Difference between SSQ and SSP?

[Tobar]

What is the difference between Satellite Signal Quality, Off-Air Signal Quality and Satellite Signal Power/SNR, Off-Air Signal Power/SNR?

What is SNR?

What should the readings be?

 

[Tobar]

I guess no one knows!!! 53 of you checked out the thread and didn't answer.

 

[electr0n]

I was waiting for someone to answer who knew for sure. Since I'm an electrical engineer I can answer the SNR question. SNR stands for Signal to Noise Ratio and is usually expressed in dB (decibels). It is a good indication of the quality of the signal being received. When a signal is passed through an amplifier the signal is amplified but the system noise is also amplified along with it. This is an inherent parameter of amplifier design. The things that effect the noise are basically built in to the amplifier itself (such as noise figure) and usually can't be changed by the end user. So for our purposes a high SNR indicates a strong signal from the satellite compared to the system noise.

All you really need to know is with SNR the higher the number the better. What you should be reading - I'm not sure as I have only had Voom for about a week. Just for comparison, my Sat Signal Quality is usually about 92 (on a clear day) and my Sat SNR is about 13.5 dB. My OTA signal and SNR vary wildly and I don't quite understand what that's all about.

Hope this helps - BTW, I'm a new voomer in Austin, TX and loving it!

 

[bryan27]

My Signal is 96 and SNR is about 18.6dB. Which I guess is good.

The OTA signals vary naturally because of constantly changing atmospheric conditions, levels of interference, reflections, even the wind blowing branches. It happens in analog too, but can't be perceived.

Unless you are extreemly close to the broadcast towers and have excellent sheilding any OTA STB will show wild signal flucuations, some stations more than others. My Zenith OTA STB shows one station near perfect and instantly drop down to bad and back. This is a multipath problem. Other stations will stay rather stable with just very small ups and downs.

Unlike OTA the satellite signal isn't prone to relfections from every direction, and the DBS frequencies aren't used by others terresterally so there isn't going to be much in the way of inteference.

 

[Tobar]

Great!! Thanks for the information. That is least a start and I know where I stand. My SSQ and OAQ flex between 85 and 90. My Satellite Power is 100 and Off-Air 85.

Thanks again.

 

[Sean Mota]

here's another post that talks about the same:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=11733&highlight=modulation