Do I need a software update on my Sonicview 360 Premier?

[copas]

Hi to all,
I want to receive PBS which I am told is on W-1 ts, 20. It is FTA and digital. My receiver is a Sonicview 360 Premier.
With the factory settings and this unit slaved to a Drake 1824 and a 10ft dish a blind search turned up about 40 active channels. Most of these are ION TV but no PBS.
I am terribly ignorant of how this receiver is supposed to function. I watched PBS before it went digital. I am dimly aware that a number of sites offer software for my unit. The LNB is the one I used for analog.
I need some solid advice on just how to proceed.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Copas

 

[turbosat]

Welcome to the place, copas! I will check out the polarity of the PBS national feed for you, it is on c-band I believe, and I think I already scanned it in. Stay tuned!
EDIT: OK I got the PBS channels on now, they are the opposite polarity from ION. I get it at 4091mhz 14028 horiz. (or same polarity as DW-TV, if you get that channel.)
Might need to adjust your polarity switching. If you scanned in ION, you shouldn't need any software updates to get PBS. FYI-PBS channels are also on KU band on 63W and 125W, some on 125 are HD.

 

[turbosat]

copas I forgot to say-ifyou are using the drake to switch polarity and using the older feedhorn-type with a polarotor, you need to switch from odd to even or vice-versa on the drake to get the opposite polarity when you scan with the digital receiver.

 

[copas]

Thanks for your reply.
I can switch polarity and it doesn't seem to help.
The thing most strange to me is the sonicview doesn't appear to see the PBS channels.
I have tried adding the transponder and saving it but the receiver refuses to see it.
Thanks again so much.
Copas

 

[turbosat]

copas you may need to adjust the skew manually with your drake remote to get the digital box to find it. Are you getting any channels at all on the other polarity? You should find DW=TV 3740, sr29268, International 1 at 3914, 6400, Jus Punjabi 3740, 29268 also. Several others on horizontal polarity. I can adjust polarity on my GI 650 analog rec just a slight amount on some sats , and it makes the difference between no signal and 99% sometimes.

 

[copas]

Thanks again for your reply,
I understand what you are telling me and you may have put your finger on the problem.
I am still not finding PBS. However I do get several channels of vertical polarity. Since my last post I peaked one of the vertical channels and did a blind scan of W-1 and saved the result. Still no PBS.
The polarity seems critical as you pointed out. I may not have tweaked it enough.
Is there a possibility the two receivers are butting heads as regards the polarity voltage? I am using the 'loop through' connection which seems the thing to do.
Best regards,
Ivan Copas

 

[drjohn14]

I also had PBS on that satellite using a sonicview 360 premiere up until night before last. It went away and have not been able to get quality since. I pick up all the other verticals including DW and the California channel, but no pbs. Have larger dish at work and could not pick up pbs on 3 different brand of FTA receivers. Would someone post their frequency and symbol rate. I have 4090 symbol rate 14028 and v polarity, with auto FEC. thanks drjohn

 

[turbosat]

It may be that PBS is tweaking the signal there recently, causing some problems. That satellite has always had some strange skew problems, due to it being in an inclined orbit (or it used to be). But I was under the impression that strange tilted orbit only affected KU band signals, who knows for sure? I know if I adjust the skew from like -30 to -40 on my c-band box that is controlling polarity-the signal drops completely out! Seems to be pretty strong transmission, though, on my 10' SAMI dish. Some receivers do have certain combinations of frequency/symbol rate that they just can't seem to receive properly, I've run into that before. But if the last poster was able to get it once before, seems you both should be able to again.

 

[joshrr]

Remember, G15 is passing near this satellite now. I watched the ION muxes degrade from 75% qual on my 6ft dish to now 63 qual. Watched PBS go from 75% to 10% now. I think its G15. Probably a waiting game until it passes by. Its the only thing I can think of since all the channels boomed on quality for me until that g15 sat floated into range. Check lyngsat to see. Hope this helps.

 

[copas]

Sounds like a distinct possibility. I wonder if this would affect the signal strength that The Dish customers are getting. My friend who has Dish seems to be getting a strong signal for PBS, standard def.
Just a thought.

 

[turbosat]

Id doubt it would affect Dishnetwork. If they're even using that same signal to broadcast, they probably have a much bigger dish than most of us use. I'd forgotten about the zombiesat, it is possible it could be a factor, especially on a marginally-tuned dish.

 

[copas]

Hi all,
Thanks to all your posts you started me thinking about how the SV-360 must do the blind search. I think now that the Drake was overpowering the 360 as regards the polarity and forceing it to only see the horizontial channels. I was able to see some vertical channels (I thought) but they turned out to actually be Horizontal upon a closer look. If I read the manual that came with the 360 correctly it has the abality to select the polarity but it seems that the Drake can overpower it sometimes at least how I had it connected.
I am approaching this now by using the Drake simply as a dish mover and keeping it separate from the 360. Awaiting time to tweak it all some more.
Merry Christmas,
Copas

 

[copas]

PS,
Can someone tell me if the 'Factory Reset' ereases all the data I have input? I want to erase what I have and start over.
I read where the manual says: 'Press the TV and set buttons simultaneously." But I must be misunderstanding this apparently simple instruction. It doesn't do anything for me. I'm talking about the Sonicview SV-360 here.
Copas

 

[turbosat]

Yes, normally that is what Factory Reset does. It may still have a satellite list stored in it , possibly even some transponders on those satellites too, but doing the reset should erase anything you entered, like added satellites or channels & any switch-settings information. I get your drift too-its hard to push 2 buttons at exactly the same time, lol.

 

[copas]

Thanks for all the good tips. I still persue the elusive PBS on W-1.
My SV-360 absolutely will not look at any vertical channel. I first thought it was the Drake 1824 overpowering the polarity so I totally disconnected the Drake, first being sure the polarity was solidly fixed on W-1 and the Hor channels looked good. I didn't see a single vertical channel; nothing. When I reconnected the Drake and switched the polarity to vertical, (I could see an analog channel on W-1) A blind scan produced no active vertical signals. Another point; judging by the signal level (Indicated by the SV-360) the vertical channels have fairly strong signals that I can peak by moving the dish. What am I overlooking??
Copas

 

[turbosat]

You got me. I use 2 analog boxes, both GI , to move dishes. One is only a dish motor that runs a ku dish on a polar mount w/lnbf. The other one moves my 10' dish and controls polarity on c-band. Since the big dish has the lnb/polarotor it means running 2 scans on every c-band sat I want to scan, but it works pretty well. I find if channels don't come in on c-band digital, adjusting the Skew on the GI box usually makes it happen. I know the polarotor isn't perfect on mine too because on some satellites there seems to be very little change in its movement going from V to H . Someday soon I'm going to switch the big dish over to an lnbf just to see if I like it better.

 

[copas]

Hi,
Had some luck with the vertical channels on Anik 1. Still no luck with PBS on W 1. As was pointed out on an earlier post The vertical polarity setting is very critical. Perhaps that has been most of my problem.
I had a difficulty earlier with the SV-360 getting 'stuck' on one satellite. I couldn't get the factory reset to do anything but when I deleted the sat that was persisting and turned the box off overnight, the sat was deleted next morning.
Free to air is a lot of fun, if there was only more programming worth watching...
If there was only a tech manual for the box written in english it would help me a lot.
Merry Christmas

 

[turbosat]

Yes most of the manuals leave a lot to be desired. They have the basics, but I really think most of these receivers are cranked out so fast, there is not a lot of real-world testing/use of them to lessen the obvious bugs some have. Most are a work in progress, and the companies that sell and actually work with customers to improve their software are the ones we should frequent. Hope you get the elusive channels working soon copas! and Merry Christmas to you too.

 

[copas]

Hi,
I am back at it as we say here in Southern Ohio. I was able to store a mumber of channels on Anik 1 of vertical palarity. (Now I can watch the Canadian weather news. About like ours up 'till now.) Still searching for PBS on W1 with no luck.
You fellows have been a great deal of help with your good advice and I want to thank all of you! I guess I'm feeling a little Christmas Spirit.
I know how to beat the SV 360 into submission (so far) as it has gotten stuck on a sattellite a couple of times and rebooting it was all I found that helped.
Which begs this question: What the heck is all the software for my box I see advertised supposed to accomplish? Do I need such a thing?
Hoping Santa will leave me a subscription to Dish!!!
Merry Christmas to all!
Ivan Copas

 

[turbosat]

A lot of the boxes were used by thieves to steal dishnetworks programming. Back before they changed their encryption system, pirate software was showing up all over the place. Reprogram your receiver, get a circular lnb and watch StealTV. They finally got serious and changed their scrambling setup several months back and shut most of them down though. You don't really need any software updates unless they come from the Sonicview website, if that still exists. ( seveal of the brands died out after the shutdown) Not many of them were serious about updating their software once they put a box out- this Icon box I use, which is a very fast scanning receiver never had a software update at all.