Signal Strength 50% Quality Zero Picture OK?

fmak

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I am in Paphos with a 2.7m dish and Invacom 031 quad lnb. The installer instrument reads 68% signal quality on two feeds and picture is acceptable. However, quality reads zero or very low most of the time.

I suspect that the lnb has not been aligned well. Is it a job that I can do without instruments, or is positioning critical?

I use a Panasonic tubsb30 and a Pace 460, with the Pana giving more pleasing pictures but suffering software problems.:) :) :)
 

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:-Welcome1 to the forum fmak

It is quite well known that the greater the diameter of the dish the more critical it is that the lnb is correctly aligned. When dealing with such weak signals only a professional signal meter will assist in this critical function unless you just happen to get lucky. There are a number of factors to take into consideration i.e. focus... back and forward movement of the lnb in the holder to and from the dish, skew, the amount of lnb skew on the lnb, which varies with the satellite you are locked on to.
 

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Hi fmak
In paphos a quality 2.7m dish with an invacom C120 LNB and adjustable feedhorn should give good BBC and ITV pretty much all the time on a decent receiver.

The panasonic is no longer a good choice for what you need as they have become prone to lockups in fringe areas since sky did a software update a while back. The DS430N is ok but it ain't nearly as good as the 2600 which is about the best you can get.

Don't worry too much about meter readings mate, just concentrate on results. What is the picture doing? especially between 6 and 9pm. ITV Anglia on 10714 and BBC on epg 944 are the main ones to watch. Please let us know how those two are acting in the hours I gave.

Cheers

Nick

fmak said:
I am in Paphos with a 2.7m dish and Invacom 031 quad lnb. The installer instrument reads 68% signal quality on two feeds and picture is acceptable. However, quality reads zero or very low most of the time.

I suspect that the lnb has not been aligned well. Is it a job that I can do without instruments, or is positioning critical?

I use a Panasonic tubsb30 and a Pace 460, with the Pana giving more pleasing pictures but suffering software problems.:) :) :)
 

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bignick said:
Hi fmak
In paphos a quality 2.7m dish with an invacom C120 LNB and adjustable feedhorn should give good BBC and ITV pretty much all the time on a decent receiver.

The panasonic is no longer a good choice for what you need as they have become prone to lockups in fringe areas since sky did a software update a while back. The DS430N is ok but it ain't nearly as good as the 2600 which is about the best you can get.

Don't worry too much about meter readings mate, just concentrate on results. What is the picture doing? especially between 6 and 9pm. ITV Anglia on 10714 and BBC on epg 944 are the main ones to watch. Please let us know how those two are acting in the hours I gave.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks, the picture is fine and there is no signal only when there is rain southish of the horizon. Channel 5 is there nearly all the time. As you say BBC and ITV are weak.

AS I am buying a 42in plasma, I would like to get top picture quality.

How do I go about getting my lnb optimised? The installer just fidldes about with small movements of the dish itself and is happy when there appears to be a good picture during daytime and a signal reading.

Strangely, my pana 30 gives the best pictures and a Sony vtx750 works as well as anything else and gives optical spdif.

Cheers

Fred
 

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Don't worry to much about the signal/quality readings on the Panasonic 30.
in fringe areas you can get strange results.
When I had a Lenson heat 1m dish in Centralsweden I got a fairly good
picture most of the time on 2D h trsp. The quality reading said 0-10%.
After a softwareupgrade the reading went to 90%.
Now with a 1,5m Gibertini I still get a quality reading on 90% and a signal on 60-70%.
This is a better quality reading than on 2A and 2B's southbeam!!??
Late at night I can get an occaisonal pixelation on 2d V but never at 2 A or B.

So as the others suggest - don't worry about the reading if you get a picture.
 

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fmak said:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks, the picture is fine and there is no signal only when there is rain southish of the horizon. Channel 5 is there nearly all the time. As you say BBC and ITV are weak.

AS I am buying a 42in plasma, I would like to get top picture quality.

How do I go about getting my lnb optimised? The installer just fidldes about with small movements of the dish itself and is happy when there appears to be a good picture during daytime and a signal reading.

Strangely, my pana 30 gives the best pictures and a Sony vtx750 works as well as anything else and gives optical spdif.

Cheers

Fred

Fred

What is the picture quality on BBC and ITV??? Thats the information we need...is it pixelating a little, alot, not there at all??? I suspect its not that good considering you can get Channel 5 on a dish marginally smaller than 1.8m and yet you get pixilation on a 2.7m.

A couple of Pics of the dish and LNB may also be helpful - we love 'em on this forum ;)

Nick
 

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Hi fmak! You could post your reception info on the Astra 2D dish size survey, a sticky thread just above yours.

I have a plasma LG -42' inch PZ10PY model and the best picture quality I get is from the BBC channels on Astra 28.2ºE, Fox and Fox Life channels on Hispasat at 30ºW. You will see some difference when you view channels with compression on certain transponders, and picture quality also differs from receivers also.
 

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bignick said:
Fred

What is the picture quality on BBC and ITV??? Thats the information we need...is it pixelating a little, alot, not there at all??? I suspect its not that good considering you can get Channel 5 on a dish marginally smaller than 1.8m and yet you get pixilation on a 2.7m.

A couple of Pics of the dish and LNB may also be helpful - we love 'em on this forum ;)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nick

Picture quality on all channels are the same - good. Pixelation on BBC and ITV is only very occasional in the evening.

What I would like to to squeeze as much out of the system as possible in terms od quality on a plasma as I suspect that alignment is not optimal.

Fred
 

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Unless you're actually getting pixillation, then the picture is the best possible, and there's no way of "improving" it by further by decreasing the Viterbi bit error rate (from higher received strength).

Due to how digital tv decoding works, via Viterbi deconvolution and block error correction.

If there is pixilation, then it's lower noise lnb, or bigger dish, or more sensitive receiver.

If trying to re-position, on a low and sometimes poorly received signal (in bad weather), then what you're looking for is the highest received "quality".
 

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I think you're not too far off with that. You can probably take out most, if not all the pixellation with a 2600, also check that you are on port 2 or maybe 3 on your quad LNB. What sort of feed horn is it? does it look like this: _http://www.invacom.com/products/adf_120.htm or would you say that the scalar ring was bigger with more rings? If it looks nothing like this then post a piccy.

Cheers

Nick
 

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fmak said:
quality reads zero or very low most of the time.

Signal quality of zero or around 10-20% is quite normal in fringe areas, and is only for the default transponder of 11778 which now carries no TV. Early afternoon it is very weak here in central Iberia, weaker than the Astra 2D beam.
If you go into the installer's menu and try a manual tune you will get the signal quality on a channel being used for programming, such as a 2D frequency of 10773 or 10803 horizontal (22000, 5/6).
If the quality drops below 20% on a Pace 2600 or 430n, the result is blocky pixillation. 25%+ will give reliable picture result. Other boxes such as Panasonic give unfeasibly high readings and readouts should be ignored.
They still give excellent picture quality on a RGB scart signal if you can put up with the software problems.
 

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fmak said:
How do I go about getting my lnb optimised? The installer just fidldes about with small movements of the dish itself and is happy when there appears to be a good picture during daytime and a signal reading.


Get your installer to do the tweaking at those hours where the signal is weakest..(between 6 and 9pm as pointed out by bignick)
 

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iceman said:
Get your installer to do the tweaking at those hours where the signal is weakest..(between 6 and 9pm as pointed out by bignick)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
They don't work after 5 pm!! That is why I am trying to find out if I can myself!
 

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It also depends on how good the "installer" is.The focal distance might be wrong,the lnb might not point to the centre,the dish might be a bit warped etc.You might need a second opinion.Which part of paphos are you in?
 

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fmak said:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
They don't work after 5 pm!! That is why I am trying to find out if I can myself!

Every job has a price M8..;) but by the sounds of it you have been dealing with an installer who is not experienced on SKY installs..
Tweaking for best SKY reception (specially with dishes smaller than 3m) requires spacialised equipment and plenty of knowledge+experience..not a job you can do it yourself....
If you twist zorba's arm maybe you can get him to come to Paphos...he is the man to sort your problem:)
 

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zorba said:
It also depends on how good the "installer" is.The focal distance might be wrong,the lnb might not point to the centre,the dish might be a bit warped etc.You might need a second opinion.Which part of paphos are you in?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tala:) :) :)
 

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Well, if there's no pixilation, there's no way to "impove" the picture!

But if you are getting pixilation, then any marginal improvement will help, try:

1) is it possible the check the dish is positioned for best reception, on the worst received channels? With such a large diameter, there's a very narrow beam, and "just a bit off" will make a large difference!

2) Conection into lnb can slowly degrade from electrolytic action (due dc volts on cable), try using a different lnb output, check plug and area around lnb socket are both "clean" (gunge free).

3) A low noise lnb helps, also c120 lnb with adjustable feedhorn, correctly adjusted.
 

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sorry, that was a double post, oops!

(due computer network problems, my end!).
 

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Your first post states that bbc and itv are weak and that ch5 is there nearly all of the time.
I was at Mesogi yesterday(i didnt see your reply of where you live until today)to fix a bodged 2.7m dish which could hardly get bbc and spasmodic ch4 and got very good results,so at Tala you should be getting ch5 24/7.
It was blowing a gale yesterday and bloody freezing but bbc and itv were both working fine when i finished,but strangely i couldnt get national geographic.
 

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spiney said:
Well, if there's no pixilation, there's no way to "impove" the picture!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I accept this as digital systems are go and no go.

But why is it that I get some shimmering and faint shadowing as in an analogue system? This is present in the epg as well as the banners. Not too much on the pictures.:( :( :(
 
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