[mythtvnz] Broken DVB-S setup

[Noel & Diane]

Start at the dish & follow the signal path!
Verify your dish/LNB are good, and if so then proceed to investigate
your card.
Either use a known-good freeview box to see if you get a signal or If
you cant do that (or if the box fails to acquire a signal) then;
First, use a "cheapie" satellite squealer ($15 off TM) on your coax, set
it to just start to make a noise then move your hand in front of the LNB
- if there is not a LARGE increase in noise (reflected of your hand)
from the squealer, then your LNB is kaput.
Second, Deflect the rim of the dish by 5mm or so (a gentle push with a
fingertip) and you should note a  drop of signal on the meter.  do this
for left/right and up/down deflections.  (your LNB coax exit point
should be roughly at the 8-O'clock position when viewed from the front
of the dish) This step will prove if your dish is correctly aligned.
I would expect a relatively greater signal from Freeview transponder
compared to the SBS transponder.
Thirdly, if the dish proves OK, use a command-line dvbtune -like command
(sorry not too sure on the syntax off the top of my head) to verify the
card responds correctly.

Good luck!!


-----Original Message-----
From: Nick & Ann Read <nick.read at engineer.com>
Reply-to: MythTV in NZ <mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz>
To: mythtvnz at lists.linuxnut.co.nz
Subject: Re: [mythtvnz] Broken DVB-S setup
Date: Thu, 05 May 2011 23:26:46 +1200


OK did some more testing. If I 'Watch TV' on the Satellite input, if 
shows 71% signal strength with SBS (Vertical?) and 53% with Freeview 
channels (Horizontal I think). But S/N of 4.5 dB in all cases. BE was 
originally zero, but after playing with LNB settings to try and wake 
something up, I am now getting BE of 3k-40k reported (after restoring 
the LNB settings). If I remove the cable from the LNB to the DVB card, 
signal strength drops to 0% but S/N stays at 4.4dB.

So, anyone want to guess if its the card or the LNB that's broken? I'm 
tempted to get a new DVB-S2 card cause that's easiest, but its $100 that 
I don't want to spend if the problem is the LNB...

Nick

On 5/05/2011 8:40 p.m., Nick & Ann Read wrote:
> Should have mentioned that the DVB-S card is a SkyStar 2.6D from memory.
>
> On 5/05/2011 8:38 p.m., Nick & Ann Read wrote:
>> Hi all
>>
>> We had a power cut yesterday afternoon, and since then the DVB-S card 
>> on my mythtv setup has not successfully recorded anything. Only found 
>> out this morning when my son sat down to watch the Man U vs Schalke 
>> match on SBS1.
>>
>> As far as I can tell there are no software issues. There is nothing 
>> in the logs, and the system all behaves normally, apart from not 
>> getting a lock on any satellite channels and not being able to scan 
>> transports for channels. My old PVR-350 is still working away. So I'm 
>> guessing a hardware problem.
>>
>> I don't have any other satellite cards(boxes) or LNB/dishes easily 
>> available, and I'm guessing its one of those two at fault? So, my 
>> question is, what is the easiest way to troubleshoot with a 
>> multimeter and a screwdriver? :-)
>>
>> Thanks
>> Nick
>>
>

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