help a few folk with similar motorised antenna over the years by dint of trial and error.

Hi Analoguesat,

First of all thanks for the warm welcome

Well the boat size is a relative thing to be honest, let's just say I worked on much bigger vessels but for us mere mortals I guess you can say it's quite big

I wish I could say I have a ton of experience with various antenna types, but these is a pretty standard equipment on this type of vessels. I'm just confused how it normally works just fine, now and then there's blockage because of the mast but otherwise no problems. I thought it was a temporary thing as it sometimes happens, but both antennas to be in blockage is highly unlikely and the sky is nice and clear. All of a sudden no signal, AGC high and quite above the threshold. Both antennas for hotbird the same thing.

This sometimes happens when on anchor and usually what helps is to point the antenna to another satellite and then repoint it to Hotbird 13E. Right now I have one of these antennas with low AGC and sometimes giving "Comm error" while the other one has a great AGC but there's no TV signal.

For the second due to high AGC but no AV signal I'm guessing it's pointing to the wrong satellite - one with a stronger signal. Is turning off tracking and manually setting the AZ and EL and then turning back on tracking once I receive signal the correct way or am I wrong?

cheers

 

[Analoguesat]

Witghout knowing the layout of the vessel Im having to guess a bit but thinking of a typical ship layout I would agree that two independent antennas having problems seems pretty unlikely

Have you tried another operational frequency? I guess its possible the transponder you are looking for is having issues. (eg a few years ago Iran was actively jamming Hotbird frequencies carrying channels critical of the regime)

Comm error - do you see that when the signal is weak due to antennas in the way or could that be a symptom of a damaged or loose cable/connection somewhere?

As a test you could try realigning the antennas to something like Nilesat 7W or Badr 26E - you should have plenty of signal from those birds down there