Trouble with selective Lifetime reception

[sorintri]

This receiver was setup for FTA reception on G10r and was getting decent reception, with the exception of higher TP's (21) which came in intermitently or not at all. All others TPs worked fine. Also, TP21 works fine on some of my other receivers (786v3).

So this week-end I downloaded the firmware 2.19 upgrade from Fortec site, also the most recent version of the channel list and upgraded the receiver. Sorry to say but instead of fixing the mentioned problems that made it even worse, where now even TP5 doesn't come in anymore, the only one working is TP11. Yes, I double-tripled-checked, settings are right for freq, etc, in fact they are the ones from your updates channel list. And of course, all along, my other receiver is receiving TP11 with no problem.
So, any idea what might be causing this, and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance,
Sorin

[sorintri]

Originally Posted by sorintri

This receiver was setup for FTA reception on G10r and was getting decent reception, with the exception of higher TP's (21) which came in intermitently or not at all. All others TPs worked fine. Also, TP21 works fine on some of my other receivers (786v3).

So this week-end I downloaded the firmware 2.19 upgrade from Fortec site, also the most recent version of the channel list and upgraded the receiver. Sorry to say but instead of fixing the mentioned problems that made it even worse, where now even TP5 doesn't come in anymore, the only one working is TP11. Yes, I double-tripled-checked, settings are right for freq, etc, in fact they are the ones from your updates channel list. And of course, all along, my other receiver is receiving TP11 with no problem.
So, any idea what might be causing this, and how to fix it?

Thanks in advance,
Sorin

Sorry about the typos, this is a cut&paste of the msg I sent Fortec TechSupport (with no response), "ones from your updates channel list" refers to the channel list data existent on Fortec's website. Also, last mention of "my other receiver is receiving TP11 with no problem" change that to TP5, that comes in on 786v3 but not Lifetime.

Thanks again, folks!
Sorin

[wejones]

Sorry, I'm not going to be of much help, but I have ver 2.19 loaded in my Lifetime. I don't often watch this satellite, but I was able to tune in most of the active transponders on G10, including the 11 and 5 you mention. When I tried transponder 21, I was able to tune in the narrow bandwidth signal, but not the wide bandwidth signal (ie there are 2 signals on that tranponder).
The signal is definately there, pretty much as listed in Lyngsat, I checked it out using the SW radio method, and the SR seems close, but I cannot lock on it either, and can't lock using another receiver either, so it may not be the fault of the Lifetime receiver. I'm wondering if maybe that signal is no longer DVB. I tried different freqs and SRs, but nothing seemed to work.
But in any event, I've been pretty happy with the 2.19 firmware. It seems to work better for me than the version that came on the receiver.

[wejones]

After posting the above, I tried some more, and got it to work. Actually, there are 3 signals on that transponder. The 2 narrow ones I had no problem with, but the wider of the three, I couldn't get to lock. I eventually went down in freq and up in SR, and it locked in with a quite strong signal. So I'd recommend experimenting with the freq and SR. Each LNB is a little different, and can drift from day to day, and different receivers seem to have different tolerances with respect to how close to the real freq you need to be.
Anyway it locks in fine with my receiver, which is running the same firmware.

[sorintri]

Originally Posted by wejones

After posting the above, I tried some more, and got it to work. Actually, there are 3 signals on that transponder. The 2 narrow ones I had no problem with, but the wider of the three, I couldn't get to lock. I eventually went down in freq and up in SR, and it locked in with a quite strong signal. So I'd recommend experimenting with the freq and SR. Each LNB is a little different, and can drift from day to day, and different receivers seem to have different tolerances with respect to how close to the real freq you need to be.
Anyway it locks in fine with my receiver, which is running the same firmware.

Thanks for your reply, wejones,
What do you mean, for ex on TP5 "went down in freq and up in SR"? Does that mean 11798 (instead of 11799) and 21999 (rather than 22000) for SR? Or wider margins? As far as the LNB drifting: same LNB is feeding a different receiver that works fine with the very same settings, so what gives?

Thanks again,
Sorin

[wejones]

Sorry for not being clear.
On transponder 5, I didn't have any problem locking the signals, without changing any of the frequencies.
When I was talking about going down freq, I was talking about on transponder 21. I had to go down almost 5 MHz vs what is listed in Lyngsat for some reason. Ie instead of 12130, I had to go down to 12125 to get it to lock for some reason. Also had to go up 2 or 3 on the SR to about 12647.
The specific numbers aren't important so much as just suggesting that when you can't lock a signal like that, that you try changing the freq a few MHz. I think the Lifetime will usually adjust to freq being off by 2 or 3 MHz, so I usually try 3 or 4 MHz higher or lower than the published freq, but this time I needed to go down 5 MHz before it would lock.
I don't know why I was able to lock transponder 5, and the other 2 signals on transponder 21 without shifting freq. That suggests that my lnb wasn't off, but perhaps the info in Lyngsat was a bit off perhaps?

good luck

[sorintri]

Originally Posted by wejones

Sorry for not being clear.
On transponder 5, I didn't have any problem locking the signals, without changing any of the frequencies.
When I was talking about going down freq, I was talking about on transponder 21. I had to go down almost 5 MHz vs what is listed in Lyngsat for some reason. Ie instead of 12130, I had to go down to 12125 to get it to lock for some reason. Also had to go up 2 or 3 on the SR to about 12647.
The specific numbers aren't important so much as just suggesting that when you can't lock a signal like that, that you try changing the freq a few MHz. I think the Lifetime will usually adjust to freq being off by 2 or 3 MHz, so I usually try 3 or 4 MHz higher or lower than the published freq, but this time I needed to go down 5 MHz before it would lock.
I don't know why I was able to lock transponder 5, and the other 2 signals on transponder 21 without shifting freq. That suggests that my lnb wasn't off, but perhaps the info in Lyngsat was a bit off perhaps?

good luck

Thanks for the info. I found out what the problem was. Or rather not, I just fixed it. Problem was, I was taking lnb output from a diff receiver (ADTH 8009) and putting it into the Lifetime, to test the signal (too lazy to plug/unplug the cables). Ironic thing is, with that setup, some TP's come in, some don't. As soon as I installed Lifetime as the main (only) receiver getting that feed... it works. Beats me why, just does. Perhaps someone else can explain it. Thanks for you time, anyhow!
Sorin

[Sadoun]

Your ADTH might have been ON and sending voltage to the LNBF as well. So only one polarity was visible to the Lifetime.