What is an acceptable signal for 61.5 bird? I was installed yesterday and upon checking my Hopper duo I get 68% on a clear day. I remember the old days when you wanted to be closer to 100% the better, is that still the rule? Am I going to be more susceptible to rain fade at this point. Thanks in advance for your help.
Signal strength question
- Thread starter mopardude01
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The days of 100 are long past. They have a different way of measuring today. Your 68% is excellent.
Man, I wish I had 68%, not that I have any issue with 50-60%!!
I was curious though. I went to Settings with Hopper 3. All 16 tuners (61.5 and 72)under switch status have check marks. I noticed (under signal strength) tuner 1, satellite 72, transponder 7. And the signal strength fluctuates between 47 and 50. It seems low, but the reception is excellent. I checked few channels. No problem at all. It is a sunny day in Bluegrass (KY) with bright blue sky. I changed the satellite from 72 to 61.5. It again showed signal strength around 50. No problem at all.
I don't know if Dish switches between satellites 61.5 and 72 for better reception occasionally. Our installer, Hipkat hopefully will respond to this thread.
I was curious though. I went to Settings with Hopper 3. All 16 tuners (61.5 and 72)under switch status have check marks. I noticed (under signal strength) tuner 1, satellite 72, transponder 7. And the signal strength fluctuates between 47 and 50. It seems low, but the reception is excellent. I checked few channels. No problem at all. It is a sunny day in Bluegrass (KY) with bright blue sky. I changed the satellite from 72 to 61.5. It again showed signal strength around 50. No problem at all.
I don't know if Dish switches between satellites 61.5 and 72 for better reception occasionally. Our installer, Hipkat hopefully will respond to this thread.
The DISH satellites, 61 and 72, have different channels on their transponders so there would be no reason to switch for better reception. That said, most of the transponders have different transmission strengths. You shouldn't judge by every transponder but by using a specific transponder or two. The back of my head says use transponder 21 to test alignment. Hipkat will refresh my memory on that.
Thank you for your help, very much appreciated, been 23 years since I had a dish system. Lots has changed.
my dish installer said that 50 is the new 100. claimed that dish changed the meters but never changed the software to reflect the new readings. not sure if that is true but that's what he told me. when I'm on 61.5 my signal hovers in the mid 70's and the others it fluctuates from upper 50's to mid 60's.
the installer explained it as excellent signal strength and that would make it harder for severe weather to knock out my signal. that said, since I got dish back in November 2020 I have not yet experienced weather related signal loss. I'm in eastern Kentucky and the weather here is a strange beast.
Good to know, as weather in Missouri can be pretty crazy as well, thank you jct21
It's a setting on the meter. I can change mine to show a 55 Signal on 129 as 110. give or take. The Sat Buddy meter's use to measure a 2:1 (If I recall) ratio and now it's 1:1 by default - or maybe I have that backward lol. It's been a while.
Ah, my back brain still works. I'm on Western Arc so 21 is my goto...
Yes on the values. But I believe those values are more or less an inverse digital error rate. The higher the reading, the lower the errors. The big change from 100 (or even higher for me on WA and SD channels) to half that was due to a switch from QPSK to 8PSK. The FEC (forward error correction) went up to help keep the error rate as low as it is. But the bottom line is what you said; 50 is a good reading these days.
Any real expert with a better memory than mine may please correct me.
When it comes to digital reception, your picture WILL look excellent... until it's not. It's called the "digital cliff". Imagine walking in a park. You're not looking down. You then step off a cliff and fall all the way to the bottom. That's what digital reception does. Analog reception would be the equivalent of going down a hill (slope).
Analog TV reception was a picture and sound transmitted linearly and displayed just as it was received. Digital reception is non-linear, that is the picture and sound are delivered in packets to the receiver, parts of the picture that do not change from frame to frame are not retransmitted but are repeated by the receiver and parts of the picture that change are added to the static picture in the last frame to simulate the new frame, and so on, and so on.
That is why more data can be packed into the same 6 Mhz bandwidth digitally than analog.
That is why when your reception approaches the digital cliff, there appear blocks or streaks of missing picture. The tuner is trying to assemble a frame with inadequate data and the next step is total loss of picture and sound. Once the tuner can no longer assemble a frame from the data received + the last data remembered, you have fallen off the digital cliff.
That is why more data can be packed into the same 6 Mhz bandwidth digitally than analog.
That is why when your reception approaches the digital cliff, there appear blocks or streaks of missing picture. The tuner is trying to assemble a frame with inadequate data and the next step is total loss of picture and sound. Once the tuner can no longer assemble a frame from the data received + the last data remembered, you have fallen off the digital cliff.
40 to 50 is perfect for the hopper. If it was in the 30's you would start having issues. Just had my dish done. Think of it like this. 50 is 100. 40 is 80. It is some sort of signal to loss ratio. Peace
