Signal Quality 90% but Signal strenght 40% what does that means?

[enb141]

Hi guys in the last few days I've been testing some satellites like Intelsat 9 58°W, Hispasat 30°W both of them seems to have pretty goot signal quality wich is about 70%-90% but the signal strenght is fixed to 40% so why is this happening?

- 1.2M dish
- Digiwave LNB
- Twinhan 1020a PCI card.

 

[vfrjim]

Either a bad connection on a cable, bad disecQ , water in the cable, a bad spliiter on the cable, too long of a cable. But it is with the cable

 

[tds04]

I have lower signal strength on my Nova S Plus pci card than on my Viewsat.

If you have access to another receiver you could try that, but id go over the cables too.

How long of a cable run?

 

[madmadworld]

are you watching channels ?
Signal strength not that important
Signal Quality is what really maters.
i get strength on a lnb pointed it my roof
i said that yesterday too. lol

good luck

 

[Lak7]

I wonder i the card is outputting on the low end of the required voltage?

Do you have another receiver to try with?

 

[AcWxRadar]

Hi guys in the last few days I've been testing some satellites like Intelsat 9 58°W, Hispasat 30°W both of them seems to have pretty goot signal quality wich is about 70%-90% but the signal strenght is fixed to 40% so why is this happening?

- 1.2M dish
- Digiwave LNB
- Twinhan 1020a PCI card.

Enb141,

What do you register for signal level on the majority of other satellites? Is this only limited to these two sats? That is a good place to start.

Is it possible for you to set your equipment up directly at the dish? So that you can use a newly fabricated cable, say 12 feet or less?

If you can, you would be able to rule out a bad cable or too long of a cable. If your cable run is too long, you might consider using RG-11 instead of RG-6.

However, if you are getting good signal quality readings, and the LNBF can switch between polarities easily, then I don't know that I would fret over it too much.

RADAR

 

[B.J.]

Hi guys in the last few days I've been testing some satellites like Intelsat 9 58°W, Hispasat 30°W both of them seems to have pretty goot signal quality wich is about 70%-90% but the signal strenght is fixed to 40% so why is this happening?

- 1.2M dish
- Digiwave LNB
- Twinhan 1020a PCI card.

This behavior isn't that unusual, particularly with the 1020a. Signal quality is more related to the signal to noise ratio (and other things) than just signal strength, so if you're watching a satellite over the Atlantic which is an area with wider than average spacing, and a majority of the transponders aimed somewhere else, you'd tend to get less noise in the signal there anyway, so I'd expect good quality readings on low strength signals there.

However the reason this is more likely for the 1020a is that the signal strength indicator on this card gives very low readings. For MY 1020a, 90% of the channels I watch have signal readings of less than 40. 40 is a very high reading for me, and I often get good error free reception when the signal gets down to 20. The quality, however can vary greatly. 90% of the channels I watch also give quality below 40 too, however there are several that do give very high readings, up in the 90s. This has often been on low SR channels, but not always.

Anyway, I really suspect that if you put a STB on these signals, that the S/Q readings would look more normal.

 

[Sadie]

I agree with B.J. as I have seen Twinhan software do similar things, changing to a different driver version will often result in wildly different strength and quality readings even though nothing has changed with the dish or wiring.
If you have a good Q reading I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[enb141]

I see, so the card could be the problem, I'm using new equipment (antena, LNB, cable) the distance of the cable is 22 meters RG6 so is pretty short so the problem could be the twinhan 1020a right?

So another question if I got a very powerful satellite like hispasat or intelsat 9 I should not worry about signal strenght but what about trying to pick a low signal strength satellite?

B.J. what do you mean with STB?

Sorry guys I don't have any other DVB-S card to test, I think that I'm going to need a new/better one.

 

[hwm]

STB = Set Top Box / stand-alone satellite receiver.

 

[enb141]

was easy to figure out that one, I think I'm still asleep.

 

[Sadie]

I really wouldn't worry about your card it may be a bit dated now but it still works fine for DVB signals.
It just the Twinhan software that's a bit variable when it comes to the Q&S readings, I've had different drivers give me readings of S3,Q22 S60,Q41 S99,Q95 all with the same set up and a great picture.
Whats important is knowing the threshold readings that the picture starts to break up at.
With my present driver a really strong signal is around S65,Q59 and threshold is S38,Q34 with Q being the most important, at 33 it will break up and usually lock up the program, at 34 its usually fine, 35 is rock solid.
My Coolsat 5000 has different Q readings but won't perform any better on weak signals other that not locking up.

 

[enb141]

I see, well probably my next card will be a DVBWorld PCIe 2006, I hope this card works better than the twinhan.