New FTA setup question

[hesnodgrass]

Hello all,

Wel I finally got my motorized setup working, yeah! I have a Mercury II receiver with a fortec KU 80CM dish and have a signal quality question. My signal strength for most of the sats is around 72 to 80. The signal quality varies between 39 to 75 depending on the transponder. I tweaked the dish for over an hour and was careful to lock it down with the best readings I could get. I want to optimize my rig and wanted to see if there was a sat and transponder to use as a baseline for tweaking the signal strength.

Also I have a fortec universal LNB. Can I improve the signal quality with a better LNB?

Thanks

Harry

 

[SatinKzo]

You could probably improve a bit with an invacom lnb. I had a fortec lnb and changed it out to a QPH-031 from invacom. I like the new one alot and I did notice a slighy improvement in quality, but nothing dramatic.

 

[hesnodgrass]

Thanks - followup

Is the signal stength and quality I am getting normal?

You could probably improve a bit with an invacom lnb. I had a fortec lnb and changed it out to a QPH-031 from invacom. I like the new one alot and I did notice a slighy improvement in quality, but nothing dramatic.

 

[SatinKzo]

Post a few TP's and sats and their signal strength and people here can compare with what they get. I used to have a merc II (good receiver) and those number IIRC seem normal. I will compare what you are getting with what I am getting on my pansat 3500. I also use a 90cm dish.

 

[hesnodgrass]

Some sats and tps

IA5 11998/H/20000 - strength 75 quality 53
Galaxy 10 12146/H/20000 st 70 Qu 39
Galaxy 10 11720/V/27692 st 77 qu 49
AMC 4 11708/V/2170 st 73 qu 81
Galaxy 11 12060/V/26700 st 75 qu 63
PAS 9KU 11477/H/26463 st 66 qu 49

Any others you suggest to check?

Thanks

Harry

Post a few TP's and sats and their signal strength and people here can compare with what they get. I used to have a merc II (good receiver) and those number IIRC seem normal. I will compare what you are getting with what I am getting on my pansat 3500. I also use a 90cm dish.

 

[SatinKzo]

1 IA5 11998/H/20000 - strength 75 quality 53
2 Galaxy 10 12146/H/20000 st 70 Qu 39
3 Galaxy 10 11720/V/27692 st 77 qu 49
4 AMC 4 11708/V/2170 st 73 qu 81
5 Galaxy 11 12060/V/26700 st 75 qu 63
6 PAS 9KU 11477/H/26463 st 66 qu 49

1. Q 75 S 72
2. I didn't scan H on G10 and don't have that one stored
3. Q 71 S 65
4. Q 74 S 99
5 Q 75 S 60
6. I can't see this bird and I don't have universal LNB.

Overall your numbers are lower than mine, but we are not talking apples to apples with receivers or dishes either. Also, G10 when I first got setup was hard for me to get. I raised my dish 8 inches and everything improved dramatically.

 

[rdel]

it does help to push in and pull out the lnb (fine tune)
I've found it to gain strength and quality on my setup.

 

[Tron]

Remember that different receivers have totally different meters, and you have to compare the numbers with the same make/model receiver.

The Pansats (I have a 2700) all have quality that ranges from the lowest usable SQ (around 30 or so, anything below that breaks up) to 100. I believe the Fortecs have a similar meter.

 

[hesnodgrass]

Tweaked some more

Thanks for your replies gang.

I moved the LNB away from the dish some on its mount and that rasied the numbers about 3 to 4 points on each scale. I noticed my Horizontals were lower so I tweaked my side to side adjustment by a very small amount and increased some of the bottom numbers from the lower to mid 40 to 50 to 55. On the Mercury II I tend to get breakup at about 42 or lower on the signal quality reading. The signal is gone at about 35 on the quality meter.

I was amazed at how tough it was to get the horizontal really good. I can get 60s to 70s quality on Galaxy 10 but when I do that the quality dropped 10 points on IA 5. So I tweaked some more and split the difference. Now my readings are


IA 5 11998/H/20000 - Strength 79 Qu 56
Galaxy 10 11720/V/27692 Strength 79 Qu 56

Also how much rain fade do you get using KU band? I am used to Directv which I know has a stronger signal. I have a 99 on my main transponder on directv and it takes a blizzard to get fade.

Thanks

Harry

 

[SatinKzo]

I don't get much fade on KU or dish at my house. I even hit IA5 partially through a tree pretty much most of the year and rarely lose signal. Others I'm sure have different results.

Glad to hear you were able to increase singal a bit. I completely forgot about moving the LNB in and out. If I still had my merc II I could offer better comparisons. I'm sure someone here who has one can offer some more info.

 

[hesnodgrass]

Thanks - Nagravision

Thanks for all of the info. So far finding a lot of great channels. Now the fun of sorting through them all.

Do you know if there is a legal way to get any nagravision encoded channels? There seem to be so many that look like good possibilities. Especially local networks from markets I lived in before.

Thanks again

Harry

I don't get much fade on KU or dish at my house. I even hit IA5 partially through a tree pretty much most of the year and rarely lose signal. Others I'm sure have different results.

Glad to hear you were able to increase singal a bit. I completely forgot about moving the LNB in and out. If I still had my merc II I could offer better comparisons. I'm sure someone here who has one can offer some more info.

 

[SatinKzo]

If they are encrypted then they are usually part of a sub service that you pay for.

 

[Tron]

Do you know if there is a legal way to get any nagravision encoded channels? There seem to be so many that look like good possibilities. Especially local networks from markets I lived in before.

It is illegal (violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to receive any channel that has been encrypted, regardless of the method used to receive them. Only signals which are in the clear can be legally viewed.