KU problem

[john dusek]

On X4 KU (galaxy 4R), I can get channel 255 (TCM), 612(histry),but have trouble getting 603(American Life). At times I can get it fair but most times it breaks up bad. The signal is 90 but the Quality jumps from 99 to 1 to 30 ect. In the past I have gotten it good.If I fine tune it,that helps very little. Since I get the other channels ok,the Ant must be set ok. I have had Sat C band for 15 years,but KU band for only one year. I have 4D set up.
I also have free to air and had the same problem with the Peoples network channel as other channels worked ok. The teck from the Peoples network said that Cell Phone towers can cause this problem on certain freq.

Has anyone ever heard of or had this problem? Lucky me as I do have a cell tower about 1500 yd from me.
If anyone can help or has any ideas,please let me know.

 

[truckracer]

interference problems

Sound like you could have terrestrial interference issues. especially if the affected channel is on a different transponder than the others that are coming in fine. Cell phone towers can radiate harmonics to cause interference but your biggest enemy of KU band right now is RADAR DETECTORS!

Many of the modern radar detector utilize a local oscillator internally that emmits interference to KU satellite systems. If you live near a highway or busy street, you will notice breakup on some KU transponders. This happened to me with free to air. I was running around like a chicken missing its head looking for bad connections, lnb's, and checking dish alignments.

My signal quality would bounce from 0 to 90% up and down. When I went out to the driveway and pulled the plug on my radar detector-Voila! perfect KU band reception. This however did not help me when the street was busy out front.

If you determine for sure that you have TI, if your property and surroundings allow you may have to move your dish to somewhere on your property where it can still view the arc of satellites but is shielded form interference. buildings and houses will help shield your dish from TI if it is not overly strong.

Some people build solid metal fences around their dishes. Our local cable company had issues with TI and they used an interlocking aluminum panel fence painted white around their dish yard.

My uncle has dishnetwork and my radar detector will knock out his local channels on the 105W satellite when I am still 1500 feet away from his superdish.
hope that helps a little

 

[john dusek]

MR truckracer my ace of aces.

Thanks,that seems to have cleared up all my problems. I park my car about 75 ft from my antenna. I noticed that for the last 2 days I was not having a problem,well after reading your mail and going out to check I had the radar dector on the floor,but when I put it on the dash I got the interferance. I now get channel 603 good and even the peoples channel on free to air(I get yesterday USA audio on it) Because of trees my big ant is about 7 ft off the ground.
I have been trying to fix this problem for about 4 months and have posted many requests for help on the Free to air board.
Time will tell if I am also having problems with the cell ant and the other large ant of the gas co which is also close. Years before the gas co ant was knocking my remote planes out of the air untill I went FM. I hope I will not have trouble with the cell as I also thought about shielding it,but it would be difficult as the ant is so high. The teck told me that the lower the ant was the better chance for no interferance.
thanks again and I will mention this on the free to air board also

John ,much lower blood pressure,Dusek

 

[truckracer]

Glad to help

Thanks John, I had experience with this and some of my customers had this issue with radar detectors. The FCC has made rules governing the emissions from radar detectors. The reason we are seeing all this interference to KU band is because the companies that manufacture radar detectors have moved their local oscillator frequencies up so that these detectors cannot be detected by police of states that outlaw detectors such as virginia. There are a few other states but do not know for sure which ones.

This problem was first notices by Hughes network systems when their KU band data systems that takes care of gas stations and restaurants were have signal quality issues and loosing network connections and even transactions. A lot of changes had to be done to minimize the effects especially at gas stations and drive thru's since these were areas with heavy radar detector emissions.

The main weapon against this interference was reorintation of the dish to a "quieter" zone of the building. We even installed larger dishes to have more sidelobe rejection (interfernce from the edges of the dish). I played with compromising focal points of the RFE and LNB of these units. It was fairly successful.

A lot of Dish customers have experienced this on their locals that are on Linear satellites Like the 105West. It does not seem to effect the upper portion of the KU in the DBS spectrum or the circular polarity signals. Maybe the DBS is too far up in frequency (far enough to escape the harmonics) or the fact that it is circular polarity instead of linear.
Good to talk with you.
Pleasure to have you on the forum.