SatSig topic:

Measuring receive signal quality on Tooway

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Mar 18^th, 2010 at 12:23pm

I have had several compliants that the Tooway modem does not provide any means of measuring the receive signal quality, making dish pointing without a meter or in service signal verification impossible. I know the hub can plot this on a graph, so the hub has some way of polling the remote to get its receive quality.

Please does anyone know how to extract receive signal quality reading locally from a Tooway modem ?

Please explain.

Best regards, Eric.

Mar 18^th, 2010 at 1:32pm

Hi eric,

Without a lock (connection) I dont think there is much the noc can do, there must be a connection before they can messure a signal. As soon dish is pointed correct users can always send a request for TX/RX info. I am not aware of any Tooway pointing tool localy from the modem before lock. As soon activation process starts at least RX and TX are displayed on the first screen. Maybe James from Bentley Walker can give you some more info.

If a customer point the dish with a simple satellite finder he can be pointing at any satellite and never get a lock, this happens a lot and can be very frustrating, a agree a proper build-in tool pointing would be very useful (like iDirect).

Mar 18^th, 2010 at 1:48pm

Hi Eric,

On the Tooway activation page that comes up when the dish is correctly aligned it does show signal levels on the RX and TX. Other than at this point I don't believe there is anything else showing signal levels or quality.

Once the modem is up and running of course these details can be obtained from the NOC but not before I believe.

Shame really as this would help greatly.

Mar 18^th, 2010 at 3:01pm

My guess is that in the US/Canada, for Wildblue and XplorNet, the emphasis is on always having an installer equipped with special Wildblue meter with filtering to do the dish installation and pointing.

In Europe, Central Europe and Africa and KaSat the majority of sites are self install by customer who will not have special meter with filters or spectrum analyser but may have a simple cheap satellite TV meter (broadband noise power meter - i.e. crystal set). Since there are few Ka band sattellites finding the right one should not be too difficult but the meter needle movement may be tiny. At Ku band there will be many satellites and some very big broadband noise power peaks (Hotbird, Astra etc). As pointed out above idenfying the right satellite is difficult - do you really want to wait 10 minutes on each broadband noise power source, while the modem scans, to find if it is the wanted satellite ?

Once the modem has scanned (several minutes) and locked to a wanted carrier it really should be possible to get the receive carrier quality expressed as Eb/No, BER or SQF out locally, not just on an initial screen but at any time while in service.

Please can we have more complaints, comments and, hopefully, a reply from someone telling us that they have found a solution.

Best regards, Eric.

Mar 18^th, 2010 at 3:49pm

Tooway Ku.

Astra and Eurobird3 are very close together, basically a very good and helpful reference ! If you find 2 strong signals on the same "elevation" and close to the correct "azimuth", you can be 75% sure you point on Astra or Eurobird3. When standing behind the dish, just use the left one and with a bit of luck ...... bingo. This is my experiance in Spain, Portugal and South of France.

I never tryed it and not sure if it works, but what if you connect any normal TV satellite receiver to the lnb and tune in on a TV station transmitting on Eurobird3. Maybe the build-in tuning function of a TV satellite receiver can be used to point/tune the dish.

I will give it a try this weekend and let you know*.

--> Update Dish pointing using a TV satellite Tuner.

I was able to point on Astra (28.0°E) using the buld-in tool of the TV satellite tuner, at least 1 step closer. If you stand behind the dish and you connect a basic cheap satellite finder, move the dish to the left (same elevation) till you pick-up a signal. When receiving a signal move dish a bit down. With a bit of luck this is Eurobird3 (33.0°E) . Our location is North-East Spain.

Above is of course not the way to align a dish but if you dont have a Satellite finder with Sat ID indentification it will be always difficult and time consumng to find the Ku satellite you need.

A build-in pointing tool will be a great help for self-install.

Frits Blomsma

ps. We will start 01-04-2010 a "rent a satellite finder service" (this is not an April fools day joke !).
We will offer a professional satellite finder for rent in our online webshop.

Mar 19^th, 2010 at 10:06pm

See our exersise above on a sunny afternoon in Spain. Hopefully it is a bit helpful.