help: Signal Changes with power changes in house?

[drsaab]

Hi there, my signal comes and goes only on ciertan channels and transponders with power changes in the house. for example, if you plug in an iron in any circuit in the house, the signal will go out. but some signals on some transponders will be fine no matter how much power load on the house.

It is definately linked to the power since it is an instant signal loss when a high power item is turned on.


anyone seen or heard of this problem?

unknown cause?

could it be the grounding of the satellite?

house is 5 yrs old with good wiring, i dont notice any other lights, tvs, etc having any trouble with power problems.

thanks in advance

anup

[rainman]

sounds like a grounding problem either with the dish or the electric source.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by drsaab

Hi there, my signal comes and goes only on ciertan channels and transponders with power changes in the house. for example, if you plug in an iron in any circuit in the house, the signal will go out. but some signals on some transponders will be fine no matter how much power load on the house.

It is definately linked to the power since it is an instant signal loss when a high power item is turned on.


anyone seen or heard of this problem?

unknown cause?

could it be the grounding of the satellite?

house is 5 yrs old with good wiring, i dont notice any other lights, tvs, etc having any trouble with power problems.

thanks in advance

anup

I'm curious re what kind of sat system you have, and how it is connected?
Ie do you have a coax direct from receiver to lnbf or are you going through any switches, or band shifters, or in-line amps, etc. Also, is your receiver plugged into a UPS with spike filter, or something like that? Is your receiver a set-top-box, or a PC card? If a DVB receiver, are you using the passthru or have the lnbf coax "T"'d ?

I've had individual transponders wiped out by signals generated by a computer connected to the string of receivers I have connected together, but I've never seen problems caused by high power devices elsewhere in the house, and if a power problem was possible, I would see it in my house, because I am at the end of the power line for my whole town, and any power problem is enhanced at my house, ie high voltage, low voltage, spikes,surges, etc.

Your problem sounds to me like your iron is generating RF that is getting through the AC line to your sat receiver. It could be the actual 950-1450 IF signal, or it could be some lower freq signal that is interferring with a diseqC or 22KHz switch or something like that. Grounding could be involved, but if the grounding in your house is that bad, I'd worry about your safety more than the loss of some sat signal.

Anyway, I'd try putting the sat receiver on a surge/spike supressor or UPS or something, and see if that helps.

This might be related.

I lost on avg. about 2 computers every 6 months dew to black outs and brown out's.

Basically the power spikes too high or too low and this fries circuit boards and frequency sensitive parts. This was happening with UPS battery backup's and lightning protectors.

After rewiring and doing a ton of research a electronics engineer from UK said I should get a "Automatic voltage regulator" and this will stop the slow death and loss of data/hardware even tv's / electric oven.

I then bought a several
OPTI-UPS SS1200BLK 6 Outlets Voltage Stabilizer
This cost's about $20 and since installing it I had no more hardware loss.
My power also dims the lights when the tumble dryer and other stuff goes on even after rewiring the house.

Apparently the incoming load in my area is unstable as the actual power lines is sometimes overloaded and the hillbilly town I stay in is last in line for AC 110V in the priority list. Poor town planning. Extreme town development / expansion etc.

Belkin and other Battery backup manuf. will not even pay out unless it is lightning related.

Not sure if this will help but it saves a lot of money and even my cable modem is now working normally.

[drsaab]

here is more details, the system is a dish 500 and dish 300 system joined with a sw 64 switch. a single coaxial cable runs from the output of the switch about 50 ft where i used a low and high freq joiner to join the dish coaxail and a HD antenna coaxail signal. This joined signal coaxail then runs about 100ft, and then it is split again behind the tv with a 2 way high/low freq splitter. one coaxail then goes to the dish reciever and one to the seperate hd tuner. The power adapter for the sw 64 switch is plugged in the same circuit as the dish reciever and the power travels through the coaxail cable like all sw 64 switched need. I installed this myself and i dont remeber putting a grounding block on the coaxial outside since it was on the roof and i was not sure where to ground it. It is all plugged into a ups battery backup system already.


from the discussion here, it seems it would be smart to first ground the system outside and also get a voltage regulator from new egg.

while a grounding block is easy to get and install, where is the best place to run a grounding wire from the top of your roof to ground it well?

also when i get the voltage regulator, is it best to plug all components there (about 5-6) into the ups backup, then into the voltage regulator, or split them amount the 4 outlets/receptacles available behind the tv. right now thinngs are split, but the dish reciever and sw 64 power adapter are through the ups backup.

the house is 5 yrs old, and I dont notice any power problems, dim lights, etc anywhere else except this sat reciever problem.


thanks in advance

anup

If in your case you need the hardware to keep running while flashing the bios / loading firmware the UPS / battery backup is the way to go and then Opti and then wall socket.

Beyond that the only real benifit UPS has is the lightning protection.

I have actually bought a UPS with AVR for about $70 and 28min.s run time Belkin 550VA in june last year for the old lady's mac mini intel.

Grounding wire =
If you can get a metal type water pipe somewhere outside or in the roof and connect it to your ground wire and then up to the dish also works.
New houses might have the new pumpkin color / white clear plastic water pipes and you can only get a metal connection at a water tap or the likes = bit more tricky.

Try NOT to connect to the houses exsisting earth cables unless no other way too , as the electricity frequency might cause background noise or somthing like this and poorer signal quality not sure , might even transfer signals from other electric devices this way.

Also see the link below. I have found that the peg in the ground is cute most of the time but a metal type water pipe is my first choice to ground with as long as it has a good clean connection between pipe and cable / wire / rod.
Grounding your satellite dish and system

You can also try to run the lnb cable direclty to your recevier and see if it improves. Think one of the other post here someone mentioned that they had problems with TV / catv and the lnb signal joining duplexor ?? and had to bypass this.

Lnb to recevier , receiver to vcr , vcr + catv to tv.

Or join catv and Sat receiver OUT with a duplexor and then to vcr or tv.

Hope this helps.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by WarraWarra

If in your case you need the hardware to keep running while flashing the bios / loading firmware the UPS / battery backup is the way to go and then Opti and then wall socket.

Beyond that the only real benifit UPS has is the lightning protection.

I can't remember names of the different types of filtering, however it's not lightning protection that will be of use here. Some UPSs and surge protectors also have a type of noise filter (I forget what it is called). I think that this is what is really needed here. Ie I think that the appliances that are causing the problem are just generating noise that is getting in through the power line, but a good, not just lightning protector, surge protector should help, and many UPSs have this built in.

Originally Posted by WarraWarra

Grounding wire =
If you can get a metal type water pipe somewhere outside or in the roof and connect it to your ground wire and then up to the dish also works.
New houses might have the new pumpkin color / white clear plastic water pipes and you can only get a metal connection at a water tap or the likes = bit more tricky.

Try NOT to connect to the houses exsisting earth cables unless no other way too , as the electricity frequency might cause background noise or somthing like this and poorer signal quality not sure , might even transfer signals from other electric devices this way.

Of course what you are saying NOT to do, is exactly what is specified as the only correct way to do it, according to the electrical code. Grounding can do more harm than good, if everything is not grounded at the same point. If you aren't grounded to the main house ground where the power enters the house, then I think you'd be better off not grounding anything.

Originally Posted by WarraWarra

Also see the link below. I have found that the peg in the ground is cute most of the time but a metal type water pipe is my first choice to ground with as long as it has a good clean connection between pipe and cable / wire / rod.
Grounding your satellite dish and system

......

An example of what I"m saying is that I have had multiple dishes, including a DTV dish that I installed myself here for years, and nothing was grounded, and I never had a problem. When DTV made local channels available in my area, they offered a free 3 sat dish so I let them come out and install a new dish for me, and of course, the installer insisted on using one of those grounding blocks pictured in the above link. He tied this to the ground at the power pole next to the house, NOT to the ground where the wires enter the house. Within a couple months of the installation, my DTV receiver was zapped during a storm. I replaced this receiver, but several months later, both my replacement receiver and a VCR connected to this receiver was also zapped. I am 99.99% certain that the cause is the existance of 2 different ground potentials. Ie the LNB at the dish is at one ground potential, and the receiver plugged into the house power is at another ground potential, so when you get the static voltage potentials common during a storm, this potential is applied across the receiver subjected to the 2 different potentials, and is zapped.

Grounding to one common point is good. Having multiple grounds is a BAD idea. That being said, however, connecting to a water pipe is pretty close to being the same as connecting to the house ground.

LOL . You are correct. As usual anyone reading should double check my info and do more research and then form a opinion.

Sry when the power company rewired they moved the earth from the peg to the water pipes or something as it is a huge old house 1969 ?? and the earth that was here / peg is not as good as the water pipes , something to do with the soil / clay / black turf / very funny soil or that was the excuse.
Something to do with the movement / drying and cracking = loose peg in hole etc.

This is likely where my water pipe infatuation is comming from LOL.

Either way they tested it and found it to be good / working / specs / code.

Wejones if you could maybe advise me =

If getting the rg6 coax with earth/ground on the side " PERFECT-10 PVRG6DUALGD - Dual RG6 Coax Cable with Ground " or even the single with earth , is the earth on the side for mostly lightning or what is the real purpose ?? surely the braid ? will carry most of the grounding. ???
Going to roof mount 2 90cm 1 motor+lnb, 1 lnb only. North the trees are higher by 8+ feet at a distance of 15 feet away from install.

Also on the RG6 F-connector's is it necesary to go compression or normal crimp or screw on f-connector what is better as the only parts close to any form of weather will be at the 2 dishes possibly 4 connetors ??

[wejones]

Originally Posted by WarraWarra

LOL . You are correct. As usual anyone reading should double check my info and do more research and then form a opinion.

Sry when the power company rewired they moved the earth from the peg to the water pipes or something as it is a huge old house 1969 ?? and the earth that was here / peg is not as good as the water pipes , something to do with the soil / clay / black turf / very funny soil or that was the excuse.
Something to do with the movement / drying and cracking = loose peg in hole etc.

This is likely where my water pipe infatuation is comming from LOL.

Either way they tested it and found it to be good / working / specs / code.

Well they DO connect the house ground to the cold water pipes where it comes into the house, so at that point it is the same thing, and the pipes are a pretty good conductor so that it should be pretty much the same throughout the house, so the cold water pipes are definately a pretty good ground, provided that you haven't spliced in some plastic pipe (which I did once). I think usually those ground rods are laid down something like 6 or 8' under the surface, but you're right, that sometimes even that doesn't provide a good enough ground, so sometimes they put down more than one or something else. But I think whatever they do, the NEC code requires that anything coming into the house be grounded at that one point. However I don't know of anyone who actually does that when it comes to antenna wires, because it's just too inconvenient. It's just my opinion, that if you aren't going to use a common ground, that you shouldn't use an additional one at the dish, but I know there are a lot of people who don't agree with me, and I'm no expert on the subject, just someone with a lot of opinions. :-)