RTN & AMC 9

[Mr Tony]

Ya got me beat there....I max Equity on the 6 footer at 77

 

[grampaD]

I just turned to RTV for the first time this week and there is quite an improvement in quality. I was getting between 67-70% at best before today, but now it is 87-88% on a Geosat Pro 90cm /KUL2/Coolsat 5000 set up.

 

[Lak7]

Booming here too, even thru the tree and thunderstorms to the south.
Q40 - AZBox
Q76 - Vantage

 

[tvropro]

Ya got me beat there....I max Equity on the 6 footer at 77

I just did some blind scanning on G1 and G5. I can't believe all the cable masters that showed up. To bad they were all encrypted. Even was locking HD stuff which I don't know how on the 2700. It just shows you the skys are still full of signals. It's just they won't let us get them anymore. What they sell is over compressed garbage. Nothing like a first generation master.

 

[Mr Tony]

Even was locking HD stuff which I don't know how on the 2700.

as long as the transponder is DVB the regular FTA receivers will lock it. DOesnt care if its 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or HD the receiver will lock it and log channels.....showing it is a different story

 

[tvropro]

as long as the transponder is DVB the regular FTA receivers will lock it. DOesnt care if its 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or HD the receiver will lock it and log channels.....showing it is a different story

When things settle down with all the different formats out there then I'm going to make the choice on what to get to do 4:2:2 HD, 8PSK, S2 etc. Right now there's too many formats and not one thing that can do everything that I know of. Short of a card in a PC. That may be the way to go since all you have to do is update codec's from what I heard.

 

[N5XZS]

Well, the good news is I am getting a better signal now at 56 to 60 % than I used to get at 42 to 48 %!

At least RTV, has cranked up their TX power on the bird and the same time I am still waiting for my local station KFAC-LF 39.1 to start caring RTN sometime next week thanks to E-mail that I got.

 

[melgarga]

When things settle down with all the different formats out there then I'm going to make the choice on what to get to do 4:2:2 HD, 8PSK, S2 etc. Right now there's too many formats and not one thing that can do everything that I know of. Short of a card in a PC. That may be the way to go since all you have to do is update codec's from what I heard.

I was under the impression the AZBox was the solution to and supported all known statellite broadcast formats (except TurboFEC and DCII of course)
Well near the end of the thus far 16 pages I read
"DVB-S2" 8PSK = Yes
"DVB-S" 8PSK = No
"Turbo" 8PSK = No
so almost all. Apparently blindscan is still vaporware as well, and I'm still not clear on an ATSC module and dual tuner function. Lots of features for the price. What is out there on "DVB-S" 8PSK that one would be missing anyway?

Well, the good news is I am getting a better signal now at 56 to 60 % than I used to get at 42 to 48 %!

At least RTV, has cranked up their TX power on the bird and the same time I am still waiting for my local station KFAC-LF 39.1 to start caring RTN sometime next week thanks to E-mail that I got.

Any chance you can visit the station engineer and ask to get a peek at his downlink equipment? If he's got a Coolsat , Viewsat or some hokie oddball Ariza type box for an rx I'm going to LMAO!

 

[Lak7]

Lots of features for the price. What is out there on "DVB-S" 8PSK that one would be missing anyway?

Some sports feeds that I know of.

 

[Tron]

as long as the transponder is DVB the regular FTA receivers will lock it. DOesnt care if its 4:2:0, 4:2:2 or HD the receiver will lock it and log channels.....showing it is a different story

The Visionsat will even record HD and 4:2:2 on the USB drive, and although the receiver will not display these formats, the files can be played back on a PC ...

 

[billyboy_1]

Well being a oldies TV guy I was real interested in RTN now RTV. So i bought all the gear and aimed at 123. I love that old stuff and was real happy but BOOM it all went south...or east. I read all the posts here and decided to reaim my 31" antenna with an Ivacom lnb today...Whew what a workout...I ended up striping the gears out of the H-H motor that seemed cheap all along...so it went in the trash can. After a complete remount i could see no signal at all on 83 at 11735 and 4444 but i was gettting great color bars on Leo-1. I have aimed many satellite dishes in my 29 years of the business but have never seen such close and tight signals. I had a tree in the way so it went away. So after all day of sweating and aiming, I now have a great signal on RTV. I was using a V/S Ultra to aim with but found that Pansat 2700 seemed to work better because of the signal meter function.

 

[melgarga]

Well being a oldies TV guy I was real interested in RTN now RTV. So i bought all the gear and aimed at 123. I love that old stuff and was real happy but BOOM it all went south...or east. I read all the posts here and decided to reaim my 31" antenna with an Ivacom lnb today...Whew what a workout...I ended up striping the gears out of the H-H motor that seemed cheap all along...so it went in the trash can. After a complete remount i could see no signal at all on 83 at 11735 and 4444 but i was gettting great color bars on Leo-1. I have aimed many satellite dishes in my 29 years of the business but have never seen such close and tight signals. I had a tree in the way so it went away. So after all day of sweating and aiming, I now have a great signal on RTV. I was using a V/S Ultra to aim with but found that Pansat 2700 seemed to work better because of the signal meter function.

If you think they were a PITA to hit and lock now, you should have tried them before this week! Glad to hear you triumphed over all adversities.

What make/model was your H/H? I would think, or at least hope they are supported with replacement parts for the mechanically worns areas of the unit. I havent gone H/H motorized on Ku yet. The DG380 seems to get good feedback, and is supposed to be hefty enough to handle a 1.2m w/o issue.
If you trashed an H/H drive system with a 31" dish, I definately want to stay away from that m/m.

I have a Coolsat 6000, a Platinum and an Extreme. The meters on the VS's are not as easy to use as the Coolsat, but do a fair job. I'm guessing the Ultra's factory FW has that new eye candy (AFAIC crappy) GUI look that was rolled out a couple of years ago for the Plat & Extreme. The factory FW for the two legacy boxes I have has straight vertical bargraphs for the S/Q, much better for tuning than that the Ricky Racer looking RPM meter junk that came with the eyecandy GUI.

 

[tvropro]

If you think they were a PITA to hit and lock now, you should have tried them before this week! Glad to hear you triumphed over all adversities.

When I first aimed at RTN is was January 2nd right after they moved. They were weaker than they were a week ago. I found it in a short bit. I also realigned my dish last Saturday and yes it is a pain it shouldn't take all day.

I found the best way to do this is set your skew and elevation to spec's for that bird in your area. (Use an inclinometer) Then just move the azimuth in the general area and you will see quality start to come up. The secret is to go slowly.

Yesterday I super tweaked my new setup for AMC 4 and G-19. I had a cross threaded nut on the u clamp so I had to tear the whole mount assembly down and apart. Which destroyed all my settings. After I remounted everything. I followed my tried and true method and got signal within a minute. Then I super fine tuned each bird and my offset LNBF. Spent maybe 15-20 minutes on all the tweaking. Signals are way up now. If you do it enough you develop a feel for it all. So practice practice till you can really rock those signals in.

 

[B.J.]

Yesterday was an interesting day for me, relative to the RTN signal. I've gone for months having no problems with RTN, and seeing almost no changes in the apparent signal strength. Then 2 days ago, they did seem to raise their signal a little bit, but then it dropped, and raised, and dropped. I think they must have been adjusting their signal level to compensate for the rain at the uplink site.
But yesterday, the signal was pretty much back to normal, so I started watching the signal for a while on my Twinhan, via TSREADER. All of a sudden, the little video thumbprints all pixilated, and were completely unviewable. So I went to my Diamond 9000, which controls my dish. Signal was still good there, but I went into the DiseqC-1.2 window to see if I could peak the dish a bit.
I told it to go one or two clicks in one direction (I forget which way). My signal got worse (65%Q down to about 55%Q), however instantly, the signal cleared up on the TSREADER display. First time I've ever seen quality go down but the actual picture quality improve. Before doing this, I had done a spectrum scan, and the RTN signal was actually a bit higher than the other two signals. Did another scan, and there was no difference. However I DID notice that all the peaks seemed to be shifted a bit to higher frequency. I tuned the RTN signal in with the Broadlogic control app, and it showed that the actual freq corresponded to 11737.5 . Since all the signals seemed shifted, I'm assuming that it was actually that my Invacom LNBF's LO freq was drifting badly. At this point, I went back, and tried to repeat my experiment with de-tuning the dish aim, but I couldn't repeat that for some reason. Things seemed to be back to where the Twinhan was getting good reception when the quality was maxed again. I played with the Broadlogic control app for a while on known, and the freq offset seemed to come back to about 1.2 MHz, which is where it is today.
So anyway, it seems that my problems with the Twinhan are related to the frequency drift of my Invacom. I've seen it drift a bit before, but usually not that much, and it seems to be pretty much STAYING off freq now. The last coupld days have seen the hottest temperatures of the year, in the low 80's.... I know, not very hot, but it's the first time since early May that we've crossed 80. I'm almost thinking that it's more humidity related than temperature related. The dew point has been very high, and I don't think these lnbfs are sealed well enough to keep humidity out.
Anyway, unless some dry weather brings this thing back, this may be my second Invacom to go bad.
But I'm still confused by the thing of de-aligning the dish to lower signal quality giving me better picture quality during the maximum off freq drift???? Probably just a quirk, and not real.

 

[guapoharry]

RTV Uplink Vicinity
current weather...
National Weather Service : Observed Weather for past 3 Days : Chattanooga, Lovell Field

 

[melgarga]

I agree tvropro. Do it long enough and it's like sleepwalking, until Murphy make an appearance just for complacency's sake......lol
Being able to predict and anticipate the result and proving myself correct does cause a warm and fuzzy feeling all over.....no wait maybe that sunstroke and low blood suger........lol. Whatever the source one of the "rewards" from a tech related hobby AFAIC.
BJ,
WOW. Sounds like your experience generated more questions than it answered. The loss of rf strength causing a more ledgible read, seems to support adjacent signal interference splattering (or the digital equivalant) and dropping the 'gain' on all signals sufficently diminishes the offending signals ability to interfere. Then again who knows, maybe not. Not being able to recreate the results makes it anybodys guess.
I wasnt terribly impressed w/a QPH031 I bought. The OEM Primestar did as well or better on a 1.2m dish it came attacted to than did the Invacom. I came across a comment on the very subject that it was an f/d issue and would not perform it's best on that dish. It's around here somewhere, havent seen it since I secured the arrays for IKE.
I dont remember anything outstanding on the construction that would lead me to think there could be moisture issues with the design.
Humidity, or more correctly condensation could be a culprit. If you suspect this, and have a gas oven with a real pilot, you might set it in there overnite and see if you can drive out any moisture content. Another alternative is to set it in front of your 'fride overnite. It is amazing how much heat is pumped out the front of those things. Be sure the XYL doesnt stump her toe on it in the morning when she gets up to make coffee, or you might find it bounced off the wall, and in pieces in the trash can, not to mention a banishment to the dog house......lol

 

[DJ Rob]

RTN is once again booming in here. I just checked and the adjacent signal at 11730 is gone.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Well I finally got RTN/RTV again after trying many times without any luck. I was bored Saturday so once again I aimed my 36" Primestar at 83W...it was at 79w. I had two walkie talkies....one in the house listening to the beep from the Dynamic. The other one with me slowly tweaking the dish. It was very very touchy though. I could've crapped when I heard that beep finally lock on, and RTV was there. It's as strong a signal as it was last winter between 29-38 on the Dynamic...hopefully it stays like it is and the wind doesn't blow. Blind

 

[Mr Tony]

I've noticed the signal a stable 69-70 last nite on the Coolsat 5000

Usually jumps between 66-68

 

[melgarga]

Right now I've got 87-88Q on the Primestar OEM LNB and 91-92Q with the 7.5 ft Unimesh W/CalAmp on the Coolsat 6K whacky Q meter.
Pre-improvement was 67-68Q and 87-88Q respectively, when it locked correctly.
Now, it's so easy a caveman (or a woman) could do it.......
Anybody see Dee sneaking up on me with a big stick (or a sack of salt) holler RUN!...