AMC 4 101 TP 12060 History
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When the satellite gets replaced this problem should go away. The only difference from last year is the signal is weaker when it should be strong here. I repointed at AMC-4 a couple months ago and was surprised History and Bio were working well in the evening. Then I noticed that the signal was dropping some at night then come back up. Now it's back to doing what it did last year. Last time I got fed up and pointed at AMC 1 since every night was useless when you wanted to watch them. Since they are free you really can't complain though. If I watched them allot I could get the sub on the 4DTV for them.
Since the satellite swap is right around the corner I want to see what happens when it changes. I believe the problem lies in the solar batteries run down when the solar panels receive no sunlight. They need some new energizer bunnies on the old bird
RTN has been a mess from as far back as I can remember. They had issues way back on G-10 and to this day has some issues. Now their swap to Tuff tv is showing some locking issues here & there. But that's what happens when your dealing with companies running on a shoestring budget. It's the same with the now almost defunct NPS channels on G3. When ever there was a problem Crawford would take there sweet time to rectify it.
If these guys ran stuff like Comcast Media Center or the big C band programmers it would be great but those guys have the bucks to spend on the greatest equipment and a 24/7 365 on site technicians. No such luck with the little guys.
Just an alternative opinion .
And it certainly has nothing to do with the solar panels not receiving sunlight, at least not now. The only time that these sats go into eclipse and lose sunlight are when it's within a couple weeks of the equinoxes. I just checked, and it looks like the last time AMC4 lost sunlight for more than a couple minutes was back on April 11, and even at the equinox, it only lost sunlight for about 67 minutes, around 3AM, when not too many people would be watching. Since 4/12, it's been in full sunlight 24/7. Switching to a new satellite may bring a more powerful signal, but if it does, it will end up hurting our reception on other signals, and I doubt that it will stop people from complaining about sub-powered transponders.
People have been complaining about RTN seemingly forever too, but again I'm convinced that the problem was not with the RTN signal, but with our receivers. Some people have never had issues with these signals, or only when there was weather involved.
Anyway, I am of the opinion that 99.9% of the reception problems we observe, ( and yes, I see these things too) are due to our marginal consumer grade equipment, dishes that are too small and/or too poor a quality to resolve interference from adjacent sats, lnbs that drift or are noisy, receivers that can't resolve signals that are close together, etc, etc. These sat signals we watch wouldn't be up there if they weren't getting their signals to the intended viewers, so it's not the fault of the signal, it's the fault of our equipment. The vast majority of these uplinkers are not concerned about getting their signal to us, they are only concerned about getting their signal to the people they are aiming the signal at.
I just looked at both the 12060 signal and the RTN signal, and both are very nice strong clean signals that no-one should have a problem with, but if there is a problem, I still say that it's not the signal's fault, it's the fault of our equipment.
Just my opinion.
.I really have a hard time believing that any reception problems here are due to the uplink or the satellite. I've read thousands of posts over the years from people saying that the power is down on certain transponders, and when I look at the spectrum, almost always, it's not the case. The only times I've seen signal levels drop have been when there is weather at the uplink, or when uplinkers intentionally drop power because their intended recipients are off line.When the satellite gets replaced this problem should go away. The only difference from last year is the signal is weaker when it should be strong here. I repointed at AMC-4 a couple months ago and was surprised History and Bio were working well in the evening. Then I noticed that the signal was dropping some at night then come back up. Now it's back to doing what it did last year. Last time I got fed up and pointed at AMC 1 since every night was useless when you wanted to watch them. Since they are free you really can't complain though. If I watched them allot I could get the sub on the 4DTV for them.
Since the satellite swap is right around the corner I want to see what happens when it changes. I believe the problem lies in the solar batteries run down when the solar panels receive no sunlight. They need some new energizer bunnies on the old bird
And it certainly has nothing to do with the solar panels not receiving sunlight, at least not now. The only time that these sats go into eclipse and lose sunlight are when it's within a couple weeks of the equinoxes. I just checked, and it looks like the last time AMC4 lost sunlight for more than a couple minutes was back on April 11, and even at the equinox, it only lost sunlight for about 67 minutes, around 3AM, when not too many people would be watching. Since 4/12, it's been in full sunlight 24/7. Switching to a new satellite may bring a more powerful signal, but if it does, it will end up hurting our reception on other signals, and I doubt that it will stop people from complaining about sub-powered transponders.
People have been complaining about RTN seemingly forever too, but again I'm convinced that the problem was not with the RTN signal, but with our receivers. Some people have never had issues with these signals, or only when there was weather involved.
Anyway, I am of the opinion that 99.9% of the reception problems we observe, ( and yes, I see these things too) are due to our marginal consumer grade equipment, dishes that are too small and/or too poor a quality to resolve interference from adjacent sats, lnbs that drift or are noisy, receivers that can't resolve signals that are close together, etc, etc. These sat signals we watch wouldn't be up there if they weren't getting their signals to the intended viewers, so it's not the fault of the signal, it's the fault of our equipment. The vast majority of these uplinkers are not concerned about getting their signal to us, they are only concerned about getting their signal to the people they are aiming the signal at.
I just looked at both the 12060 signal and the RTN signal, and both are very nice strong clean signals that no-one should have a problem with, but if there is a problem, I still say that it's not the signal's fault, it's the fault of our equipment.
Just my opinion.
As far as the HTN goes something is going on in the chain. How come the rest of the channels on AMC-4 are fine 24/7?
RTN I have plenty of signal. I have a great dish pointed at AMC-9 (Channel master 90cm primestar with the original NJR LNB). That is much better than a fortec dish or the like. Ku is ku though you can have a 5 meter dish and experience rain fade. RTV did do something different with the change to Tuff before that the Visionsat didn't play lag.
We can all spend boo coo bucks on commercial equipment if we want but not many have that budget. If they do they can get some nice commercial gear here:
Vincor Limited - Earth Station Antenna and Satellite Communication Product Specialists
RTN I have plenty of signal. I have a great dish pointed at AMC-9 (Channel master 90cm primestar with the original NJR LNB). That is much better than a fortec dish or the like. Ku is ku though you can have a 5 meter dish and experience rain fade. RTV did do something different with the change to Tuff before that the Visionsat didn't play lag.
We can all spend boo coo bucks on commercial equipment if we want but not many have that budget. If they do they can get some nice commercial gear here:
Vincor Limited - Earth Station Antenna and Satellite Communication Product Specialists
Getting over 60 Q 24/7 in West Texas. No pixelation, no fade, rain or shine on 36" dish. I've read on other forums ppl having this problem, but haven't experienced it myself.
I ran spectrum scans of the sat approximately every hour from around 11AM thru after 9PM, and while there were some minor differences, the scans looked pretty much the same all day long. My quality did seem a bit higher in the morning, but not by a significant difference. I put the multiple images of the scan in windows on my desktop all in the same place, so I could switch from one to the other very quickly sort of giving a moving video of the whole days worth of images. There really wasn't a whole lot of change of any of the signals on the sat, pretty much just sort of the whole spectrum would breath slightly up/down a bit, probably more due to background interference than anything.
My real feeling is that problems like this are more often caused by other factors, such a like picking up variable interferrence from other signals, both terrestrial and from nearby sats, or from weather at the uplink or weather at your viewing location, or changes in temperature/humidity at the viewing location during the day, or even changes in line voltage at the viewing location. There are all sorts of possible causes of the slight variation in reception that are more likely than the issues being due to problems with the satellite or due to the uplinkers not knowing what they are doing.
My real feeling is that problems like this are more often caused by other factors, such a like picking up variable interferrence from other signals, both terrestrial and from nearby sats, or from weather at the uplink or weather at your viewing location, or changes in temperature/humidity at the viewing location during the day, or even changes in line voltage at the viewing location. There are all sorts of possible causes of the slight variation in reception that are more likely than the issues being due to problems with the satellite or due to the uplinkers not knowing what they are doing.
B.J., while the regular nightly fluctuation of 12060 is not happening to you, it is to others (myself included). That suggests something other than interference or equipment problems whether receiver or dish. tvropro and I experienced the same problem last year, and what he says about this since last year (signal problems corrected themselves and have now returned) exactly mirrors my own. The situation is exactly the same as last year, some people have it, others don't.
In my case, I am in a sweet spot for that satellite and use a 60e dish with the LNB for that satellite 6 degrees off-centre. All signals are usually greater than 45% on the Pansat (threshold 30 or so), and none of the other signals experience the same fluctuation. If I had a larger dish pointed at it, may be the fluctuation wouldn't show up as much, so I do know that I am more susceptible to fluctuations due to the dish size/LNB placement (and I accept it).
Don't know why it is doing it, it almost seems like the footprint for only that transponder is wobbling (which would explain why some get it and others don't), but that makes little sense due to the fact none of the other transponders do it.
Yes Keith I am getting the same thing as you and I both experienced last year. It could be something is wrong with that specific transponder on the bird. That's why I'm waiting to see what the replacement bird does. If there still is an issue then we know it's another source than the bird. We've seen it all with RTN on G-10, G-18 and then all the issues with AMC 9 and Leo (video) 1. And of course with the HTN mux. We have spent quite a few hours trying to figure these things out. There is always an exception to the rule when it comes to problems and B.J. is the one that's lucking out here without issues.
Yes, hopefully the new satellite will correct the problem (at least we have that, unlike last year). It is annoying when the only channels I watch on that satellite are the ones with the problem! If the problem continues, I might re-point one of the 80cm dishes (with the loss of so many channels in the last year or so, I'm sure I can re-arrange my system to free one up without too much loss of some feed satellites).
Have them both here in Utah, quality might be a little low, but picture looks as good as ever.
Terry
Terry
Regarding this 12060 TP, I get a good Q signal around 63% with a single LNB dish and yet my friend who lives 10 miles away and has the Glorystar dish with the dual LNB adapter has problems and even with fine tuning (many attempts) he gets about 32% or less QS. He loses the signal at night and has pixelation at daytime. It seems that the slightest offset will wreak havoc with this TP. Weather, location and other issues can certainly effect the quality.
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