Signal strength vs. quality

hmboards

Hi,

I recently setup one of the Lidl Silvercrest SL65 kits, and I am a little confused about signal reception. I have my dish on the side of the house directed at 28 east. The view is pretty much unobstructed - there are some trees but they are a few hundred meters away. The problem is while I have very good signal strength at about 93 - 96%, the best quality I can get is about 62%. Many of the channels struggle to get above 41%. This results in annoying pixelation for dark images. I've tried moving the disk both horizontally and vertically a tiny amount at a time, but these are the best signals I can get. Can someone explain the difference between strength and quality, and suggest how to improve signal quality ?

Tony

hmboards wrote:

Hi,

I recently setup one of the Lidl Silvercrest SL65 kits, and I am a little confused about signal reception. I have my dish on the side of the house directed at 28 east. The view is pretty much unobstructed - there are some trees but they are a few hundred meters away. The problem is while I have very good signal strength at about 93 - 96%, the best quality I can get is about 62%. Many of the channels struggle to get above 41%. This results in annoying pixelation for dark images. I've tried moving the disk both horizontally and vertically a tiny amount at a time, but these are the best signals I can get. Can someone explain the difference between strength and quality, and suggest how to improve signal quality ?

Signal strength is self explanatory, quality relates to the integrity of the signal or to put another way the amount of errors in the data. Have you aligned the lnb correctly in its holder ? (skew) What cable/connectors are you using?

watty

Try the "Skew". This is the rotation of the LNB. Affect Quality but not much change to level.

Also if cable is not double screened (foil and heavy braid), the quality may be lower due to pickup of interference.

Once you got a signal the "level" is fairly irrelevent. The "Quality" is the important meter.

It needs to be a little better on SR22000 channels than on SR27500 channels as Sky use FEC 5/6 for 22000 and FEC 2/3 for SR27500.

Something is very wrong if quality not above 50%, though differnt Digiboxes and even SW version on same box seem to result on different readings.

One Grundig box I tested the "level" "wraps around" on a strong signal from 80% ish to 20% using a 90cm dish instead of minidish, though quality goes from about 60% to nearly 100%

watty

ON non-Sky dish the entire LNB is rotated in holder.

On a Sky Mini dish the LNB has several "click" positions where the rectangular "peg" comes out of the rest of the LNB housing.

hmboards

Tony wrote:

Signal strength is self explanatory, quality relates to the integrity of the signal or to put another way the amount of errors in the data. Have you aligned the lnb correctly in its holder ? (skew) What cable/connectors are you using?

I've tried moving the LNB closer and further away from the dish, but haven't tried rotating it. I'll try that - thanks.

I'm using the cable and F connectors shipped in the kit. I know the cable Lidl shipped is only ordinary coax though. If rotating the LNB doesn't help I'll try and get the recommended type cable instead. Thanks.

hmboards

watty wrote:

Try the "Skew". This is the rotation of the LNB. Affect Quality but not much change to level.

Also if cable is not double screened (foil and heavy braid), the quality may be lower due to pickup of interference.

Once you got a signal the "level" is fairly irrelevent. The "Quality" is the important meter.

It needs to be a little better on SR22000 channels than on SR27500 channels as Sky use FEC 5/6 for 22000 and FEC 2/3 for SR27500.

Something is very wrong if quality not above 50%, though differnt Digiboxes and even SW version on same box seem to result on different readings.

One Grundig box I tested the "level" "wraps around" on a strong signal from 80% ish to 20% using a 90cm dish instead of minidish, though quality goes from about 60% to nearly 100%

Thanks watty. It's mostly the Astra FTA channels that I am watching. One of the worst for quality (and maybe content!) is the Horror Channel, at 40%. The BBC channels and Sky news come in at about 61%.

I'll report back after trying the LNB skew and maybe the cable.

hmboards

I rotated the LNB by one or two degrees and that made a huge difference. Where I previously had 61% I now have 85%, and where I had 40% I now have 58%. I might replace the cable at some stage to see if I can improve on this. Even at 85% I am still getting some pixelation, and at 58% it is very noticable.

Thanks for your help folks.