Signal Strength- How Much Does it Matter

[jerryyyyy]

I have had trouble, which I do not think is the receiver, getting a good signal from the 61.5 degree sat. We just moved the dish to 148 degree sat.

I was getting a signal in the mid to upper 80s on the former and now get about 90, but occasionally still see a little pixelation. maybe the tuner is going, but I have awkward geography here.

What strengths do people get on these sats- especially interested in California Data. I live near SF. (I get 95 on the 119 sat and no pixelation).

[gcutler]

I've seen the signal strenght be as low as 40 before losing signal. At 50 or higher it should not make a difference except the amount of "Spread" between your current signal and losing signal. A small rainstorm might cost you 10 so at norm of 80 no problem, but at norm of 50, it could be a problem.

The pixelation can come from alot of factors, it can come from the source programmer, from Dish itself (they do compress the signal to fit more channels) or be from your side of things. A Gecko (we have had reports of "Gecko-Fade") crawling across your dish could cause the problem that only lasts for a second and isn't repeatable.

[Jacob S]

Your picture quality should be the same as long as your signal is locked. When you get on the borderline some channels will go out while others will stay. I have seen it stay locked until around 38-40%.

[Mark Holtz]

Dish's and DirecTV's signal is all digital. You either get the channel or you don't.

Having said that, the higher the signal strength of a transponder, the less chance there is of weather-related fade. My locals are on 110 Transponder 8 (which is a spotbeam) where I get a solid signal of 125. Most of my other transponder are 80-90s. Once your signal drops down to 50, you will have pixelation problems, and below 40, the receiver simply gives up. (Surprisingly, 110 Transponder 2 gives me a 80, and 119 Transponder 1 gives me a 60. Both are spotbeams which do not serve my area.)

Not all pixelation is due to satellite transmission. Some of it is compression related.

Still, Dish Network was more reliable than my cable system was, and has a better picture quality than cable ever did. When I was having trouble with VHF channels 2-6 on cable, the technician spotted some signal leakage. They just replaced the broken section. A few years earlier, my father accidentally cut the cable due to yard work. THAT patch, surprising, held up well.

[jerryyyyy]

The pixilation is strange because it seems to come and go. Last night I had none on the local TV stations or on TV-5 (606) which I watch a lot. I noticed it earlier in the day. I see it especially in recording I take at 3pm each day when I record two news shows simultaneously.

To check if it was the receiver, I have looked at programs that come in on my 500, which has a SS of 94 on I believe 119, and I see none.

I am wondering if the receiver is slowly losing it. I note that if I do PIP often I will get more pixilation in one image than the other. But there is not a 100% trend for one receiver to be worse than the other.

Appreciate your comments here- would like to get a comment from someone in San Francisco who uses the same sattelites.

[Tony Trent]

Was the pixellation occurring during lots of motion in the image? Or was it during still or static periods? If it happens mainly during high motion/changes then it is over-compression on the transmit side. That is one way to tell. It's a generalization and not 100% accurate (it could still be the crawling Gecko someone mentioned).

[treiher]

Hate to say it, but you may be getting that same pixelation I and many others have experienced with the 721. There is another thread that has many, many posts about this. The only thing that resolved my problem was replacing the unit. One thing I noticed, when looking at the signal strength, was while the signal strength appeared to be good (90's and above), it would randomly drop for a fraction of second down to almost nothing. It was more like a blip. I think now, that was corresponding to the tuner dropping out which then showed up as pixelation on the screen. Ofcourse, I'm no expert, but you might check for that.

[jerryyyyy]

The pixelation does occur during motion. I saw the drop you mention before I changed dish position but have not seen it since. I think if the consensus is that it should lock on OK at 88%, which it is now, it must be the receiver. But, when I switch to the other disk (500) I do not get the problem..... This one runs at 95%. If I continue having the problem I will switch the receiver as I have the service contract. I do not see any other tweaks I can do or any other diagnostic work.

[boba]

You don't state that you have a 721 but your comments indicate it is a DISH PVR 721 which has a history of bad tuners. It sounds like yours is in the early stages of failure, glad you bought the extended warranty.

[jerryyyyy]

Yes it is a 721. I may be sensitive to electronic jitters, but I think it is about to GO.