Satellite Internet Forum

[neekall]

My bus has not moved since April '09. About every two weeks I start everything including my satellite internet system. No problems until last Thursday. Dish could not find 123W, stowing and going in circles for hours, reminds me of days gone by. Friday the system locks on after two hours of stowing calibrating and searching. Stays on 123 for hours. Saturday morning and I'm back to what occurred on Thursday. 3.9.4 has always worked for me. The Sat table from March has always worked great. Any problems with AtContact? All connections are secure. The dish will actually lock on to 123 in iDirect mode but cannot get a steady Receive or Transmit today.

I was just diagnosed with a rare form of an osteosarcoma. Because I'm a rare kind of guy. I don't have all the time in the world to discuss with tech support what might be the problem. Let's get to the nitty gritty of possible solutions and I'll handle the rest. Thank you and enjoy life.

[MiHen]

Did you actually get online? Flashing Rx means you aren't actually pointed to 123w (correctly), which is most likely a result of the D3 misidentifying the satellite.

I'm not really sure how he was able to lock onto 123w with the firmware, since the transponders in the sat table for 123w don't exist anymore, but maybe it's something worth trying. If it makes you feel any better, I haven't been able to get my D4 to lock onto 123w (or really anything useful for that matter).

[bnOd]

MiHen, so far as I know they still haven't added modem-SNR peaking to the D4. I have set my D4 aside for the time being and am using a couple of D3s because 3.9.6L just flat "solves" the problem where your own satellite isn't in the table correctly. If the dish hits the satellite you will get on.

It does not solve problems of misidentification of some other satellite, but that's a less common problem. neekall, I would suggest that 3.9.6L or later would fix this for you.

[ekima]

Can AtContact confirm that there has been no changes to the downstream carrier since the last time you were online? If a provider changes bit_rates, moduations scheme, or FEC on the downstream carrier you can end up with a similiar status.

I would venture to say that your problem is one of two things:

1. There has been a change to the downstream carrier (MODCOD, bitrate, etc). If this is the case, a new opt would cure it.

2. Your system is not pointing as well as it should be.

You mentioned that the system locked up Friday. Were you on the network (TX/RX/NET) or did the dish drive to what it thought was the 123W?

I cant (and wont even try to) speak to the Datastorm pointing. I will leave that to the pros. I have a ton of auto-acquire experience but ZERO with the way these Datastorms operate.

[Hendricks]

MiHen, so far as I know they still haven't added modem-SNR peaking to the D4. I have set my D4 aside for the time being and am using a couple of D3s because 3.9.6L just flat "solves" the problem where your own satellite isn't in the table correctly. If the dish hits the satellite you will get on.

It does not solve problems of misidentification of some other satellite, but that's a less common problem. neekall, I would suggest that 3.9.6L or later would fix this for you.

Oh believe me I would be using a D3 right now if I could, although the mount doesn't allow it (MESA). Mitch gave me a new version of software for the D4, but something weird happens with the sat tables as soon as it's loaded. Just haven't had a chance to call Motosat on it yet. I have a few F3s that I would love to convert to iDirect, but time doesn't always allow it.

Can you confirm your D3 s/w? Also, can you share your G18 entries in your current sat table? I'm curious. Since Tom hasn't been having any problems with AtContact on G18, I doubt they would have changed anything on their carrier, especially without them saying anything. AtContact seems to have their stuff together, at least when I've dealt with them.

[neekall]

Haven't tried anything over the weekend knowing the lack of available support from MotoSat and ATcontact. I expect this to be solved on Thursday. Maybe I did not make myself clear. After several hours of looking for 123 the dish did lock on to 123 but there was no Recv or Trans lock. After numerous stows, dish calibrations I was able to get all solid green lights on the 3100 and was able to browse for several hours. I should have had ATContact and MotoSat run some tests but settled on being told that there were no problems at the other end. The next day the dish locked on to 123 but again know recv or trans lock. Should I try 3.9.6 T, when 3.9.4 has been working so well for the past year?

[neekall]

Locked on to 123. Online. D3 shows "Get Tilt Skew msg -5. Bad return value"

System took two searches and stows to eventually come on line.

[bnOd]

If Hendricks is right about the satellite table not having valid entries for 123, it is possible that when you get "locked on 123" but don't connect that you are NOT on 123, but on something nearby that the D3 is identifying as 123.

The use of Modem SNR in 3.9.6L and higher makes that much less likely to happen.

[Hendricks]

The following modifications to my sat table got my D4 to point at 123w V receive:

/Galaxy 10R 123W V,-123,11800,0,0,26657,2
/Galaxy 10R 123W V,-123,11720,0,0,27692,2
Galaxy 10R 123W V,-123,11867,0,0,10000,2
Galaxy 10R 123W V,-123,11952,0,0,6700,2

The 2 comments were what was existing in the table, although you should be able to remove them without any issues. Back up your existing table before changing it.

(s/w is 4.0.1Z, mount is a MESA)

[bnOd]

From my location, 11952 produces nothing, but 11867 is fine. Center carrier is actually between 11868 and 11869, and I see 11869 as the highest, but everything from 11862 to 11875 would produce a lock.

For a D3, this is the vertical entry I would use:

Galaxy 18 123W V, -123, 11869, 0, 0, 10007, 2

The 7 difference in symbol rate is due to differences in the receivers on the D3 and D4. I also like to correct the satellite name when I think about it

The Horizontal entry for 123 is still good.

[bnOd]

There is another thing that can be done to improve searches for 123, and that's to input a decent search frequency.

For D3 users, that would be the Frequency in the configuration, while for D4 users it would be set by telnet using the searchfreq command.

The best frequency I could find was 1220.

The D4 default of 1489 is terrible on 123, and the often-recommended 1250 is not much better.

I just talked to Matt, who maintains the tables at Motosat, and he's doing a 123V scan as I type this; hopefully a new table will be published soon.

[Hendricks]

From my location, 11952 produces nothing, but 11867 is fine. Center carrier is actually between 11868 and 11869, and I see 11869 as the highest, but everything from 11862 to 11875 would produce a lock.

For a D3, this is the vertical entry I would use:

Galaxy 18 123W V, -123, 11869, 0, 0, 10007, 2

The 7 difference in symbol rate is due to differences in the receivers on the D3 and D4. I also like to correct the satellite name when I think about it
The Horizontal entry for 123 is still good.

Fair enough. I was more concerned about the thing locking onto G18 before I would be worried about the name

I got the transponders from the DVB tuner on another one of our mounts (which isn't a Motosat), so I'm sure there might be a small discrepancy between the numbers. Hopefully Matt will clean up the rest. At least it's working now.

[JDS]

My bus has not moved since April '09. About every two weeks I start everything including my satellite internet system. No problems until last Thursday. Dish could not find 123W, stowing and going in circles for hours, reminds me of days gone by. Friday the system locks on after two hours of stowing calibrating and searching. Stays on 123 for hours. Saturday morning and I'm back to what occurred on Thursday. 3.9.4 has always worked for me. The Sat table from March has always worked great. Any problems with AtContact? All connections are secure. The dish will actually lock on to 123 in iDirect mode but cannot get a steady Receive or Transmit today.

I was just diagnosed with a rare form of an osteosarcoma. Because I'm a rare kind of guy. I don't have all the time in the world to discuss with tech support what might be the problem. Let's get to the nitty gritty of possible solutions and I'll handle the rest. Thank you and enjoy life.

There has not been any TX/RX issues with ATCONTACT uplink or with 123 degrees satellite. If there were a problem our NOC always sends out emails to let customers know. Please contact MotoSat to find out why your controller is having a problem locking onto 123. I will also contact MotoSat today to find out if they have a quick answer or fix to your controller issue. We do apologize to you that you are having this issue. I will get back to you once I speak with MotoSat.

Regards,
JDS

[JDS]

Can AtContact confirm that there has been no changes to the downstream carrier since the last time you were online? If a provider changes bit_rates, moduations scheme, or FEC on the downstream carrier you can end up with a similiar status.

I would venture to say that your problem is one of two things:

1. There has been a change to the downstream carrier (MODCOD, bitrate, etc). If this is the case, a new opt would cure it.

2. Your system is not pointing as well as it should be.

You mentioned that the system locked up Friday. Were you on the network (TX/RX/NET) or did the dish drive to what it thought was the 123W?

I cant (and wont even try to) speak to the Datastorm pointing. I will leave that to the pros. I have a ton of auto-acquire experience but ZERO with the way these Datastorms operate.

ekima,

I can confirm there have been no changes whatsoever to ATCONTACT's outbound carrier that neekall is trying to lock onto. As always - Thank you for your assistance.

Regards,
JDS

[JDS]

Haven't tried anything over the weekend knowing the lack of available support from MotoSat and ATcontact. I expect this to be solved on Thursday. Maybe I did not make myself clear. After several hours of looking for 123 the dish did lock on to 123 but there was no Recv or Trans lock. After numerous stows, dish calibrations I was able to get all solid green lights on the 3100 and was able to browse for several hours. I should have had ATContact and MotoSat run some tests but settled on being told that there were no problems at the other end. The next day the dish locked on to 123 but again know recv or trans lock. Should I try 3.9.6 T, when 3.9.4 has been working so well for the past year?

neekall,

ATCONTACT's NOC is open 24 x 7 x 365 - 303-660-5274. We are not closed on the weekends.

Regards,
JDS