SatSig topic:

Hughes DW 6000 questions and problems

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Nov 12^th, 2009 at 4:39pm

Hi to all.

I am a newbie. Currently I am with friends in Guatemala at a small resort where they have one operating and one non operating Hughes DW6000 system (Im on the operating one(g)). The operating system is pretty much out of the box and installed here by the company representative.

As far as the second system, the modem has been looked over by the rep in Guatemala City but the dish and feedhorn are from a Hughes DW 4000 system.......

The owners claim that the DW4000 dish worked at one time with a DW6000 modem....... also currently, the cable between the dish and the modem on the non op system is RG6/U rather than the white dual cables as with the other system.....

When we try to aim the dish of the non op system we have not been able to achieve over about a 23 signal strength. The other dish depending on weather has between 58 and 65. Note that we took the DW6000 modem from the non operating system and hooked it to the dish from the operating system and were able to duplicate signal strength results with the operating modem so I feel cautiously confident that the modem from the non operating system is ok (although its not currently registered and we were not able to browse with it).

Sooooo questions are 1) will the DW 6000 work with a DW4000 feedhorn assembly and dish and 2) is RG6/U cable too lossy for this type of service?

In looking at the feedhorn assemblies of the 2 dishes, the DW4000 is radically different than its newer DW 6000 cousin.

Any information and suggestions would be deeply appreciated.

Carr

Nov 12^th, 2009 at 7:44pm

Yes, the hardware and cables are all reasonably compatible. But Hughes is no longer supporting the anything older than a DW7000, and they'll likely stop supporting that one soon as well. The DW-series modems are DVB-S capable only. Pretty sure they won't even permit a DW6000 to be (re)commissioned anymore. They're trying to get everyone on the North American network to migrate to the HN-series modems via DVB-S2 gateways.

Or do you belong to the Hughes Latin America network?

As far as the signal strength issue, it depends upon which satellite/transponder signal you're trying to intercept. Not all Hughes leases provide usable coverage over Guatemala, plus more and more transponders are carrying DVB-S2 signals only.

//greg//

Nov 12^th, 2009 at 8:24pm

Greg
Many thanks for the reply. The system in question is bits and pieces and the cable is not what came with the original system....thats the reason for my question about the RG6/U , worried about attenuation........

As far as I know my friends are on the Hughes LatAm network and the sat they are using with the operating system (using one of the 2 DW 6000 systems here) is MexSat 5 from what I am told.

We are reasonably sure that the DW 6000 is still good, then that leaves the feedhorn assembly and the cable. The cable is the only "non standard" if one will part of the second system and it looks like they have tried to use the cable used in cable TV installations from the feed horn to the modem..... in any case its RG6U.If RG6U has high attenuation at whatever freq is on the cable between the modem and feed horn that might be the problem. Ideas?

Again many thanks

Carr

Nov 13^th, 2009 at 4:27am

The frequency on the cable is in the 900MHz to 1500MHz band. The RG6/u designator simply refers to the cable type (as opposed to RG59, RG11, etc). There are many grades of RG6/u. Cable should be minimum 2.2MHz with a solid copper center conductor. Fittings (connectors, ground block) should be minimum 2.2 MHz as well.

Cable and fittings that don't meet those minimum standard can be problematic. You can either scrape the center conductor to see if it's copper coated steel, or remove a piece of center conductor and see if it can be picked up with a magnet. If it passes either test, I don't recommend you use it. Quality cable should have the frequency printed on it every few feet. If you're unsure about fittings, any that are marked suitable for HDTV should be 2.2MHz.

I'm unfamiliar with the Latin American network architecture. But the footprint map makes it look like you should have no trouble locking on the a SatMex5 signal. Guatemala is covered by both the Ku1 and Ku2 beams. I can give you some of the Ku1 Hughes frequencies, but can't help with Ku2.

//greg//