[mythtvnz] Possibly dying tuner card? (or something else?)

[Rob Connolly]

Excerpts from Stephen Worthington's message of 2014-07-06 18:08:49 +1200:
> When one mux is giving problems, or gives more problems than the
> others, that usually indicates reception problems, rather than tuner
> problems (unless, like me, you have muxes forced to use specific
> tuners).  Usually one mux has the worst signal, either the lowest
> power transmitter, or the highest frequency.  So that mux is the one
> that gives problems first.
> 

No, I don't. That's good to know, I was really hoping it wasn't the
tuner card.

> I would suspect the cabling first.  Are you using good shielded aerial
> cable (RG6 I think is what is best), and F-connectors everywhere you
> can?  Is there somewhere that another power or signal cable has been
> installed or moved to that runs parallel near your aerial cable?  Has
> a cable been bumped and pulled out partially anywhere (eg while
> vacuuming)?
> 

The cable runs out the back of the mythbox, through a splitter to the TV
and then to the power injector and out through the wall. The whole thing
is behind the TV cabinet and doesn't get poked around with much. I've
already checked and double checked the connections. F-connectors are on
everything except the splitter and the inputs to the TV and mythbox. Not
sure about the cable type.

> Check that the power supply to your aerial amplifier is still working
> - they are usually just wall warts and hence not usually the most
> reliable of things.  Visually check that the aerial itself is OK and
> still pointing in the correct direction.
> 

I just tried to check this, but my trusty $10 multimeter only registers
a couple of blips becuase the thing is AC. I'll take it to work later in
the week and hook it to a proper scope.

Aerial looks OK, but I think a trip to the roof may be required when I
get the time/weather/light.

> Try using LiveTV and see what the on-screen signal level and s/n
> values show, or use dvbtune.  This is the command line I use for
> dvbtune:
> 
>   dvbtune -f $a -qam 64 -gi 16 -cr 3_4 -bw 8 -tm 8 -m -c $ADAPTER
> 
> where $a is the frequency in kHz (530000, 562000, 578000 or 594000 for
> Wharite), and $ADAPTER is the adapter number, which is 0 or 1 in your
> case.

For 530000, I get:

Using DVB card "NXP TDA10048HN DVB-T"
tuning DVB-T (in United Kingdom) to 530000000 Hz
polling....
Getting frontend event
Overflow error, trying again (status = -1, errno = 75)FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL FE_HAS_CARRIER
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS:
polling....
Getting frontend event
FE_STATUS: FE_HAS_SIGNAL

The program just keeps polling without exiting, so I hit Ctrl-C.

I get similar output for the other muxes, although with a higher
percentage of FE_HAS_CARRIER messages. At the current time live TV works
on TV ONE and Prime but TV3 fails to tune.

> 
> Do you have another DVB-T tuner you could plug in for comparison (eg
> USB one on your laptop)?
> 

Unfortunately not.

Thanks for your help so far!

Cheers,

Rob