Freeview: Zinwell Reciver not picking up TVNZ channels

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bafalcon

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Wannabe Geek

#79885 26-Jul-2007 20:47

Hi Cyril

I have tried with the sky box turned off and freeview connected to a power pass port on the splitter. (I have a all ports power pass splitter)

I will try connecting the Freeview box directly to the satellite latter on tonight when my brother has finished watching Sky.

If its any help I am located in Nelson.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers
Neil

cyril7

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#79889 26-Jul-2007 20:55

Sky boxs ( and FreeView/FTA ones for that matter) only really turn off if you remove the power, putting them in standby via the remote only stops the video/audio output and the status leds on the front panel, the power to the LNB continues. Trap for young players. You need to pull the Karapiro totally.

Cyril

bafalcon

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#79894 26-Jul-2007 21:05

cyril7: Sky boxs ( and FreeView/FTA ones for that matter) only really turn off if you remove the power, putting them in standby via the remote only stops the video/audio output and the status leds on the front panel, the power to the LNB continues. Trap for young players. You need to pull the Karapiro totally.

Cyril

Hi

Cool thanks I will try removing the power cord from the sky box later on tonight and give that a go.

I just find it strange that I can be watching tv one minute and then the picture just freezes up in the one spot and now I get nothing, But I guess that is one of life's little mysteries.

Cheers
Neil

bafalcon

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#79903 26-Jul-2007 21:48

Hi Cyril

I just removed the power cord from the sky box a tried to fire up the freeview unit but that did not work.

I then decided to remove the Inline satellite amplifier 10dB that we had installed as we have about a 20 meter coax run from the splitter to the freeview unit, and further 12 meters to the sky dish. The amplifier was installed just after the freeview run had been split. By doing this it seemed to have solved the problem, only now the signal quality and strength has dropped.

My next question is what would of coursed the problem to of happened. Is there any way I can test the amplifier to see if it is faulty?

Cheers
Neil

cyril7

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#79931 27-Jul-2007 08:25

50meters of coax and a splitter is still well inside the reasonable allowance, you are only 32meters, you dont need an amplifier, infact an amplifier without a large loss to compensate for can overload STB's, purhaps this is what has happend on some transponders.

Without suitable test kit you cannot test the amp outside of simple substution.

I suggest you forget the amp its not needed in your setup. On you Sky box what signal level and BER does it report. Is it a Pace or Motorola/Zenith, the latter have quite accurate signal level readings.

Cyril

MikeE

12 posts

Geek

#80000 27-Jul-2007 15:34

Kaon box still working fine

HP

Shop now for HP laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

bafalcon

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#80070 27-Jul-2007 22:45

cyril7: 50meters of coax and a splitter is still well inside the reasonable allowance, you are only 32meters, you dont need an amplifier, infact an amplifier without a large loss to compensate for can overload STB's, purhaps this is what has happend on some transponders.

Without suitable test kit you cannot test the amp outside of simple substution.

I suggest you forget the amp its not needed in your setup. On you Sky box what signal level and BER does it report. Is it a Pace or Motorola/Zenith, the latter have quite accurate signal level readings.

Cyril

Hi

Thanks for that information. I will completely remove the amp from the setup.

The Sky box is a Motorola and is currently reading 70 signal strength, between 90 - 100 quality and the BER is switching between 0.0e-07 and 5.3e-07.

On the Hills box Signal strength is around 70, Signal Quality is around 45 and the BER is around 11000.

Cheers
Neil

cyril7

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#80087 28-Jul-2007 07:52

Those signal and BER levels are perfectly fine. The BER (which is directly related to Carrier/Noise) is the important one and what you have is pretty much as good as it gets. Being a Motorola the level should be pretty accurate and you say 70 which is 70dBuV. The acceptance range of most DVB-S recievers is typically 40-80dBuV hence the colour bands on the scale indicate this in green. So 70dBuV is a good signal. I have seen these receivers happily work down at 25dBuV, so long as the C/N (quality and BER) at the dish are adequate the signal can fall due to line losses and as long as the result C/N is not compromised by the reciever noise floor they work just fine. You are light years away from that.

I assume the cable lengths from the splitter to each STB is similar so the Hills is seeing a similar level and C/N signal.

Cyril

bafalcon

8 posts

Wannabe Geek

#80239 29-Jul-2007 16:28

cyril7: Those signal and BER levels are perfectly fine. The BER (which is directly related to Carrier/Noise) is the important one and what you have is pretty much as good as it gets. Being a Motorola the level should be pretty accurate and you say 70 which is 70dBuV. The acceptance range of most DVB-S recievers is typically 40-80dBuV hence the colour bands on the scale indicate this in green. So 70dBuV is a good signal. I have seen these receivers happily work down at 25dBuV, so long as the C/N (quality and BER) at the dish are adequate the signal can fall due to line losses and as long as the result C/N is not compromised by the reciever noise floor they work just fine. You are light years away from that.

I assume the cable lengths from the splitter to each STB is similar so the Hills is seeing a similar level and C/N signal.

Cyril

Hi Cyril

No there is only about 1 meter of cable from the splitter to the Sky box and about 20 meters to the Hills STB.

I have had a play around with my setup and have removed the two wall outlet points on the Hills cable run and put on a couple of f-connectors and joined them together with f-connector joiners and this has dramatically improved the readings on the hills box.

Now the hills box is reading Signal strength around 70, Signal Quality is around 65 and the BER is around 600.

By having a play around it has also removed a small problem where the picture would flick black and white for around 3 seconds when switching through a couple of channels in succession.

Now my only other problem is trying to work out why the EPG does not load up or work on Maori TV with the Hills STB.

Thanks for all your help Cyril it is much appreciated.

Cheers
Neil

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