What's up with Bell Expressvu lately?
zerg
doesn't follow the characteristic pattern of too-thick clouds moving in,
where the signal gets choppier over a period of several minutes before
it's lost; in the clear-weather instances it happens in only a few
seconds, clear as a bell, then garbled, then gone in less time than it
takes an adman to say "order NOW!" :-P
What causes this, and how can I fix it? Nothing's visibly wrong with the
cabling or the dish itself, and it's obviously not the weather either.
It's almost as if the signal was being cut off at the source, but
there's no logical reason for them to do that. Technical difficulties at
the source usually results in them showing you a test pattern with a
message to that effect, rather than transmitting nothing at all. In
fact, I don't see these symptoms occurring unless China shot the
satellite out of the sky or someone drove a truck bomb right into the
transmitter at the ground station, and then the service would go down
for every channel simultaneously (it doesn't) and stay down for weeks or
more (fortunately, it doesn't). Power failure at the ground station
would do it but only if they were idiot enough not to have a generator
to keep mission-critical (i.e. what-the-customers-are-paying-them-for)
services running through thick or thin.
wildfyre
"zerg" <ze...@zerg.org> wrote in message news:g6pv1t$vnk$1...@aioe.org...
I, too, have moments of black-screens. I wonder if it's trouble from where
the program is originating? Like if you're watching NTV and maybe there is
a storm or something in that area that's causing interference to the
satellite.
Or maybe there's a tree growing in the 'line of sight' to your dish? I've
been told that can cause problems, too.
zerg
> I, too, have moments of black-screens. I wonder if it's trouble from where
> the program is originating? Like if you're watching NTV and maybe there is
> a storm or something in that area that's causing interference to the
> satellite.
>
> Or maybe there's a tree growing in the 'line of sight' to your dish? I've
> been told that can cause problems, too.
This isn't black screens; it's signal loss. That is, the video and audio
garbles and then it goes "searching for signal" or whatever, exactly as
it does during bad weather (enough thickness of cloud/rain along line of
sight to satellite), except for the timescale being sped up by a factor
of about a hundred. (It also goes from an unusably weak signal back to a
strong, glitch-free one just as fast when one of these incidents ends.)
The dish has an unobstructed view of the sky, and isn't being vibrated
or similarly by high winds at these times, either (I can see it out a
window from near the TV; it's more than 20 feet off the ground and aimed
fairly high into the southern sky as I'm like 90% of Canadians within
100 miles or so of the border).
The signal strength meter shows a huge, fast drop in signal strength,
and an equally fast rise whenever the incident ends, as well.
It's definitely the signal strength from the satellite, rather than a
strong signal with no data or the wrong data.
On the other hand, it may selectively affect only some channels. The
same happens with bad-weather-explainable signal loss events. BRAVO
seems to go before Showcase, Showcase before the CTV channels, etc., as
if some channels are carried by weaker signals than others, which I find
to be odd. Why not use equal-strength signals for each channel? I can
think of no engineering reasons for not doing so, though I can think of
some economic reasons of dubious morality, such as the satellite company
having decided to let TV stations have a stronger signal if they pay for
it (and not all of them (nor none of them) having chosen to pay them for
extra signal strength).
wildfyre
"zerg" <ze...@zerg.org> wrote in message news:g6qboc$u9h$1...@aioe.org...
Ahhh. I understand, but can offer no explanations; sorry. :-(
windowwasher
"wildfyre" <wild...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:g6qet4$e68$1...@aioe.org...
possible causes:
faulty receiver
bad lnb
lnb drift
problems at the source
need to repeak sat dish
radiation interference from another source disturbing sat signal
Have you discussed the problem with EV?
zerg
> possible causes:
>
> faulty receiver
Would cause more consistent problems. Wouldn't affect a neighbor's in
like fashion.
> bad lnb
> lnb drift
What does this mean? Aim of the dish? That would not cause a problem to
develop rapidly, then resolve equally rapidly, all spontaneously. In
particular, if the dish slowly drifted out of alignment, there'd be a
gradual degradation of signal strength, rather than rapid drops followed
by equally rapid rises.
> problems at the source
Such as? Most of those were eliminated, save incompetence of various
kinds, like people unplugging the wrong things or no backup generator.
Anything taking out the satellite itself would make the signal go down
and stay down for ages until they replaced it. That doesn't fit the
observed symptoms.
> need to repeak sat dish
As in, aim it? Again, if it got out of alignment, the signal quality
would go down and stay down. It would not recover spontaneously.
> radiation interference from another source disturbing sat signal
This one's more plausible, except that the dish's reception is no doubt
pretty directional and there's no plausible interference source in its
reception cone. Just air and, way way off, the satellite itself. If a
radio mast was close to the axis of the reception cone or something,
this might be a problem, but this particular installation has no such
feature along its axis.
> Have you discussed the problem with EV?
All I get is the standard pre-scripted pap. Check signal strength. Try
restarting the receiver. Try removing and reinserting smart card. Yadda,
yadda, yadda. I doubt they care as long as either one of the above fixes
it or it recovers on its own within a few minutes or an hour or two.
(Meanwhile, though, the customer misses chunks of his show, or even the
whole thing.)
Michael Black
> windowwasher wrote:
>> possible causes:
>>
>> faulty receiver
>
> Would cause more consistent problems. Wouldn't affect a neighbor's in like
> fashion.
>
>> bad lnb
>> lnb drift
>
> What does this mean? Aim of the dish? That would not cause a problem to
> develop rapidly, then resolve equally rapidly, all spontaneously. In
> particular, if the dish slowly drifted out of alignment, there'd be a gradual
> degradation of signal strength, rather than rapid drops followed by equally
> rapid rises.
>
The "lnb" is the Low Noise Block, a bit of electronics that should sit
at the dish so you don't have to run cable to the actual receiver at
the signal frequency. The LNB does some amplification and then converts
down to a more reasonable frequency for the run to the receiver.
If it's flakey, a bad connector or a component that may drift in
value with temperature change or something else, then that might
be an issue.
>> problems at the source
>
> Such as? Most of those were eliminated, save incompetence of various kinds,
> like people unplugging the wrong things or no backup generator. Anything
> taking out the satellite itself would make the signal go down and stay down
> for ages until they replaced it. That doesn't fit the observed symptoms.
>
Take note that CTV has a lot of glitching in recent years, and I don't
have cable or satellite. So the feed upstream is glitchy, I have no
idea where the satellite feed comes from.
Michael
meistermag
>
> - Show quoted text -
My advice to you is to get rid of Expressvu and start looking at
trying digital cable. You get clear reception all the time, plus
services that you won't get with Expressvu, such as Video on demand.
clouddreamer
Yeah, right. Cable is crap. The cable in my area is a friggin joke...it
has no video on demand....no dual tuner PVR and many of the basic
channels are still analog (even with the digital box). It routinely
makes simulcasting errors that can, at times, take the entire hour!!!
It can't hold a candle to Bell.
..
--
We must change the way we live,
or the climate will do it for us.
holo
"meistermag" <rcliff...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:0e99dc56-ceb8-437f...@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>> Take note that CTV has a lot of glitching in recent years, and I don't
>> have cable or satellite. So the feed upstream is glitchy, I have no
>> idea where the satellite feed comes from.
> My advice to you is to get rid of Expressvu and start looking at
> trying digital cable. You get clear reception all the time, plus
> services that you won't get with Expressvu, such as Video on demand.
Who is your cable provider? Rogers has been having a lot of trouble lately
with signal loss and choppy reception. It may not be their fault as it
appears to be specific to certain channels at certain times:
Sometimes the US superstations get choppy: KTLA, WSBK & Peachtree were
almost unwatchable at times. Other times Buffalo's Fox affiliate has gone
that route. Lately BNN has been watchable, just barely. The audio was fine
but the video was very choppy. Not such a big deal as BNN is a business news
channel.
And last night the comedy channel was completely unwatchable as the screen
image would freeze for seconds at a time - both audio and video - and then
pick up with those seconds lost.
Too bad Rogers is an effing monopoly. There is no reason why I should not
be able to choose a cable provider like phonecos.
end of rant
zerg
> meistermag wrote:
>> My advice to you is to get rid of Expressvu and start looking at
>> trying digital cable. You get clear reception all the time, plus
>> services that you won't get with Expressvu, such as Video on demand.
>
> Yeah, right. Cable is crap. The cable in my area is a friggin joke...
That's about the size of it. Cable quality varies dramatically from one
location (and cable co) to the next, and cable's completely nonexistent
in large areas (mainly rural).
Satellite has questionable quality, but at least it has the same
questionable quality everywhere. :)
windowwasher
"wildfyre" <wild...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:g6qet4$e68$1...@aioe.org...
>
possible causes:
faulty receiver
bad lnb
lnb drift
problems at the source
need to repeak sat dish
radiation interference from another source disturbing sat signal
Have you discussed the problem with EV?
windowwasher
"zerg" <ze...@zerg.org> wrote in message news:g6qvku$aj$1...@aioe.org...
> windowwasher wrote:
>> possible causes:
>>
>> faulty receiver
>
> Would cause more consistent problems. Wouldn't affect a neighbor's in like
> fashion.
Agreed, unless your neighbor's receiver also has the same fault; not likely,
but not impossible I guess.
>
>> bad lnb
>> lnb drift
>
> What does this mean? Aim of the dish? That would not cause a problem to
> develop rapidly, then resolve equally rapidly, all spontaneously. In
> particular, if the dish slowly drifted out of alignment, there'd be a
> gradual degradation of signal strength, rather than rapid drops followed
> by equally rapid rises.
>
Lnb detected signal frequencies are subject to "drift' due to ambient
temperature changes, etc. Receivers are designed to accommodate a certain
amount of lnb (frequency) drift. As lnbs age and are subject to weather
elements, this drift often increases outside the range of the receiver's
ability to cope and you lose signal intermittently up to the point where you
lose it completely. Most receivers include the ability to detect and measure
the amount of drift. EV uses Echostar receivers iirc and there is usually a
test screen where this info is displayed in the older receivers. The newer
receivers auto detect and report if there's a problem. This is usually one
of the items that is troubleshot by Tech Support. Ask to be escalated to
engineering and talk to someone there about the problem. This is a common
problem.
If you're sitting on the edge of your receiver's ability to grab the correct
signal, it doesn't take much to disrupt signal acquisition. Bad connectors,
temperature changes, moisture in a connection, and other things can cause
signal loss.
However, if your neighbor experiences the exact same thing at the same time,
the likelihood is that the problem either originates at the source end or
there is some local environmental event causing the disruption.
zerg
keeps warning me that it's about to expire, but there's no bright-line
date stated either in the receiver's message, on channel 263, or on
their Web site. Even their sorry excuse for a FAQ is missing this rather
important piece of information.
I ask because I can't update mine immediately conveniently due to
various scheduling complications -- I juggle a very busy life. Knowing
the exact cutoff date would enable me to better plan when to set aside
some time for getting this done. (I figure I need to budget at least an
hour, since I'll probably be on hold for three quarters of that at some
point during the procedure, and probably during daylight hours...got to
make time somehow...)