Extremely slow-- iDirect-- Spin Boldak Afghanistan

We've recently purchased a system that we've installed.

While installing, best possible signal strength we've received has been 14 out of 25.  We are locked to the satellite.

Currently, with only a handful of people on the satellite, we're receiving about 2KB/s average.  Web pages time out.  It is generally unusable. 

Any help is appreciated.  Thanks.

Sir

If you dont resolve this let me know and I will arrange a free test on our Network, we have a lot of systems in Afghan with good Satellite coverage and a Guarnateed grade of service covered by an Service Level Agreement. contact me directly

anthony@bentleywalker.com

If your polarisation (rotation of the feed/BUC/LNB assembly in its yoke) is correct then it looks like 14 is the best downlink signal you can get.   It would be helpful if your service provider could tell you if 14 was normal, below average or above average.   If below average and poor then I would suspect too small dish or some dish assembly problem, like reflector distortion, wrong holes used for feed arm struts, focus distance ?.  Does the feed horn point more or less towards the centre of the reflector ?   Does the lower edge of the dish have a clear view of the sky towards the satellite ?  Put your eye behind at the lower edge of dish and sight through the feed assembly - can you see the sky, or a wall perhaps ?   

You really do need your service provider's help as your problem may be on your transmit side and they need to test your BUC power settings - could be far too high or far too low - either would give bad service.  Does your service provider know your lat/long location ?

Sorry I can't help further.

Best regards, Eric.

Setting polarisation is a two step process.  Step1: set to the nominal named polarisation.  Step 2: apply the site-specific calculated adjustment angle amount.

I'm guessing a bit but you may be on 1W satellite:

Spin Buldak (SE of Kandahar) is in the edge region of the beam - so dish size is critical !

In your case the feed system, in its yoke, should have been turned about 57 deg clockwise, as viewed from behind the dish and you facing towards the satellite in the sky.  If you still have the LNB straight up (Horiz pol name) or sideways (Vertical pol name) that would explain a poor receive signal.

Offset dish designs vary slightly, but a typical dish will have an offset angle of about 20 deg.  So, with the front of the dish upright the beam elevation is about 20 deg.  For a beam elevation of about 10 deg the front face of the dish will be tilted forwards by about 10 deg.

The sight line to the satellite is still from behind and just below the lower edge of the dish and through, or possibly just above the feed horn window (circular plastic disk).  A more accurate assessment is to use a sloping tube or plank of wood under the lower edge of the dish. Get someone to hold it at 10 deg slope using  an inclinometer while someone else looks along the pipe or wood.  Can they see the sky - or a wall / tree !

10 deg elevation is the lowest recommended operating angle for Ku band operation.  Excessive rain fading occurs due to the long slant path through the rain.   Scintillation, which is up and down signal level variations, occurs for a large proportion of the time due to movement of layers of humid and less humid air.  Scintillation is the same as the twinkling of stars that are low down near to the horizon.

I am not sure that your equipment will work with other networks.  Some providers 'lock' their modems to their own networks to stop you moving.  Other networks may offer you a new modem anyway to take advantage of latest more efficient technologies (e.g. DVB-S2).

Best regards, Eric.

Sir

You are very welcome to try our W6 or Sesat service for a week, both are much higher elevation satellites, we will 100% Guarantee what you get on the test is what you get for real afterwards there is no trickery, we have over 6000 VSATs on line all backed with an SLA ...we just need to know what LNB you have ...high or Low band and if you repoint were have you up and running with a very good service, not only that but we will make you a free offer to swap to X3 S2 ..what more can I say ?

By the way, we had 2 other customers today with the same set up asking to move to us ...wonder why  =)))

Simply mail me Anthony@bentleywalker.com  

Well, as an update, I can report that we tried the Bentley Walker service and it was much slower than the slow service we had from TS2. 

We were told that we'd get a 7-day trial and they turned it off after two days. 

We've gone back to TS2, but it hasn't worked at all now for 7 days, with some mysterious "storm" in Greece as the blame.  Yesterday, apparently tech support was on "holiday."

So far, I'm very disappointed in our entire experience. 

For those of you who arrive at this post while looking for a satellite provider, don't buy anything until you receive actual recommendations from someone that you trust who has actually used a service.

I'll update my post if our experience changes.

We've managed to get our TS2 up and running again, with some moderate success on speed.

We've paid through this month, but we'll reevaluate at the end of our payment period.  Thanks to all who have sent me emails.

It has quit working again for the last 24 hours.

Hi,

I sent you a pvt email yesterday. Please have a look and get back to me.

Bob