Basic newbie question

[Buckeye911]

My apologies if this is the wrong place for this question. I did try to search but couldn't find what I needed.

I had a stationary Ku-band FTA system installed about a year ago so that my wife could watch Thai programming on the Galaxy 25 satellite which I understand has been changed to Galaxy 19. The system has worked pretty well until about a week ago. We had a lot of rain and strong winds and now I can only pick up about a dozen channels, none of which are Thai. I checked the transponder settings and they are correct. I checked my connections and everything seems to be solid.

Here is my question. Does the fact that I can pick up a dozen or so channels mean that the problem is not on my end? We have always experienced rain fade on most of the channels my wife watches but some channels remain depending on the severity of the rain. Do I need to call someone to come look at my system? My wife is really missing her channels: TGN; TOTV; NAT TV; IPTV Shopping and News1. The one channel I watch, Al Jazeera English, rarely goes out.

Thanks for any help.

 

[turbosat]

Do you get a good signal on the channels that you do receive? If not, your dish may have moved slightly, or the pole may have shifted. If you get some channels strong but not others it might be a good idea to try re-scanning that satellite, you can use its old channel name if you like. The sat didn't move, it just got replaced by a new one in the same spot.
Is your dish pole on the house or in the ground? Check it with a level, for plumb (straight up and down) check on 4 spots all around the pole, being plumb is critical to these small dishes and ku band frequencies..

 

[toucan-man]

My wife is really missing her channels: TGN; TOTV; NAT TV; IPTV Shopping and News1. The one channel I watch, Al Jazeera English, rarely goes out. Thanks for any help.

All of those are coming in just fine here at the moment. Also, I was watching TOTV or TGN this morning without any problems.

 

[Wescopc]

The Thai and Russian channels (97W) are the most sensitive to dish alignment. Probably needs fine adjustment.
Bob

 

[Cadsulfide]

With cell phone in hand and wife inside at the reciever, move the edge of the dish left/right and up/down while wife is watching the Q of a working channel. If it shoots up while you're doing this, the dish is out of alignment. A 1/8" off on the edge will be enough to lose weaker transponders. Adjust for best Q.

Lots of rain? you could have a wet connector somewhere, they will corrode in a few months of wet conditions. Inspect all outdoor connectors. Get and use good compression connectors.

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

I had a stationary Ku-band FTA system installed about a year ago so that my wife could watch Thai programming on the Galaxy 25 satellite which I understand has been changed to Galaxy 19.

Do you have a stationary or motorized dish? Also, just for the record, what kind of receiver do you have, and what is the quality on the Al-Jazeera channel you receive?

The good news here is that they are both at 97West, meaning that you wouldn't have to change the position of your satellite to continue receiving programming from them.

The other good news is that those channels are still there, so with a few adjustments, those Thai channels should be back to watchable!

The others are right -- try gently pressing the sides of the dish and have your wife report back the signal quality to you via a cellphone. If you get a jump in quality on the Al-Jazeera channel, you should be able to adjust it in that direction.

 

[Buckeye911]

Do you get a good signal on the channels that you do receive? If not, your dish may have moved slightly, or the pole may have shifted. If you get some channels strong but not others it might be a good idea to try re-scanning that satellite, you can use its old channel name if you like. The sat didn't move, it just got replaced by a new one in the same spot.
Is your dish pole on the house or in the ground? Check it with a level, for plumb (straight up and down) check on 4 spots all around the pole, being plumb is critical to these small dishes and ku band frequencies..

Thanks for your response.

I get signal strength of 73% - 76% on all channels. I get signal quality of 61% - 64% on the channels I get a picture on. This is about the same quality percentage I get on the Thai channels when they are viewable as well. I've rescanned a couple of times but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try again. If I do a rescan is there a possibility that it will not find the channels I'm having a problem receiving?

The dish is on my roof and unfortunately a buddy borrowed my ladder so I need to track him down before I can check that out.

 

[Buckeye911]

All of those are coming in just fine here at the moment. Also, I was watching TOTV or TGN this morning without any problems.

The Thai and Russian channels (97W) are the most sensitive to dish alignment. Probably needs fine adjustment.
Bob

Thanks guys, its good to know that decent signals are still out there. I guess I'll just have to work a bit to get them back.

 

[Buckeye911]

With cell phone in hand and wife inside at the reciever, move the edge of the dish left/right and up/down while wife is watching the Q of a working channel. If it shoots up while you're doing this, the dish is out of alignment. A 1/8" off on the edge will be enough to lose weaker transponders. Adjust for best Q.

Lots of rain? you could have a wet connector somewhere, they will corrode in a few months of wet conditions. Inspect all outdoor connectors. Get and use good compression connectors.

Thanks for the tips. I think the Q signal is okay because it got a lot better recently, probably when they swapped out the bird. When it was initially hooked up a year ago the Q percentage was only around 30%, the installer said that was pretty normal for this area. Now the Q is always over 60%.

 

[Buckeye911]

Do you have a stationary or motorized dish? Also, just for the record, what kind of receiver do you have, and what is the quality on the Al-Jazeera channel you receive?

The good news here is that they are both at 97West, meaning that you wouldn't have to change the position of your satellite to continue receiving programming from them.

The other good news is that those channels are still there, so with a few adjustments, those Thai channels should be back to watchable!

The others are right -- try gently pressing the sides of the dish and have your wife report back the signal quality to you via a cellphone. If you get a jump in quality on the Al-Jazeera channel, you should be able to adjust it in that direction.

Thanks Disco. The dish is stationary and my receiver is a Captive Works CW-600S. I'll give these hints a try if I can get my ladder back. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Buckeye911]

Success

Thanks for the help guys, I got up on the roof tonight and got lucky with my first twist of the dish. It actually took me longer to put the ladder up than it did to move the dish ever so slightly. The wife is happy again.

 

[DiscoLoveGrapes]

Great to hear! Hope everything is back to normal now