Weird receiver issue

[Mr Tony]

I didnt know how to title it....and I hope someone can confirm that this has happened to them

Pansat 2500 (clone)...motorized setup
so I am watching something on 91W and have a decent signal (45-50 quality). All of a sudden the quality drops to 30 (threshold).....I check the Coolsat on the other motorized and strong signal (72...which converts to 50 or so on a Pansat).
So I move to 93W and Azteca locks at like 45-50...what the heck. this is my true south...should be 90 quality
Move to 95W and CCTV is at 32. WTF??? So now I'm mad. I was trying to tweak the dish for 91W before. So I climb on the ladder (its a balmy 14 out) and slight push on the dish on 95W thinking I did something. Signal stays around 30.

Come in and reboot receiver (switch on back)..BAM..back to 90 quality on CCTV. Move to 91W and my feed is back at 45-50.

Anybody ever seen a receiver do that....signal just drops across the board for no reason other than to be "burped" (for lack of a better term)??

 

[woodheat/nooil]

On my Vision Sat that happens sometimes not sure why.

 

[turbosat]

If I had to work on a dish in 14degrees, I doubt it would get worked on! Unless, a really good hockey game was about to play.

 

[Mr Tony]

eh 14 aint bad....I was out yesterday with the C-Band dish when we has wind chills of -10 or so.....you just learn to do it MUCH quicker and sometimes squeezing that extra 5 points out on the quality meter (you know the signal is a 70 and right now have it at 65) isnt worth it

 

[Keith Brannen]

Yes, I had a similar weird problem one time with my Pansat 3500SD. What would happen was every time I switched to a channel on AMC4 the signal would start out at the expected level, then within minutes would gradually almost completely disappear. When I switched to another LNB/satellite and then a few minutes later switched back to AMC4, the signal would be fine and then start to deteriorate (would be similar to your switching off the receiver and turning it back on). Further testing found it would do it to three transponders on the satellite, but not all (can't remember if they were all vertical or all horizontal or a combination).

Anyhow, what I did was disconnected and then reconnected all the coaxs from the LNB to the 22KHZ switch (also believe I swabbed out the connector at least at the LNB with a q-tip) and also switched the coax to the other side of the 22KHZ switch. Fixed whatever problem it was having (and it didn't reappear on the other LNB on the other port of the 22KHZ switch). It was weird.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Ice,

You seem convinced (at least at this point) that it appears to be a receiver issue.

At one time, I had a similar experience but it turned out to be a failing port on my 4X1 DiSEqC switch and I couldn't blame it on the receiver.

This failure obviously took all the TPs down on the same satellite. But, I could switch satellits and then back and it was good once again. This progressively grew worse and finally failed completely. It wasn't until it became extremely bad and was a hard failure that I was able to identify that it was absolutely the switch. The odd thing about this is that I experienced 3 or 4 of the identical switches fail in the very same manner, with port #3 failing first, then port #4 following shortly after.

I had purchased all these switches from the same retailer at the same time (one shipment). I ordered several more from the same company a year or more later and never had a problem with them. I therefore suspect that all of those first switches that failed were from a bad lot produced at the same time. The new or the second lot of switches I bought are still running just fine after 4-5 years.

RADAR

 

[Larry1]

I had fixed a friends receiver many years ago that was intermittent in locking transponders by replacing a few of the capacitors around the tuner section. They were surface mount capacitors and were starting to short out. (3 or 4 of them) I think they were the capacitors that went to the power section and 22Khz section. Also my old Digiwave 7000 receiver I mounted a heat sink on top of the processor and changed a few of the power supply cpacitors. It would randomly act strange or lockup. Since then I have been using it for a few years now like that to watch RTV with no problems.

 

[Larry1]

Another thought, with it getting cold outside, you might need to adjust your transponder frequencies by 1 to compensate for any drift. I have one sat card that is very particular and I need to do this when it gets cold, but my other cards/boxes work fine without adjusting the frequency.