Quality Level Issue

[Lak7]

Can you post a Pic of the Setup Menu?

 

[g13392]

Lak,
I'll try to take a picture of the setup page when I get a chance. Not sure how it will come out, but worth a try.

 

[AcWxRadar]

The model number on the front of the receiver says ODA4000VA. Not sure of the manufacturer...says Skyline USA on the back, not sure if that's it though.

I tried to move the LNB in/out, but didn't make a difference.

I played around with the receiver setting some more, and got a little better understanding of it. It looks like there are dozen or so TP's, with 11822, 11860 being part of them. When I do an auto search on all channels, it looks like it goes thru all the TP's and finds the channels it can detect. I noticed three of the TanTv channels are also picked up by TP 12120 S/R 30000. The 12120 has quality level of 81. I went thru all the possible options of the menu settings, but can't seem to find the option to change the TanTv TP to use 11822. I'm more convinced that it's preprogrammed, and that it can't be changed.

I manually shooked the dish to immitate the wind, and the quality on TP 11860 seems to drop down to 50 or lower and lose signal (or intermittent/choppy), whereas 12120, as well as 11822 drops abit as well, but does not lose the signal.

Any more thoughts will be appreaciated.

g13392,

I tried to research that receiver model and Skyline USA. I didn't find a whole lot of information. I did find a manufacturer or brand "Skyline" from the UK. Your receiver may be a model that was produced for import to the US from them.

See if this information helps you at all or if some of the information seems related to your receiver. There is a section in this manual regarding editing and adding TPs, if your receiver is somewhat similar, it might be the same procedure, or close.

To edit satellite
EDIT MENU: SATELLITE / TP EDIT
NOTE: If you delete a satellite then to restore it, you have to reinstall the receiver using Master Reset function.
In EDIT menu select 'Satellite / TP Edit' and press OK. Press CH down once.
1. TO ADD A SATELLITE
Press OK on 'Add' and the menu will change as below. Follow instructions as indicated. After pressing ESC the new satellite name will be entered at the bottomof the list. After adding press ESC and select STORE and press OK.
2. TO DELETE A SATELLITE
Press OK once on 'Delete' cursor will move to list. Press CH or PAGE up / down and select the satellite you want to delete. Then press OK on that satellite. Afterdeleting press ESC and select STORE and press OK.
3. TO RENAME A SATELLITE
Press OK on 'Rename' and cursor will move to list. Press CH or PAGE up / down and select the satellite you want to rename. Then press OK on that satellite. The menu will change as below. Follow instructions as indicated. After pressing ESC, the new satellite name will be entered. After naming press ESC and select STORE and press OK.
4. TO SORT SATELLITE LIST ALPHABETICALLY
Press OK on 'Sort'. After sorting select STORE and press OK.
ADD or RENAME a satellite
Press CH up / down to move up and down the lines.
Press VOL up / down to move within the line.
Press OK on the letter to enter.
After naming, press ESC.
ToeditTP
To add, delete, rename or sort TP list. Follow below steps.
EDIT MENU: SATELLITE / TP EDIT
18
In EDIT menu select 'Satellite / TP Edit' and press OK. Press VOL down once tochange to TP menu. Then press CH down once.
1. TO ADD A TP
Press OK on 'Add' and the menu will change as below. Follow instructions asindicated. After pressing ESC the new TP name will be entered at the bottom of the list. After adding press ESC. The cursor will now be on the TP data on theright. Follow below steps.
• Freq --- Use 0-9 buttons and enter the frequency for that TP
• Polarity --- Press VOL up / down to change polarity
• S / R --- Use 0-9 buttons and enter symbol rate for that TP
• FEC --- Press VOL up / down and select forward error correction (FEC). If you do not happen to know the FEC value then select 'Auto'. After this press ESC then select STORE and press OK.
This TP will be called up when performing channel search.
2. TO DELETE A TP
Press OK once on 'Delete' cursor will move to list. Press CH or PAGE up / down and select the TP you want to delete. Then press OK on that TP. After deleting press ESC and select STORE and press OK.
3. TO RENAME A TP
Press OK on 'Rename' and cursor will move to list. Press CH or PAGE up / down and select the TP you want to rename. Then press OK on that TP. The menu will change as below. Follow instructions as indicated. After pressing ESC, the new TP name will be entered. After naming press ESC and select STORE and press OK.
ADD or RENAME a TP
Press CH up / down to move up and down the lines.
Press VOL up / down to move within the line.
Press OK on the letter to enter.
After naming, press ESC.
3. TO SORT TP LIST
Press OK on 'Sort' The TP's you have added will be sorted by frequency. Lower frequency TP's will be moved to the top of the list and vise versa.
4. TO EDIT EXISTING TP
Select TP menu and press OK once cursor will move to list. Press CH or PAGE up / down to scroll through the list. Press OK on the TP you want to edit. The cursor will default on EDIT TP on the right. Enter channel data as described in step 1 above.

I attached the file of the complete manual below. This manual is for a 3000 Skyline receiver. If it happens to be the same mfg as your receiver, it might help. It was worth a shot anyway.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

A 76cm dish is minimal for this transponder at this time. 11860 is the weakest transponder on this satellite. Dish aiming and LNBF skew (rotation) is highly critical.

Recently this transponder was moved from AMC 4 to AMC 2 resulting in a dramatic decrease in the transponder's signal.

This is good information to be aware of. Thanks Brian!

G13392,

With this information you may be aware that the signal from this specific TP and its channels are likely to perform much lesser than the rest, so it may be just the way it is currently with the size of dish that you and I both have.

I have a similar problem with TP 11.734 H on 83W. All the other TPs on this sat are strong, but this one is very weak.

RADAR

 

[g13392]

Wow...Lots of info. Thanks Radar for your efforts. I'll look thru the manual and see what I can do.

In the mean time, I think I need little more explanation on TPs. If the current TanTv channels are being picked up by TP11860, and it's not being picked up by TP11822, will the deleting and readding the TP 11822 pick up the channels? Obviously, I am new to all this, so my knowledge is very limited.

 

[g13392]

If you can figure out how to select a different TP on your receiver, try looking at TP 11.821 H symbol rate 5.700. I am showing this one with 98% quality! You cannot get more maxed out on a Coolsat 5K than this! This TP is HOT!

I forgot to mention that I added the TP 11821 H S/R 5700, and performed the channel search, but the TanTv channels did not show up. So with this result, I'm not sure if deleting and readding a TP will help.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Wow...Lots of info. Thanks Radar for your efforts. I'll look thru the manual and see what I can do.

In the mean time, I think I need little more explanation on TPs. If the current TanTv channels are being picked up by TP11860, and it's not being picked up by TP11822, will the deleting and readding the TP 11822 pick up the channels? Obviously, I am new to all this, so my knowledge is very limited.

G13392,

No, deleting the TP and reinserting it should not change anything to help in this regard. It the TP frequency is recorded correctly, as well as the symbol rate and the polarity, the channels should come in when you scan for them. If the channels are not being scanned in with the proper TP information already there, then the signal is just too weak because of alignment or your actual location or a hardware problem (or simply because the TP is so weak).

A poor quality receiver might confuse TP frequencies and cause something erratic or abby-normal with the reception of certain TPs and channels, but I don't think you are witnessing anything like that here.

What sort of scanning modes do you see in your menus? Do you have anything referred to as BLIND SCAN or POWER SCAN or TP SCAN or something unique like this? If you do, you might try using that just to see what results you come up with.

RADAR

 

[AcWxRadar]

I forgot to mention that I added the TP 11821 H S/R 5700, and performed the channel search, but the TanTv channels did not show up. So with this result, I'm not sure if deleting and readding a TP will help.

I missed that information from you as I was posting back.

So you did find a method to "add" or "edit" a TP, then?

Did you try rotating your LNBF CW/CCW like LAK7 suggested? I read that you tried moving the LNBF in and out in the holder to change the focal distance a bit, but rotating the LNBF like LAK7 mentioned is also another important test to perform. This is extremely important if your dish is a fixed point dish and not motorized. With a motorized dish, you generally have this set at zero degrees and as the dish moves, it automatically skews the dish to compensate for the proper polarity of the LNBF. However, with a single fixed point dish, you have to set this yourself, manually.

You might wish to go back up in the posts and look at LAK7's post regarding this.

RADAR

 

[g13392]

I don't remember seeing different scanning mode, but will look again.

I did skew the LNBF. about +14 gets the highest quality. And If I believe LAK7 mentioned clockwise, which I think is wrong. It is CCW facing the dish for +14 degrees. In any event, I'm confident about the LNBF skew, cause about +12 or +16, I get no picture.

 

[Lak7]

It is CCW facing the dish for +14 degrees.

Sorry, you are correct.

 

[AcWxRadar]

CW/CCW is easy to confuse when we don't indicate which reference point (front or back) of the dish we are using. But you got it right.

We have covered a lot of the angles (dish elevation, dish azimuth, LNBF focal distance, and LNBF polarity adjustment). There isn't much else that can be done here with your particular fixed point dish.

We have also covered TP frequency and symbol rate to some extent, well enough I think.

I think you have a fair assessment of how to adjust all of these to peak the signal and you have done so and done so correctly. If you want to play some more with these adjustments, you might tweak the signal a little higher with some more time, but I believe that you have done your best so far and any additional time spent may not gain a great deal.

The only thing left is the dish size and the EIRP from this particular TP. for your area or any area.

As Brian mentioned, this TP moved to the other sat and the signal strength/quality went down. There is not much you can do about this except pony up for a larger dish.

If you know someone who is a dealer in your area and they are good friends of yours, you might try talking them into loaning you a larger dish just to experiment with in order to prove it. But, I am pretty sure that that is what it is going to take.

Take a gander at my post regarding the RTN FEEDS on 83W and I think you may find that I am in about the same boat as you on those two channels from 83.0W and their TP.

Basically, as Brian elluded to, it is a problem with the TP on the sat and if that is indeed the case, you would have no control over this other than upsizing the dish to boost the signal. I believe you have done everything else acoording to Hoyle and tried what you could to improve the signal and you are probably fairly well maxed out.

I would double check and triple check everything to be certain (ok, so I like flogging a dead horse). But, before you buy anything new, I would definitely make sure you have done all that you can with what you have first.

One last note, a different LNBF probably won't help you out here. Buying the top of the line LNBF might gain you 1% or maybe 2% if you are lucky, but that is not going to be good enough in this situation. If you have all the angles and adjustments set up to peak it now and you are still dropping the signal this far, then it sounds like the only option is a larger dish. You need to collect more of the signal and focus it towards the LNBF. I am going on this assumption right now as I think you have covered everything else.

RADAR

 

[g13392]

Sounds good. I'll tinker little more with the settings, but as you said, I don't think I'll get too far. As for the bigger dish, the condo association will not allow that. Thanks to you and everyone else for all your helpful inputs. I'll post more if I discover anything else.

Thanks again.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Sounds good. I'll tinker little more with the settings, but as you said, I don't think I'll get too far. As for the bigger dish, the condo association will not allow that. Thanks to you and everyone else for all your helpful inputs. I'll post more if I discover anything else.

Thanks again.

G13392,

Hey, don't forget that since they do change things around from time to time, they might change this TP again (especially if they get a lot of complaints) and set it up with a higher power signal sometime down the road. If you can live with it for now or maybe stabilize your dish a little more, you might get by until they improve it.

Gordy (AcWxRADAR)

 

[AcWxRadar]

G13392,

I am curious. Did the manuals I attached in one of my previous posts resemble anything similar to your receiver (the menus and screen photos)?

RADAR

 

[g13392]

They are similar, in that it had the add/delete satellites and TPs. But the actual screen looks different. When I get a chance, I'll try to take a picture of the screen (per LAK7's request).

 

[AcWxRadar]

They are similar, in that it had the add/delete satellites and TPs. But the actual screen looks different. When I get a chance, I'll try to take a picture of the screen (per LAK7's request).

I was wondering if it was the same company (manufacturer), but just a different model.

RADAR