For the past couple of months, we’ve been talking to many people around the globe about their experiences with our software and hardware, and helping them set everything up. Here’s a couple of common reasons people are not able to tune in.
Dish is not pointed correctly
Well, it’s an obvious one, but it’s also not that simple. When satellites are close together as they normally are, it’s very easy to point to a wrong satellite. Even if you get a good signal, and you see in Librarian dashboard that you have good signal quality, it does not mean you are on the correct satellite. Usual way to check is using a satellite TV receiver. If that’s not available, then it’s a bit harder, and we don’t have a good advice other than ‘keep trying’.
Wrong dish size
If you’re on a fringe of the satellite footprint, you may need a bigger dish. Having to point the dish very low above the horizon (e.g., 20~30 degrees) is a good indicator that you may need a bigger dish. Don’t just go out buying a new dish, though. Sometimes even a bigger dish won’t help. Try to find someone who has already tuned in successfully, or try another satellite if there is coverage.
Wrong LNB
We’ve heard from people using dual-LNB (ther’s no such thing as ‘the’ dual-LNB, as there are many different multi-LNB setups out there), and switching to a single universal LNB helped. Note that our software currently does not have any switching mechanisms implemented as we don’t have access to equipment that requires it.
Coax connection
Yes, I’ve mentioned this multiple times in this forum, but it just happens to be such a common issue. Even if your coax is tightly screwed on, it does not necessarily mean that it’s all the way in, and that the cable is properly touching the tuner’s connector. As weird as it may sound, try wiggling it a bit. If wiggling brings the signal back, it means you need to adjust the connection.
Big file
Because of the way our broadcast works, when a big file is being downloaded, you may not see any new files for a while. For example, on HotBird 13E, the download speed is around 11 KB/s. This means that a 20MB file may take as long as 30 minutes to arrive. We’ve cleaned up most of the really big files, to prevent this from happening and until a better solution is found (e.g., interleaved transmission), but it used to be the case that you didn’t see things arrive for long periods because of big files. On the other hand, seeing no updates for hours indicates an entirely different issue.
No signal
On (hopefully) rare occasions, it may also happen that we’re just not broadcasting at all. Software that is broadcasting can sometimes get stuck, etc.
No updates
You may already have all the files that are on the broadcast stream. In this case, everything is OK. You just need to way for the next update.
How to tell whether data is being received?
You can see if there is any data being downloaded by our software by looking at the bitrate indicator in the Dashboard (under Tuner Settings). If bitrate is 0, it means you are not receiving.