Signal Strength: 33% but Signal Quality 0% - Out of Lock

[Sma_Soft]

Hi friends.

I'm using SkyStar II DVB Card on my PC. In previous months it was working properly, but recently it doesn’t display anything.

 

When I go to Setup4PC program (version 4.4.1), in the status window, it displays:

 

Signal Strength: 33%

 

But:

 

Signal Quality: 0% - Out of Lock.

 

What's the problem?

 

By having 33% Signal Strength, why my Signal Quality is zero?

 

Is there any problem in my DVB Card? or my LNB or … what ?

 

Thanks for help.

Regards

[jf2020]

By having 33% Signal Strength, why my Signal Quality is zero?

 

 

You need at least 50% for it to work. Chek teh qlignment of your dish or just the cable and connectors.

[Sma_Soft]

You need at least 50% for it to work. Chek teh qlignment of your dish or just the cable and connectors.

 

In the past months I had fine Quality with even less than 30% Signal Strength. But my Signal Quality were Over 10%.

My problem is that why my DVB can't reach to even 1% Signal Quality !

In some forums I searched, I reached to this result that this problem had happened to DVB's with even more than 80% Signal Strength but Signal Quality was 0%.

 

BTW Thakns for your help.

Anyone else encountered this problem also ?

[Gioxy]

This behaviuor is related to the nature of digital transmissions...

 

A brief explanation of the two terms can be: the signal "strength" is a "volume" dimension that tell you only on the amount of signal you get on input (you can measure it in mV, milliVolts), while the signal "quality" tell you about the "fidelity", like Lo-Fi, Mid-Fi or Hi-Fi and there are many measure related to this, like S/N, armonic distortion, phase distortion and so on...

 

So the signal strength is a prerequisite, but the most important parameter - as you noted! - is obviously the signal quality; therefore is preferable - and by far - a signal with good quality and poor strength instead of another with 100% strength but poor quality...

 

[Sma_Soft]

This behaviuor is related to the nature of digital transmissions...

 

A brief explanation of the two terms can be: the signal "strength" is a "volume" dimension that tell you only on the amount of signal you get on input (you can measure it in mV, milliVolts), while the signal "quality" tell you about the "fidelity", like Lo-Fi, Mid-Fi or Hi-Fi and there are many measure related to this, like S/N, armonic distortion, phase distortion and so on...

 

So the signal strength is a prerequisite, but the most important parameter - as you noted! - is obviously the signal quality; therefore is preferable - and by far - a signal with good quality and poor strength instead of another with 100% strength but poor quality...

 

 

Thanks for your good guides and useful information you gave to me.

 

I want to know that Is this a symptom of a Hardware problem in my DVB Card ?

 

Or it's a common problem of DVB's and maybe because of Cables, Dish Alignment and ...

thanks again.

[Griga]

Signal Strength: 33%

I've experienced that the SkyStar2 reports 33% signal strength or less when it gets no signal at all, e.g. in case of a non existing transponder or when the antenna cable is not connected. Maybe just measuring noise...

[Derrick]

I guess it's obvious that your reception is poor.

[Gioxy]

I agree with Derrick (therefore you have to check all starting from LNB to the SS2 input connector...) only adding the wheather condition: if very bad (heavy rain, snow storm or hail storm) the entire signal quality can be knocked out...

 

But IMO most often the cause of a abrupt bad reception is simply a dish disalignment caused by wind...

 

[jf2020]

But IMO most often the cause of a abrupt bad reception is simply a dish disalignment caused by wind...

 

Yes, that's what I eluded to in my post above. A common cause that I have seen as well is poor (or no...) waterproofing of the connector to the LNB. The issue here is that the wire of most of cheap coax cables is NOT copper but steel with a very thin layer of copper on it (just enough to let you believe it's actually copper...). So if the F connector is not correctly water proofed, the wire rusts and the connection becomes bad to inexistent. Solution is to cut the last 5cm and wire it again.