MercuryII won't blind scan!!

[rleehamn]

When I blind scan, it comes up blank!!!

I had my MercuryII hooked up with the 920. I wasn't getting all the channels that I should have so I disconnected the disq switch and hooked up just the c side from the non dc pass splitter to the MercuryII (left the dc pass to the 920) this took out the switch and the ku band. I was on a satmex 6 and had some channels. After I took out the switch, the MercuryII had no signal. So I tried a few more sats with the 920 then check the MercuryII still no signal. So I put on a used c-band norsat lnb that I just got two days beforehand thinking something must be wrong with mine.
I hook it up and tried again, same thing.
So I took the 920 to G1 5 and had channel, I then disconected the c-band cable off the 920 and the channel was gone -normal. I put cable back and channel return. I took ku cable off and channel was still there -normal. So I tried some more with the MercuryII no luck. I hook the switch back up and had signal again on the MercuryII and had the prescanned channels, but every new blind scan even on the same bird with channels comes up blank.. no freqs no channels..

I then took off the big dish stuff and went back to normal fta with the fortec dish I got from Sadon.

I went to a sat that had channels that I prescanned, all channels still there and working. I then deleted the channels from that sat and did blind scan. Scan came up blank. So I went to another sat that had channels and left the channels and did a blind scan, still comes up blank.

Take note I had tried channel backup, reset, channel recovery several times. Unplug the unit overnight. I even put on the new May firmware with all the before and after reset and still won't scan anything in. Just comes up blank. Everything is hooked up right..

[wejones]

Originally Posted by rleehamn

When I blind scan, it comes up blank!!!

I had my MercuryII hooked up with the 920. I wasn't getting all the channels that I should have so I disconnected the disq switch and hooked up just the c side from the non dc pass splitter to the MercuryII (left the dc pass to the 920) this took out the switch and the ku band. I was on a satmex 6 and had some channels. After I took out the switch, the MercuryII had no signal. So I tried a few more sats with the 920 then check the MercuryII still no signal. So I put on a used c-band norsat lnb that I just got two days beforehand thinking something must be wrong with mine.
I hook it up and tried again, same thing.
So I took the 920 to G1 5 and had channel, I then disconected the c-band cable off the 920 and the channel was gone -normal. I put cable back and channel return. I took ku cable off and channel was still there -normal. So I tried some more with the MercuryII no luck. I hook the switch back up and had signal again on the MercuryII and had the prescanned channels, but every new blind scan even on the same bird with channels comes up blank.. no freqs no channels..

I then took off the big dish stuff and went back to normal fta with the fortec dish I got from Sadon.

I went to a sat that had channels that I prescanned, all channels still there and working. I then deleted the channels from that sat and did blind scan. Scan came up blank. So I went to another sat that had channels and left the channels and did a blind scan, still comes up blank.

Take note I had tried channel backup, reset, channel recovery several times. Unplug the unit overnight. I even put on the new May firmware with all the before and after reset and still won't scan anything in. Just comes up blank. Everything is hooked up right..

You don't say what satellite you are doing your scan on, and don't say what blind scan parameters you are using. There are some situations where unless you use the detailed SR search and scan at small freq steps, that you might not come up with any channels. I think the first time I tried blind scan on the Mercury, it didn't come up with what I expected, but after playing with the parameters, it usually does a good job.

[rainman]

also check and make sure you have the lnb turned on in the mercury if not it will not show a signal or at least mine won't.

[mreaves53]

I take it you know the 922 has to be on to provide power to the lnb and control the skew. My Mercury II is connected to a 922 and my blind scans work. I never get all of the channel Lyngsat says are there, but I do get most of them.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by mreaves53

I take it you know the 922 has to be on to provide power to the lnb and control the skew. ....

The 922 needs to be on like it says above, and also the Mercury's lnbf power has to be on if you're going through a DiseqC switch, like Rainman says. Some people (like me when I first hooked up my FTA system) make the mistake of thinking that since I was powering the LNB with an analog receiver, that the FTA receiver didn't need to be on, but if you don't run power to a switch, it often won't pass any signal. Other people think that they can turn off the analog receiver only to find that it has changed polarity or satellite. Both should be on.

[rleehamn]

Power is still on the lnb in MercuryII settings.
What I done was I blind scan satmex 6 and didn't get all the freqs/channels that I should have (confirmed with someone that they was getting certain channels that I wasn't; Cancun Channel 10 was one of them). So, I done a detailed scan and came up with less freqs with no channels that go around and detailed didn't show any different to me then just blind scan.

So I thought switch is bad, is when I unhook the switch and left the 920 hooked up to the power dc side, will insert picture so you can get ideal. I've tried blind scan and will not come up with the same tp's/freqs, just comes of blank. Thats when I took off the big dish and tried satmex 6 on small dish and I can view channels that were scan, If I delete the channels and do a new blind scan nothing comes up. If I do channel recovery the channels do show up but I cannot scan back the same freqs even if I don't delete the channels, it should still scan the freqs with out the + if I don't delete them and should have a + is I do a delete beforehand.

With just small dish I tried to scan in (without big dish attach) G10R, SM6, SM5, G25 and G16 to name a few. (I also done a good number of different sats when I was connected to big dish.

With just small dish if I turned to SM6 I can watch tv. (Because I prescanned the freqs/channels before having this problem.) Now if I do a new blindscan or del channels and do blind scan I come up empty handed.

I have not change the scan settings other than from Normal to detail back to normal.

Give me some parameters or something for any bird, just tell me which dish to use, small fortec dish or the big c/ku dish.

Thanks

[wejones]

Originally Posted by rleehamn

Power is still on the lnb in MercuryII settings.
What I done was I blind scan satmex 6 and didn't get all the freqs/channels that I should have (confirmed with someone that they was getting certain channels that I wasn't; Cancun Channel 10 was one of them). So, I done a detailed scan and came up with less freqs with no channels that go around and detailed didn't show any different to me then just blind scan.

So I thought switch is bad, is when I unhook the switch and left the 920 hooked up to the power dc side, will insert picture so you can get ideal. I've tried blind scan and will not come up with the same tp's/freqs, just comes of blank. Thats when I took off the big dish and tried satmex 6 on small dish and I can view channels that were scan, If I delete the channels and do a new blind scan nothing comes up. If I do channel recovery the channels do show up but I cannot scan back the same freqs even if I don't delete the channels, it should still scan the freqs with out the + if I don't delete them and should have a + is I do a delete beforehand.

With just small dish I tried to scan in (without big dish attach) G10R, SM6, SM5, G25 and G16 to name a few. (I also done a good number of different sats when I was connected to big dish.

With just small dish if I turned to SM6 I can watch tv. (Because I prescanned the freqs/channels before having this problem.) Now if I do a new blindscan or del channels and do blind scan I come up empty handed.

I have not change the scan settings other than from Normal to detail back to normal.

Give me some parameters or something for any bird, just tell me which dish to use, small fortec dish or the big c/ku dish.

Thanks

Well, before you blame the blind scan, I'd compare it to a transponder scan, ie you can't blind scan something if you can't lock on it. That SM6 sat has different footprints for the different transponders. The transponder it's on is weaker than some of the other transponders (38 vs 40 according to the Lyngsat footprints), also if comparing your reception to someone elses, it requires that you're both in the same part of the country. There are some transponders on those Mexican sats that I just wouldn't have a chance at getting, while others come in fine, just because of where I am.

Also that channel you mention has a relatively low SR, ie a narrow signal, so unless you scanned at 4 mhz steps, the Mercury might skip over it, and you can't tell now what you scanned at, because I think the Mercury reverts to a default of 6 or something after the scan.

Originally Posted by rleehamn

So I thought switch is bad, is when I unhook the switch and left the 920 hooked up to the power dc side, will insert picture so you can get ideal. I've tried blind scan and will not come up with the same tp's/freqs, just comes of blank. Thats when I took off the big dish and tried satmex 6 on small dish and I can view channels that were scan, If I delete the channels and do a new blind scan nothing comes up. If I do channel recovery the channels do show up but I cannot scan back the same freqs even if I don't delete the channels, it should still scan the freqs with out the + if I don't delete them and should have a + is I do a delete beforehand.

This is harder to explain, and doesn't sound right. I'm curious though again, re whether the frequencies show up while scanning, but then doesn't find any channels, or if it doesn't even find the frequencies? And will it scan these things in if you do a transponder scan?

Originally Posted by rleehamn

With just small dish I tried to scan in (without big dish attach) G10R, SM6, SM5, G25 and G16 to name a few. (I also done a good number of different sats when I was connected to big dish.

With just small dish if I turned to SM6 I can watch tv. (Because I prescanned the freqs/channels before having this problem.) Now if I do a new blindscan or del channels and do blind scan I come up empty handed.

I have not change the scan settings other than from Normal to detail back to normal.

Give me some parameters or something for any bird, just tell me which dish to use, small fortec dish or the big c/ku dish.

If I understand what the Mercury does (not certain), I think the main things that affects it finding frequencies is the step value, ie 4 mhz, 6 mhz, etc, (since it can jump over freqs if this is too big) and the detailed vs normal thing, which I think affects it's ability to figure out the SR and get a lock. I don't think it will hurt leaving it on detailed, other than taking more time. As long as you've selected a standard lnbf type, if you have the LO freqs set wrong, it would probably still find most transponders, but just save them with the wrong frequencies, so that's not likely the problem.

It could just be that you have marginal signal, and the Mercury just isn't recognizing the signals when doing a scan, but is capable of playing them when the channels are already saved. Ie sometimes when you have marginal signal, it takes the receiver a little longer to lock, and it may not wait long enough when doing a scan.

Thing that has ME confused is the Symbolrate option. This is what has most affected blind scan for me on other Fortec receivers, however on the Mercury, this option seems to be grayed out. I can't seem to change it. I don't know if it is enabled if some other option is selected or what.

[rleehamn]

Not sure how you do more than one quote, so I will copy and paste.

wejones: This is harder to explain, and doesn't sound right. I'm curious though again, re whether the frequencies show up while scanning, but then doesn't find any channels, or if it doesn't even find the frequencies? And will it scan these things in if you do a transponder scan?

It don't find the frequencies and it don't find channels.

wejones: Also that channel you mention has a relatively low SR, ie a narrow signal, so unless you scanned at 4 mhz steps, the Mercury might skip over it, and you can't tell now what you scanned at, because I think the Mercury reverts to a default of 6 or something after the scan.

I will have to play with the settings (I'm at work now, so not sure if they got change when I went from Normal to detail back to normal)

wejones: I'd compare it to a transponder scan

I always use just the blind scan. Now I did try some of the other scanning options since blind scan brings nothing up. Not sure if it is transponder scan... it seem as if it skip the scan and just search for the channels that already had the freqs for, which it did refind the channels. (The yellow screen filled up with channels, no new channels so the channel count number stays at 0).

I may not be expressing this right because it sounds like no one understands what I am saying...

Let's say you got five sats that you just blind scan and you got freqs that shows up and you have channels show up for all five sats. Now lets say you did a channel backup. Now delete all the channels from all five sats. Now go do a blind scan on the same five. Now on all five sats blind scan shows NO freqs and no channels. Ok now the only way to get your channels back is do a channel recovery.
This happens on ALL the birds that is active! (I have not tried to enter manualy). It just like blind scan stop working for all sats.

Thanks everybody, hopefully I can get the MercuryII back in operation soon. Maybe when I told it to do detail scan for the first time that it set something, and when I told it to do normal again it did not change back?

One thing I can remember is before it -stop working or got misconfigure- is I done a blind scan with the c-band and got around 6 freqs on satmex 6 and not sure how many channels. I saved that information. I then tried a detail scan and only came out with 2 freqs (3764/V/2938 and 3768/V/2980). and yellow screen with no channels asking to save. Said no. After that point is when I change out the c-band lnb, then no luck bypassed the switch.

Thanks

[wejones]

Originally Posted by rleehamn

.......

It don't find the frequencies and it don't find channels.
......

wejones: I'd compare it to a transponder scan

I always use just the blind scan. Now I did try some of the other scanning options since blind scan brings nothing up. Not sure if it is transponder scan... it seem as if it skip the scan and just search for the channels that already had the freqs for, which it did refind the channels. (The yellow screen filled up with channels, no new channels so the channel count number stays at 0).

I may not be expressing this right because it sounds like no one understands what I am saying...

Well the fact that it isn't showing the frequencies rules out a couple things. The other scan types you tried were probably either transponder scan or some kind of satellite scan (not at receiver right now, so I can't remember what types are there). If it was a satellite scan, like you said, it just does all the transponders previously saved, and that could also suffer from slow locking, if you have marginal signal, whereas if you do a transponder scan, when you choose the transponder, usually it tries to lock, and you can wait for it to lock before telling it to scan for channels. If you're able to do a transponder scan, then it's still possible that the receiver is OK, and it's just that your signal is marginal, but if the transponder scan doesn't come up with anything (I'm assuming that you choose a transponder that you know has a channel), then it seems like there must be a problem with the receiver, given that you were able to play the channels when they were saved.

Originally Posted by rleehamn

Let's say you got five sats that you just blind scan and you got freqs that shows up and you have channels show up for all five sats. Now lets say you did a channel backup. Now delete all the channels from all five sats. Now go do a blind scan on the same five. Now on all five sats blind scan shows NO freqs and no channels. Ok now the only way to get your channels back is do a channel recovery.
This happens on ALL the birds that is active! (I have not tried to enter manualy). It just like blind scan stop working for all sats.

You may be right, that there is a problem with the receiver. I'm running out of other possible explanations.

Originally Posted by rleehamn

One thing I can remember is before it -stop working or got misconfigure- is I done a blind scan with the c-band and got around 6 freqs on satmex 6 and not sure how many channels. I saved that information. I then tried a detail scan and only came out with 2 freqs (3764/V/2938 and 3768/V/2980). and yellow screen with no channels asking to save. Said no. After that point is when I change out the c-band lnb, then no luck bypassed the switch.

Thanks

I can't imagine why that would have cause a problem, but something apparently happened. I can't remember if you tried a blind scan after a reset to factory, but before restoring old channels. I think you inferred that you did this, but I wasn't positive. Ie it may be that you're re-loading whatever bogus data is stored that is inhibiting the scan. Anyway, I think I'm stumped, unless your signal is really poor, but that's not likely to be the case on all sats and all transponders. Strange.

[rleehamn]

Great News!! and some ok news...

Blind scan is back!!!

I still don't know what cause it, but I do know how to fix it!

Let's go down memory lane one LAST time (thank goodness).

The last scan that worked was set to DETAIL! I still feel like the receiver recorded something that bit it later.

When I tried blind scan and it would scan and come up no tps no freqs etc. and after changing lnbs and bypassing the switch, and then just hooking up to the small fortec dish.

I even tried reset, channel recovery, reset. -didn't work
I tried reset, hook to computer for firmware upgrade, reset, channel recovery. -didn't work.

Everytime I done recover channels it would show the channels that were prescanned.

Well I thought, I hate to do this since not much more replys here on the forum.
So I did one more factory reset, and I was going to take to computer one more time and risk loseing all my scans, favorites, etc.. and reload the orginal firmware that I had saved before ever even scanning a single channel into my friends MercuryII.

Well after I did the factory reset, I decided to do one more blind scan before taking to the computer. -And there it was, happy once again. Blind scan was in full force.

So after scan I check and made sure channels appear like they scan, everything is good, so I go to menu and wrote everything down, hit the Pscan button and wrote everything down.

Then I went back and did factory reset, channel recovery.

It came up blank without any sats program into memory, all my prescanned channels were gone and not recoverable!

So I went into the menu and usals and everything was set, where as without the channel recovery nothing was set not even the Lon and Lat.
So I tried this a couple of times of reset scan and reset recovery.
Something in the recovery is killing the blind scan!

So now the solution was to do a factory reset without recovery and rescan everything all over!!

I don't know if the receiver was suppose to do this - after that reset then scan one bird and saved but without doing a channel backup it took out the orginal saved channels etc.. to not be recoverable, to where only all the sats that I worked so hard to program in would not show no more, but had to reset and lose them for blind scan to work.

This has been quite an experience. I hope I saved alot of people some headaches!!

Again, I like to thank the great team we have here. Like to thank the one that even works behind the scenes.

Million thanks

Rick