Your SNR & AGC on your VU+DUO, what do you get ?

[Sicilian]

Sponsor has the Black Inverto LNB's http://www.world-of-satellite.com/showthread.php?16183-Cam-not-restarting&p=119798#post119798 You'd most likely need one of these too http://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk...With-Adaptor-for-Elliptical-Zone-1-and-2-Dish

Or you could try a 63cm Zone 2 dish http://www.world-of-satellite.co.uk...cm-Mesh-Dish-kit-with-QUAD-LNB-and-wall-mount complete with quad lnb and wall mount brackets.

 

[BRAVEHEART]

Braveheart first of all i ain't no installer myself.
But from experience in having clone 800 2 year ago, man that thing drove me nuts i was thinking all sorts lol.
Anyway i have a duo, i have taken a video and i will put it up to show others to eliminate the questions as regard glitch issues, need to find it first thou haha, but will explain why i took it.
My signals on the motorised are about 60-70 tops at moment and have been since i decided to be brave and move my dish inorder to fit a new lnb.
i must must say to you fella, please please buy the black ultra lnb, they are f***ing quality.
My dish moved in past due to wind and have tighten the bolts up and it hasn't moved, then i wanted to try this lnb people were going on about, think mine was £13 delivered on ebay.
So now i totally screwed the signal on the dish after fitting new lnb as mine is approx 12ft on side of house and limited space due to wall separating mine and heighbours house so was tough, but getting someone out to pay again was annoying me, but had a friend come round slighty moving it about whilst i looked at the box and got the signals back to 60-70% signal on all sats.
I wanted to test how good this lnb was and i noticed that even on 60% i would get odd glitch as the olde well 1 year approx lnb would give me approx 60-65 agc i.e actual gain control, learnt that from google lol.
This black ultra agc is 90-99 on all sats and i never ever get one glitch even in the very windy days as i made sure the dish & pole are not gunna move lol.
Bear in mind i never tampered with a dish before, but doing the above gave me confidence to buy a 60cm mk4 sky dish and mount it near the motorised and now get 91-99 on signal and both dishes are at rear, house right next to them approx 10 foot gap so have the roof slight in way and i get bob on signals.
Defo get that lnb i mention fella first, then go up to teh dish and retighten the nuts.
Another tip as i work on older cars, hate new ones lol, is buy some ignition sealant in a spray can basically used for the coil, ht leads and dizzy cap to prevent moisture getting in and spray it over the connection where the plug connects to the lnb, this will stop any rain tampering wiht the signal.
Also spray your entire dish with laquer, this will as you know will stop water sitting on the dish and keep it rust free.
These are free tiem only, and very little money and kepe your gear in top nick for many years to come.
But your dish is moving and if a cheapo lnb which no doubt is from what is sold in kits the lnb will not be helping.
My pole for the motorised is not straight i.e plum by any means but i got the best signal i could on all sats and never any issues at all.
This is the lnb you need bud, trust me on this as i was lost also and took the plunge, but i only bought it to see what others were raving about and had to see why.
Signal increased and agc went up approx 20% and not once glitch in wind, rain ever since, think my little ideas help also lol

XXXXXX

Make sure your box is right as regards settings etc, if you need any live help pm me your live messenger addy and we'll chat there and i will give you as much help as possible.
Best wishes.

P.s going to look for that video i took to show you i think it was 29% signal and picture never once moved or froze etc

I should have said from the start (which I forgot about), its a communal dish (so that means technically I cant touch it), but its a new system in new houses, and as I said, I had to call the guy out and have the dish reset after the storms here a few weeks ago, and he also fitted a brand new LNB, I dont know what size the dish is exactly but it certainly isnt one of those normal small dishes like sky fit nowdays, its bigger than that, but as I say I cant tell exactly the size unless I was to go and get a big set of ladders and go in the nighbours property and climb up there and measure it, lol, to heck with that, lol.

All I have to go on as far as the signal is concerned with the vu+duo is that the FTA channels are excellent quality and strength, and also my freesat receiver also reports excellent quality and strength signals, and then when I go to the pay channels on the vu+duo the snr levels drop to maybe as low as 50+% and thats when I get picture breakup etc, (@ foxylady, I dont know if your talking about agc (strength) or snr (quality), its the quality that matters, not the strength, even when my pay channel snr's drop down the agc seems to stay up pretty high, again I dont know why that is, its a strange one, but I think surely after all that I keep explaining that must surely rule out the sat dish and lnb, no/yes ???

Anyway foxylady, wheres this video your on about so we can see it, lol ?
I will pm you my msn messenger addy, thanks

 

[Sicilian]

If you want my honest opinion here I think there issue is from what you are connecting too and got nothing to do with the receiver or dish, but we wont go into detail with that here.

 

[BRAVEHEART]

And I just checked again just now and you know what ?

The signals are all back to being great on pay channels and FTA on the vu duo, this is nutz man, lol :lol3::lol3:

 

[Maxwell]

So now you decide to tell us about being on a communal dish
How many people are fed by this dish ?
Is it the LNB feeding a single cable to each apartment ie multi output
Is it a single or twin cable into a SMATV system.
If its a SMATV system there could be a dodgy switch at the headend which could cause problems if the neigbours are watching another channel particularly if its on a different polarity/band.
Ask your neighbours if any of them are having problems
change tuner on the duo and leave the other disconnected and see what happens, its unlikely to have 2 dodgy tuners
Check your broadband connection if using a 'specialist service'
Try reinstalling your Softcam and check the EMM logs.
And stop using the FTA as a reference as I explained earlier unless the encryption data is good within the signal you can get what you describe.

 

[Foxylady]

This is showing quality i.e. snr which is why i took it to prove how good the lnb's are.
If your on a communial dish, that's your issue for sure, as how many people are on that one dish lol.
Here's me thinking you got your own bud



This is my setup, as you can see the motorised is not plum, but i got a got signal as best i know how without any meter's etc.
The standard dish is one from ebay approx £20 and standard lnb comes with it, on that i get 90% on nearly all channels, fta i get above 95%
As you can see not one bit of rust appearing on motorised due to spraying laquer on, this was put up approx 17 month ago.

 

[BRAVEHEART]

Foxylady, thanks for your video and the photos

Wait though, hmmmm, either I'm losing my marbles as I get older or summit or I am looking at things back to front with the vu duo

For mega years I was always under the impression that its better to have as low an SNR as possible as it means less noise = better quality, just like yours is loads lower than mines is foxylady.

But, for some reason (dont know why they would do this), but for some reason with the vu+ duo I thought they must have turned that reading basically upside down, I.E - its better to get the snr % rating higher rather than the normal (lower is better) (although in reality it would still mean lower is better but just that 100% is better than 0% SNR in the vu duo's case), in other words with the Vu+ Duo I thought it was best to get the Snr up the scale towards the 100% mark if you can, I.E - the higher the better.

Could someone confirm for me if I am correct or totally wrong with this and it is infact the normal old way even with the vu duo that the lower the snr the better, I.E - the closer to 0% you are is actually better ?

I am confused now, lol, cause if my SNR was any lower than about 55% then I would defo start to get signs of picture freezing and/or no picture at all, either that or they must have wired up my SNR back to front just to have fun with me, hahahahhaha

Someones gotta clarify this please, silly as it sounds, but yes, my system just would not operate with the snr anywhere near as low as foxyladys and I proved that myself since the weekend, although I have to say that last night and today so far the snr is looking pretty good now again on the pay channels, how long that lasts is anyones guess though, lol, hope its for a long time :thumbsup:

 

[Foxylady]

Brave your getting utterly confused lol.
That video was to show how good the Inverto ultra black lnb is as regard pulling in teh best strength via AGC.
As i would never able to do this with other lnb's, soon as mine would go round the 50% it would lose signal, glitch etc.
The video was no a means to say this is how your snr should be :nono:
Once i took video i set the dish to max snr i could getin order to get tip top signal as i would have not left it at the percentage i had in the video as it was a demo for others to show them the quality of the new lnb.
My snr i got max on motorised is round the 70-80% and even on foreign i get 90's.
Your issue lies in the dish you are sharing for sure bud.
Is there no way you can replace the dish yourself as they only £20-25, could be an older dish and lnb, maybe dish loose depending where it is located.
Maybe loose cabling from lnb to junction box or whatever is be used in order to split the signal how many ways.
Can you take pic of your dish aslong as it is not on top of a tower block which in that case you could ask caretaker if he can open door to get to the roof.
After all it will benefit everyone and mostly you.
I am sure there are other knowledgable people here whom can explain in greater details how it works, but all my information is from me learning little bits here and there and doing some stuff my self as i am in this field no expert.

 

[BRAVEHEART]

Brave your getting utterly confused lol.
That video was to show how good the Inverto ultra black lnb is as regard pulling in teh best strength via AGC.
As i would never able to do this with other lnb's, soon as mine would go round the 50% it would lose signal, glitch etc.
The video was no a means to say this is how your snr should be :nono:
Once i took video i set the dish to max snr i could getin order to get tip top signal as i would have not left it at the percentage i had in the video as it was a demo for others to show them the quality of the new lnb.
My snr i got max on motorised is round the 70-80% and even on foreign i get 90's.
Your issue lies in the dish you are sharing for sure bud.
Is there no way you can replace the dish yourself as they only £20-25, could be an older dish and lnb, maybe dish loose depending where it is located.
Maybe loose cabling from lnb to junction box or whatever is be used in order to split the signal how many ways.
Can you take pic of your dish aslong as it is not on top of a tower block which in that case you could ask caretaker if he can open door to get to the roof.
After all it will benefit everyone and mostly you.
I am sure there are other knowledgable people here whom can explain in greater details how it works, but all my information is from me learning little bits here and there and doing some stuff my self as i am in this field no expert.

Ahh I see, thank goodness for that, lol, thought I had totally lost me marbles there, hehehe, I thought you were on about your SNR (quality) and not AGC (strength), I get ya now though.

I have to say my AGC is always as high as yours in the video or even sometimes much higher like 99% depending on what channel etc.

As I mentioned in my last post, things with the SNR are looking good for past couple of days now, so who knows what happened, I dont, lol, but I will keep a close eye on it and report back if needed.

Once again I thank you for taking the time to talk to me and posting your video and photos etc, I shall send you a pm and get you added to my msn messenger list, do that in a little while, doing some work in the house just now.

 

[Donnie]

Here is a screenshot from my Duo, I have watched this channel for over 15 mins with no break up.
Really this does prove what I am saying.
A properly configured emu is the key to viewing your card or other channels

 

[Donnie]

This is showing quality i.e. snr which is why i took it to prove how good the lnb's are.
If your on a communial dish, that's your issue for sure, as how many people are on that one dish lol.
Here's me thinking you got your own bud



This is my setup, as you can see the motorised is not plum, but i got a got signal as best i know how without any meter's etc.
The standard dish is one from ebay approx £20 and standard lnb comes with it, on that i get 90% on nearly all channels, fta i get above 95%
As you can see not one bit of rust appearing on motorised due to spraying laquer on, this was put up approx 17 month ago.

You were not joking when you said it was not plumb

 

[Foxylady]

I know i wasn't lmao.
I got good signals and get all the sats without issue, not bad for a non expert lol.
But i made sure it is bolted tight as no point in paying out more money to have someone get it straight as it is working for good few months now perfectly.
Did pretty spot on with the uk dish thou, give me some credit

 

[BRAVEHEART]

well here we go with this thread again, please read the whole thing if you havent read it before so that you know whats been going on, thanks.

I have tried everything now !

Tried both feeds one at a time in each tuner ( A & B) and exact same result tonight (i have twin feeds from the LNB), poor snr levels on the pay channels, few channels earlier were even breaking up etc like I have said before.

Strange thing is though as I have mentioned before too is that past couple of days the snr levels were actually pretty good or at least as good as they used to be like 70%-75% etc, sometimes more, again I am talking about the pay channels.

The FTA channels are litrally off the scale, they have excellent strength and quality on both the vu duo and on my freesat receiver too and thats on either feed as I have twin feeds from the LNB.

I am really struggling now for an answer to this and if we get another tech out to work on the dish, LNB and/or cabling then if there is no fault found we will be charged.

Its like lets say the guy comes out and its all working good like it was for past couple of days then hes going to stick a meter on the feeds etc and say "no problem here" and that will be that, we would have to hope that its a bad day when the guy comes out and then maybe he might detect something somewhere, I dont know.

Maybe we could try telling the guy whats been happening if everything happens to be ok when he comes out, we could say just exactly what I have been saying in this thread all along, but question is, will he go for that ?? are these contractors that are sent out more liable to want to do extra work to get more money or are they likely to just check at the feeds in the house (if its a good day) and say nothing wrong here and therefore we get charged for the callout and he goes away without doing nothing ?

I would be happy if the guy said ok I will replace everything, cabling, the dish, the pole, the LNB, the electrical box in the attick, everything, as it wouldnt then be coming out my pocket because he would be saying there was some sort of fault, I just dont know how much these guys will bend the rules if you ask them too, I guess thats what I am trying to say, lol.

But, still, to me it all seems so very strange why this is just happening on the pay channels and not at all on the FTA channels on the duo, or the channels on the freesat receiver, now, I'm not a sat dish installer guy etc, but to me that statment alone says theres nothing the matter with the dish, LNB or cabling, but who am I, lol, nobody.

I guess we could tell him its happening intermittantly as that is infact the truth, and then see what he does from there, eh ?

What should he do in that circumstance then ? because if you tell me what to say then I will tell him to do it and then hope for the best, cause theres one thing for sure, something aint right, but what that is I only wished I knew

p.s
I even put in the latest xml sat freq file too and that didnt make one bit of a difference at all either, got a few extra channels yes but the snr that I am on about stayed the same poor level.

 

[Rob van der Does]

I even put in the latest xml sat freq file too and that didnt make one bit of a difference at all either, got a few extra channels yes but the snr that I am on about stayed the same poor level.

1- As the satellites.xml is only used when scanning, this means you've done a scan. I didn't notice you mentioning that.
2- How could you expect this to have any influence on signal quality?

Don't forget: on tuning to a station only the lamedb is being used.

 

[BRAVEHEART]

1- As the satellites.xml is only used when scanning, this means you've done a scan. I didn't notice you mentioning that.
2- How could you expect this to have any influence on signal quality?

Don't forget: on tuning to a station only the lamedb is being used.

Thanks for the reply.

1. after installing the latest sat xml yes I did do a scan, purpose of even doing this is that I am running out of options and only trying things that other people have mentioned and ive been in sheer hope that something/anything helps, I am only a novice so therefore can only try different things in the hope that something works, thats all, I hope that answers question 1 & 2 for you a bit clearer.

3. I wasnt too sure what you meant with "lamedb" so I googled it, I think but still am not too sure if this is what your getting at, after installing the sat xml file I then done a scan etc, I then compared the snr levels from the channels in my bouqets with channels in my "ALL" channel list and could see there was no difference what so ever to the snr levels, there is always just 2 channels I need to check although when the snr gets poor it effects all pay channel snr levels as i have mentioned multiple times, but for quickness I just check sky movies drama HD and sky sports 3 HD and then if they are bad then I know the rest will be too, saves a lot of channel hopping. (hope that kind of answers your question about the lamedb thing as I am not too sure).

But anyway, here we go again, just now today at this precise time, the weather is a little breezy (not very breezy, just a bit), bit cloudy with sunny intervals and rain showers now and then, Ideal weather really as in that its not bad weather, but guess what, those snr levels on all the pay channels are all back up to nice and good snr now, yet approx when I left my last message the snr levels were all garbage, and the weather is just the same really apart from it now being daytime obviously, lol, weird situation, eh ??

Anyhow, to get back to my last post, I think I will do what I was talking about and just call out the sat installer guy again like I said as I am getting sick of going on about this, could someone please read my last post and then tell me exactly what to say to the sat installer company guy please ?

I will basically just say to him that I have a family member that suggested a few things that either are needing checked, fixed or replaced or whatever you guys tell me exactly what to say to the guy, and my covering story is quite obvious, my family member I shall say works for sky but says he cannot touch the dish or cabling etc as its a communal dish and also on a neighbouring building too and he cannot touch it as hes simply not allowed to, but I will make out that after explaining everything to my family member, he came round on a day when the snr levels were bad and attached some sorts of meters or something like that to the sat feed at the tv (I will play dumb and read from a note, lol), and then say my family member said that it either has to be >

1. xxxxxx
2. xxxxxx
3. xxxxxx
or
4. xxxxxx
or all of the above
( xxxxx = possible problems obviously, lol)

now all I need is for you guys to tell me exactly what to say now please and then I can make the call tommorow or whenever, can you do this for me ?

Appreciate it, thanks.

 

[Rob van der Does]

Just to explain: the satellites.xml is the complete satellite and transponder database of the box. When doing a scan, the data in there is used: the box tunes to the transponders, listens for services and if received saves them.
When tuning to a service (as you normally do when zapping) the data of the lamedb (in etc/enigma2) is used. Only the satellite position from the satellites.xml is also used then.

In other words: even if no transponders at all are in the satellites.xml, zapping goes on as usual. You won't even notice it. Hence there's also no influence on the signal quality when changing the data in the file.

 

[Foxylady]

Brave,
We'll discuss on live fella and go through all the motions to resolve the issue bud.

 

[Maxwell]

Just a thought with you mentioning the weather being a bit cloudy/rainy, it is possible that you need an attenuator fitting, you could possibly have too much signal which is just as bad and has the same symptoms as not enough.

 

[Foxylady]

With it being communial it is no the same as single household as lots of cables/signals are being split are running off one dish, you need to find out what they are using to save the signal being dropped and to be devided evenly as the cabling will be massive and as it goes longer the weak the signal
Tell them to check your cabling going to your property as if no one else is complaining about it, tell them to re-wire yours or even get off there backside and fix the fault they were originally paid for as never ever have i with any type of box inc any vu's have suffered snr issues UNLESS the dish was out of alignment due to winds, break in cable or water getting into the lnb etc.
You can never ever rule a faulty box never, no matter how good they are, like with anything.
From speaking to you, your box is setup right, man even my 12 year old could do it so i am not disputing even thou your not an expert like i am not, you know what your doing like i do as regards images etc.
Tell the sat people you've spoken to friends and others on the net that know there stuff and you want the fault finding as it is clearly points toward your dish, cabling etc as mentioned before fella.
But obviously they are iusing some type of booster and this could be the issue, as your feed has to go through some kind of power booster in order to boost signals to all properties when on one dish
If no joy slap your own up mate, be selfish and have a dish for yourself, least you know it fresh cabling, new dish and lnb and no issues.

 

[wazza_2]

i would really consider getting that pole plum other wise your lnb is not set straight it will be picking more satelittes from one side and less from the other and i would defo get a INVERTO Black Ultra High lnb , i put one on mine this weekend and gained 10% extra on all sats. the best way i found to see if my dish is set right is to level out the signal between 28east and 30west, if you get them two right everything else should flow.