I've been gearing up for the big ATSC switch.
I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver. Works fine except that
it can't receive channel 32.1...no signal.
I have an outside antenna on a rotor...nothing.

I have two of these receivers that behave identically.

I have two other different brand receivers that work just fine on 32.1.

I've plugged the antenna into a spectrum analyzer and don't
see anything obvious. Plenty of signal. Bart's head is pretty
flat across the top of 32.1.

I have no idea where to start troubleshoothing this problem.
I'm in Portland, Oregon.
Suggestions?
Thanks, mike
--
Return address is VALID!
Bunch-O-Stuff Forsale He
http://nm7u.tripod.com/homepage/sale.html

In article i_b8k.37$Eg.22@trnddc01, mike wrote:

I've been gearing up for the big ATSC switch.
I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver. Works fine except that
it can't receive channel 32.1...no signal.
I have an outside antenna on a rotor...nothing.

I have two of these receivers that behave identically.

I have two other different brand receivers that work just fine on 32.1.

I've plugged the antenna into a spectrum analyzer and don't
see anything obvious. Plenty of signal. Bart's head is pretty
flat across the top of 32.1.

I have no idea where to start troubleshoothing this problem.
I'm in Portland, Oregon.
Suggestions?

At a guess: the signal path from the transmitter antenna to your
receiving antenna may have enough multipath-reflection components,
that the ATSC demodulator / signal processor used in the Hughes
converter may be unable to handle the job of echo-cancellation and
recover a good echo-free signal.

If rotating the antenna isn't sufficient, then you might need an
antenna which is more directional.

As a sanity check, try taking one of the converters to a different
location - one with a clear line-of-sight to the transmitter
position - and see if you can get a sync-up from there.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

mike wrote:
I've been gearing up for the big ATSC switch.
I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver. Works fine except that
it can't receive channel 32.1...no signal.
I have an outside antenna on a rotor...nothing.

I have two of these receivers that behave identically.

I have two other different brand receivers that work just fine on 32.1.


As Dave wrote, maybe the chipset is older and can't deal with multipath
so well.


I've plugged the antenna into a spectrum analyzer and don't
see anything obvious. Plenty of signal. Bart's head is pretty
flat across the top of 32.1.

I have no idea where to start troubleshoothing this problem.
I'm in Portland, Oregon.
Suggestions?


Yes: It takes a long time, several seconds, for a DTV box or receiver to
latch onto a data stream. You can't just zip the rotor through to see
what'll pop up like in the good old NTSC days. Move it 10 degrees, wait
10sec, move another 10 degrees, wait 10sec, and so on. Maybe it sticks
at some point.

DTV out here has huge problems with multipath. We have a top-notch
antenna but lose digital channels at random. Analog is fine but only
until early next year :-(

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

Joerg wrote:
mike wrote:
I've been gearing up for the big ATSC switch.
I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver. Works fine except that
it can't receive channel 32.1...no signal.
I have an outside antenna on a rotor...nothing.

I have two of these receivers that behave identically.

I have two other different brand receivers that work just fine on 32.1.


As Dave wrote, maybe the chipset is older and can't deal with multipath
so well.


I've plugged the antenna into a spectrum analyzer and don't
see anything obvious. Plenty of signal. Bart's head is pretty
flat across the top of 32.1.

I have no idea where to start troubleshoothing this problem.
I'm in Portland, Oregon.
Suggestions?


Yes: It takes a long time, several seconds, for a DTV box or receiver to
latch onto a data stream. You can't just zip the rotor through to see
what'll pop up like in the good old NTSC days. Move it 10 degrees, wait
10sec, move another 10 degrees, wait 10sec, and so on. Maybe it sticks
at some point.

DTV out here has huge problems with multipath. We have a top-notch
antenna but lose digital channels at random. Analog is fine but only
until early next year :-(

Extremely annoying. You can watch a ghosty picture when a rain storm
passes thru. But digital just goes away.
I fear there'll be riots in the street come next February...or maybe
there just won't be enough of us non-cable people left to mount a riot.

Never thought about it before, but why didn't they just turn off
broadcast completely? Can't be feasible to run a transmitter if there
are only a few hundred of us left and we're too cheap to buy anything
advertised.

--
Return address is VALID!
Bunch-O-Stuff Forsale He
http://nm7u.tripod.com/homepage/sale.html

mike wrote:
Joerg wrote:
mike wrote:
I've been gearing up for the big ATSC switch.
I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver. Works fine except that
it can't receive channel 32.1...no signal.
I have an outside antenna on a rotor...nothing.

I have two of these receivers that behave identically.

I have two other different brand receivers that work just fine on 32.1.


As Dave wrote, maybe the chipset is older and can't deal with
multipath so well.


I've plugged the antenna into a spectrum analyzer and don't
see anything obvious. Plenty of signal. Bart's head is pretty
flat across the top of 32.1.

I have no idea where to start troubleshoothing this problem.
I'm in Portland, Oregon.
Suggestions?


Yes: It takes a long time, several seconds, for a DTV box or receiver
to latch onto a data stream. You can't just zip the rotor through to
see what'll pop up like in the good old NTSC days. Move it 10 degrees,
wait 10sec, move another 10 degrees, wait 10sec, and so on. Maybe it
sticks at some point.

DTV out here has huge problems with multipath. We have a top-notch
antenna but lose digital channels at random. Analog is fine but only
until early next year :-(

Extremely annoying. You can watch a ghosty picture when a rain storm
passes thru. But digital just goes away.
I fear there'll be riots in the street come next February...or maybe
there just won't be enough of us non-cable people left to mount a riot.


That's what I said all along. Not really riots but the phones at
congress representatives will probably ring like crazy and with mighty
miffed callers. I am shocked how many neighbors in this area of
typically well educated people are blissfully unaware of what's going to
happen. Seriously, one engineer (!) looked me in the eyes "Converter
box? What converter box?"


Never thought about it before, but why didn't they just turn off
broadcast completely? Can't be feasible to run a transmitter if there
are only a few hundred of us left and we're too cheap to buy anything
advertised.


Some day it'll probably all end up as Internet streams anyhow. Most
people have a reliable web connection but their OTA television
connection will become a whole lot less reliable in February 2009.

We had that yesterday. Again. Wanted to watch the news, clear digital
picture but with the usual "painted faces". Then the smoke from the
wildfires shifted a bit and, poof, gone. Switched back to analog to see
the news.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:57:56 -0700, Joerg wrote:
Some day it'll probably all end up as Internet streams anyhow. Most
people have a reliable web connection but their OTA television
connection will become a whole lot less reliable in February 2009.

Though if you don't have cable TV, cable broadband is not only unlikely
but probably ridiculously expensive... and you're less likely to have
DSL... in which case getting radio over your web connection is not really
an option, let alone TV.

We have the three biggest networks on low-band analog here. Their digital
signals are more reliable (and look a LOT better) than their analogs.
Likewise CW-58, Ion, and one each religious and shopping channel. The
only one that's *less* reliable in digital is MyNetwork.

Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:57:56 -0700, Joerg wrote:
Some day it'll probably all end up as Internet streams anyhow. Most
people have a reliable web connection but their OTA television
connection will become a whole lot less reliable in February 2009.

Though if you don't have cable TV, cable broadband is not only unlikely
but probably ridiculously expensive... and you're less likely to have
DSL... in which case getting radio over your web connection is not really
an option, let alone TV.


Well, we have DSL. About one mile farther out begin some areas where
people who move there have to decide that they don't need all this
newfangled stuff. About another 100 miles or so east you might even have
to accept that there ain't no singing wires, no phones, nada.


We have the three biggest networks on low-band analog here. Their digital
signals are more reliable (and look a LOT better) than their analogs.
Likewise CW-58, Ion, and one each religious and shopping channel. The
only one that's *less* reliable in digital is MyNetwork.


Very different here. The only analog one that sometimes goes into
multipath beyond recognition is FOX. All others are always viewable with
slight to modest ghosting. On digital the average is about 50% of
channels being flaky or "no signal", meaning beyond the digital cliff.
Unless they increase the power after Feb 2009 we'll be quite TV
deprived. It's ok for us but some neighbors might become rather irate
and vocal about that. Whoever is in political office early next year
will need a lot of Maalox.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

On Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:33:34 +0000, mike wrote:

I've been gearing up for the big ATSC switch.
I have a Hughes HTL-HD receiver. Works fine except that
it can't receive channel 32.1...no signal.
I have an outside antenna on a rotor...nothing.

I have two of these receivers that behave identically.

I have two other different brand receivers that work just fine on 32.1.

I've plugged the antenna into a spectrum analyzer and don't
see anything obvious. Plenty of signal. Bart's head is pretty
flat across the top of 32.1.

I have no idea where to start troubleshoothing this problem.

It's quite possible the problem is at the station.

If you have the same problem with more than one receiver of the same model
-- but other models work fine, on the same antenna -- then it does suggest
there's something about the bitstream the Hughes receivers don't like.
Possibly, the station is missing a metadata table or it's configured wrong.

What happens if you punch in channel 33.1 instead of 32.1? (33 is the
station's RF channel, sometimes if the remapping is screwed up it works if
you punch directly to the RF frequency)

How about if you try 32.2? (it's quite possible they aren't transmitting
a 32.2, but if they are and it works then the problem is definitely with
the station's configuration)

I wouldn't rule out calling the station and asking for Engineering. They
may not be helpful -- but they might.