Satellite Internet Forum

[bBartmann]

We've been moving south from Alaska and are now in northern California. The controller points the dish normally. Good signal quality, but it won't come online. Receive lock. It does transmit.

atContact says the controller is taking the modem offline. I'm not clear how he could know that or why the modem would be transmitting if the controller has it offline, or even why the controller might have it offline after it completes a search.

Any ideas? Once again my Motosat system is "broken".

[bnOd]

When the controller takes the modem offline, as it does during a search, there will be no transmit blinks, period.

If your transmit light is blinking, the controller has NOT taken the modem offline, and they are just making a bad guess.

[bBartmann]

Dan Hildman at atContact replied again to my email and said he knows this "because the server is providing us this". Not exactly a technical answer, nor has he offered to diagnose the problem beyond pointing a finger at motosat.

I'm with you. If the modem is transmitting then it's not offline.

So now where do I turn? The service provider is failing badly. Until now atContact has been very much on top of things. I'm a bit disappointed and frustrated.

[bnOd]

Dan Hildman at atContact replied again to my email and said he knows this "because the server is providing us this". Not exactly a technical answer, nor has he offered to diagnose the problem beyond pointing a finger at motosat.

Interesting response. There is no way that they can know anything about what is going on with your modem, controller, dish, or anything else except when a transmit hits them telling them about it. Hence if the controller has the modem offline they would be the LAST to know about it!

[bBartmann]

The modem just came online. I had Internet access for a few minutes. Then it went offline again. Starting xmit power was -23, then it adjusted down to -26. It's possible atContact did something to make it come online, but they have not (yet) sent an email with any info. Very strange it would come online but not be able to stay online.

(I'm writing these messages from a SprintPCS connection).

[bBartmann]

I power cycled the modem. It came online promptly and has stayed online. Strange.

Than several minutes later we have three solid green lights on the modem but our Internet access dropped out after about 25 minutes. We switched back to slow cellular service. Arg.

[MMilde]

If the transmitter was coming on (whatsoever) the unit was not offline. TX LED indicates the presence of a Timeplan (burst plan) and the modem is trying to burst into an acquisition slot.

There is criteria that must be met in order for that to happen. You must have an RX SNR higher than 5.5, and a GPS coordinate (either a NMEA string provided either on console or via telnet, or a hard-coded latitude/longitude specified in your opt).

[VSAT_Randy]

Dan Hildman at atContact replied again to my email and said he knows this "because the server is providing us this". Not exactly a technical answer, nor has he offered to diagnose the problem beyond pointing a finger at motosat.

Actually MotoSat should be the place to start the troubleshooting routine - with ANY of the services they are selling to RV'ers. After all, they are earning up to 20%+ gross profit on the bandwidth & they are obligated to atContact to handle 1st & 2nd tier troubleshooting.

Obviously one of the two companies involved in selling you bandwidth should "man up" with the details of the problem and develop a solution!

[bBartmann]

It must have been late last night. Dan indicates it is indeed an RF issue. Our transmission is generating "tons of errors" and is not being allowed to come online. They're working on it. No response yet.

[MMilde]

It must have been late last night. Dan indicates it is indeed an RF issue. Our transmission is generating "tons of errors" and is not being allowed to come online. They're working on it. No response yet.

ACQ or Hub CRC errors? If ACQ, your GPS that is provide to the Modem is not accurate. ACQ errors are an instant indicator.

[Motosat_Tim]

Please contact me at your convince and I will do all I can to help resolve your issue.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tim Gibbs
MotoSAT
Toll Free: 800-247-7486 ext. 343
Office: 801-478-8343
FAX: 801-972-5407
www.motosat.com
tim_gibbs@motosat.com

[peve]

Dan Hildman at atContact replied again to my email and said he knows this "because the server is providing us this". Not exactly a technical answer, nor has he offered to diagnose the problem beyond pointing a finger at motosat.

Interesting response. There is no way that they can know anything about what is going on with your modem, controller, dish, or anything else except when a transmit hits them telling them about it. Hence if the controller has the modem offline they would be the LAST to know about it!

Actually when a D3 or D4 stows normally it sets a flag that the modem was taken offline and it's displayed that way in iMonitor. This was one way we knew a dish was moving, not offline for another problem.

The flag is not removed until the modem comes back into the network, so unless a tech digs deeper and finds the date and time it went offline, he might just jump to the conclusion it was a current flag.

PV

[MMilde]

What peve says is true. The Hub only sees that the modem was commanded offline (last condition it received). So they would not see if you were to run it thru another acquisition until it actually re-entered the network (i.e. grabbed an acquisition slot).

[bnOd]

So, when your transmit light is blinking as it tries to Acquire - the case under discussion here - there is nothing seen at the Hub? That seems strange to me.

I didn't know that the Hub was informed about an offline command, but it makes sense assuming the dish doesn't move off-station before the notification is sent. I would have expected, though, that it would see the reacquisition attempts and know it wasn't still offline.

[peve]

There is no indication at the Hub if a system is trying to acquire, once it has rentered the network then previous condition changes to show it's on line.

All the Hub can do is watch the ACQ sweeps and (sometimes) pray for the Hello message.

PV