I get DirecTV service including a basic package plus local channels. Or at least, that’s what I pay for. I’ve been having lots of reception trouble, typically being unable to get the satellite signal for some channels whereas others are fine.
When I adjust the dish pointing I can get some “transponders” to be near perfect while others show no signal at all. The dish pointing screen lets me select which transponder to monitor but offers no information on whether it matters which one I pick, or on how to pick one. DirecTV’s web site seems to offer nothing useful - just a glossary that essentially says a transponder is a thing on the satellite. I already thought a transponder is a receiver and retransmitter assembly - no news here.
From other web searching I have learned that DirecTV is an example of a generic class of broadcasters called DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite). I have found lists of which DirecTV channels are on which transponder, though these lists are all posted by people who seem to have worked them out independant of DirecTV, as if it is otherwise secret - and they are frequently updated as though the assignments keep changing. It doesn’t seem like DirecTV provides a way for their customers to deal with the issue of picking the right transponders to receive properly.
There are also, I read in some forum discussions, apparently many satellites and you can choose which channels you want to receive well depending on which satellite you aim at, though the places I have read about this are not clearly talking about the plain DirecTV service I think I am buying.
I don’t want anything special, don’t want to cheat the encryption, don’t want yet another hobby, just want the basic package plus local channels - and I’m pretty clueless now how to get it. Anybody know what I’m missing???
I had regular direcTV with the small black dish and had no problems. Occasionally I would get outages due to snow but they where rare (and I get tons of snow)
Now I have direcway w/the internet connectioin and DTV on one dish. The slighest little snowstorm or even RAIN seems to screw up reception.
Same as you. Some channels come in others don’t. Which I really don’t understand as it’s all coming from the same satalite.
A transponder is the device which broadcasts a group of channels on a satellite. While you can pick different ones to monitor when aiming your dish this has absolutely no effect on your reception. You are not choosing which transponder you’re going to normally use. Each transponder carries about a dozen channels (I think). The transponder you use depends on the channel you’re on.
I believe one set of transponders has horizontal polarity and the other vertical. If you’re getting no signal on some you may have a problem with your equipment. Your LNB (the thing at the end of the arm on the dish) might be bad or the cable going from your dish to your receiver might be. Trying to use more than one receiver off one dish can sometimes cause this too.
So, is there definitely only one satellite I am aiming at? They don’t park several satellites close to one another?
I think I remember that the polarization is circular, and that some transponders are lefthanded whereas others are righthanded. Your receiver tells the LNB which polarization to accept. Polarizations couldn’t really be vertical and horizontal because that would be specific to where on the globe you are - I know the satellite covers a minor fraction of the globe, but it’s a significant fraction.
So, are the only issues 1) aiming at a single satellite, and 2) accepting one or the other polarization? Or is there anything else I am supposed to do to allow good reception?
BTW we are very sensitive to rain. We happen to aim in the same azimuth as our weather typically comes from, and we always lose reception about 15 minutes ahead of cloudbursts, regaining it the moment the cloudburst stops. This happens whenever it rains hard enough to , for example, make people run to their cars.
With a typical DirecTV setup you’re aiming at one satellite. Some DTV setups have oval dishes with 2 or 3 LNB’s on the end, and those actually receive signals from 2 or 3 different satellites. These are only necessary for DirecTV Para Todos (the Spanish language stuff), the HDTV channels, NASA TV and some of the locals markets.
Polarization: I don’t remember if DTV uses vertical/horizontal or left-hand/right-hand circular. I think they use vertical/horizontal, but it doesn’t really matter. Polarization is alternated between adjacent transponders to reduce adjacent channel interference. This is very common with satellite systems. The old “big dish” systems did the same thing. Which polarization is selected is a function of a voltage sent down the coax cable from the receiver. This explains why you can’t just split the signal from one LNB to feed two receivers - a “single” LNB can only be set to one polarization at a time, so if receiver A is on a channel requiring vertical polarization and receiver B is on one requiring horizontal, one of 'em’s not going to be happy. A “dual LNB” has extra circuitry to receive both polarizations simultaneously.
There is some normal variation in signal strength from the various transponders, sometimes quite significant. I think the “spot beams” used to deliver local channels only to certain areas tend to seem much stronger, for example. When aligning your dish it’s usually (but not always) best to select the transponder with the strongest signal and use that. As another poster mentioned, the transponder you’re on will switch as you change channels anyway - it’s not like the one you select for alignment is a “default” or anything.
The only things I can imagine that would cause your problem are poor dish alignment or a bad LNB (quite possibly able to receive one polarization well and the other poorly, or not at all). Single LNB’s are cheap - hell, I probably have at least one spare myself. E-mail me if you want it. If you suspect the dish alignment to be the problem you might actually want to try aligning it using a transponder that isn’t the strongest - that way you can more accurately see when your alignment is dead on. With a strong transponder you might hit 100% signal and still not be dead on.
Any signal strength over 80 is decent and anything in the mid-high 90’s is exceptional. I never had any problem getting signal levels like this, either in Florida or Massachusetts. When you get into the 60’s and below you start to have problems, especially in bad weather.