Increasing Cable TV signal strength

[amdx]

Just a point. I may not have made it clear. I had the tech put in two
2way splitters and connect me to the first one. Hoping to gain 3db.
(or 4) and it did make a difference.

Where does the other leg of that splitter go to? And is that end
properly terminated?

[...]

right good question...OP, when you had the analog signal, was there
significant ghosting?

digital boxes might tolerate a WEAK signal but they are intolerant of
reflections.

Mark

Never noticed any ghosting with the analog.
Mikek

 

[amdx]

Monitor the signal levels at the set top box and see if it coincides
with something nearby changing, such as the dock lights or operation
of heavy machinery. Maybe shove a DVM (digital voltmeter) into the AC
power and see if it moves around.


I don't like crimp type connectors. Push on connectors are MUCH
better. Also, if the coax came from Radio Shack, all bets are off as
to the quality.

I'm sorry I got that wrong, they are F compression connectors.
Coax was from the cable company.

My drivel:

At my home, knology recently upgraded there system for faster internet.
A cableman said he heard me radiating a block away. he came in and
changed 7 crimp type connectors in my attic a couple of cable runs.
Speedtest.com went from 6 Mbps to over 11 Mbps with just those changes.

Digital set top box diagnostics are different from analog. Instead of
per-channel levels, it might have levels for specific channels.


If it's Comcast, you will probably still have the lower 72 channels
doing analog. Remove the set top box and plug in your TV directly.

Oh, if that is the fact, I may get me some browny points, If I can
get the signal up to snuff, then put the vcr back in the line, my wife
could record her soaps again.
That would get me 15 seconds of hero status!
Mikek

 

[amdx]

I'm sorry I got that wrong, they are F compression connectors.
Coax was from the cable company.

My drivel:

At my home, knology recently upgraded there system for faster internet.
A cableman said he heard me radiating a block away. he came in and
changed 7 crimp type connectors in my attic a couple of cable runs.
Speedtest.com went from 6 Mbps to over 11 Mbps with just those changes.


Oh, if that is the fact, I may get me some browny points, If I can get
the signal up to snuff, then put the vcr back in the line, my wife could
record her soaps again.
That would get me 15 seconds of hero status!
Mikek

Just an addition to the termination debate, the marina has about 150
taps, I'd be surprised if 30 of them are connected to a tv and the rest
are unterminated. The line generally goes to the utility pedestal into
a 2 way splitter and then about 1 ft of cable connects it to the 2 taps
for the boat owners.
Mikek

 

[Joerg]

On 2/8/2012 6:38 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Your 200ft of RG6a/u will drop the signal from
between 4dB at the low end, to about 6dB at the high end.

Some better numbers for RG6a/u:
Freq Atten
MHz -dB
10 0.8
50 1.4
100 2.9
200 4.3
400 6.4
1000 11.0

The CATV band is approximately 50 to 800MHz. With 200ft of cable, you
should see 2.8 to 16dB of loss. While there may be problem at the
high channels, all the lower channels should work.

Any idea where channel 428 would be in that frequency range?
That's a duplicate of 4,2 but in HD, and it works when 42 doesn't.

I believe that's entirely up to the cable company, you'd have to ask an
engineer there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cable

Quote "For example, a cable company might call channel 5-1 "channel 732"
and channel 5-2 "channel 733"".

The 4 way splitter has a loss of about -7dB.

Just a point. I may not have made it clear. I had the tech put in two
2way splitters and connect me to the first one. Hoping to gain 3db.
(or 4) and it did make a difference.

Where does the other leg of that splitter go to? And is that end
properly terminated?

[...]

They go to two other outlets, that are used for transient boaters.
sometimes they are used and sometimes they sit unterminated.
I have not seen my problem better or worse when boats are in or out.
But I have several 75 ohm F connector terminations. It's worth a try.

Yup, try it. Transient boaters will most likely not carry the required
set top box around but use the lower analog channels or nowadays maybe
UHF digital. Sort of "basic cable". Then the TV is connected directly
and those rarely have a true 75ohms input.

 

[Sal]

Hi All,
I'm on a boat, about 170ft from the utility post.
Recently our cable company switched to the wonderful world of
Digital TV. I got the new digital converter and had no picture.
I took the box back and got a second box, still no picture. So now I
suspect a weak signal and confirm that it is the cable length. The cable
company came out and gave me a better cable than I had installed. At
this point I have a picture but it is intermittent. The signal at the
utility post has 3 outputs and had a four way splitter, I suggested the
cable guy put in two 2 way splitters and give me the stronger (first) tap.
That got my signal to work almost all the time. I'd like to get the
signal to work 100% of the time.
I don't has access to electricity at the utility post, so an amp is
out. Although I could try an amp at the cable box end. Is that reasonable?
I would run two cables if there was a way to make it increase signal
strength.
Getting anymore from the cable company is not an option.
Any ideas to get a better signal?
Mikek

PS.

When the signal fails it seems channel 41 is ok and above 42 it breaks up.
Curious to know if there is an unusual frequency jump between those two
digital channels.

Google your cable box model. You should able to find ifo on how to
pull up a menu that shows signal strengh. -60dbm is about where my
sigal starts droping out

Jimmie

=====================================================

Yes, but be mindful of the difference between dBm and dBmV. The cable
industry often deals in levels on the dBmV scale.

There are places like this ...

http://www.maxim-ic.com/app-notes/index.mvp/id/808

where you can see some conversion equations. Jimmie's -60dBm equals -11.25
dBmV. Same power level -- different scale.

I have long known level requirements for the TV tuner's cousin, the cable
modem. The common DOCSIS 2 cable modems are usually spec'ed for -15dBmV to
+15dBmV and the smart operators try to keep inside +/- 12. Thus, you can
see that Jimmie's -11.25dBmV is near the low limit and that dropouts become
more likely in that neighborhood.

I little bit of google snooping revealed that DTV cable boxes would like
0dBmV and will usually be okay with -10dBmV to +10dBmV. Almost the same.

i hope this helps.

"Sal"

"Sal"

 

[Joerg]

In your opinion.

If their company cable box doesn't deliver a useful and reliable signal
I call that screwed up. One pays for a service and expects to either get
it delivered as promised or money back.

... If they are delivering the level called for in
their franchise, they didn't screw up. It has always been up to the
customer to pay for or provide extra equipment for non standard
installs.

Mike's install does not sound non-standard. 170ft cable drop towards
premises which is fairly normal, plus the cable company's set-top box.

 

[tom]

Grow up. That is an excessive length drop. A standard drop is under
100 feet. You think you know everything, and that the world has to live
by your rules. You don't, and it doesn't. I'll bet you've never even
seen a CATV franchise, or the dozen of pages of specifications agreed to
by both the CATV company and the local government. The CATV company
isn't a Santa Clause machine, and local governments know why there are
limits to the service provided. If there were't, no one could afford to
build or operate a CATV system. You've never designed a headend, or a
physical plant If they build to supply higher port levels, it has to
start at the headend, and requires closer spaced trunk amplifers. The
system noise goes up from all of the cascaded amplifers, and the
equipment runs hotter, withj a very reduced service life. When you can
design an RF distribution system of more than 500 MHz bandwidth and has
over 10,000 output ports, with the gain stabilized to a couple dBmv 20
miles from the headend and over a range from sub zero F to + 100 F then
you can tell me I'm wrong.

One headend I designed and built was only off by .1 dBmv at the test
port on the first trunk amp which was a half mile from the head end. If
you can do better than that, I'll listen to you and your opinions

Cool! You seem to know what you are up to.

Can you put rough numbers around what you mentioned? Like what are
providers legally required to deliver at the far end of the drop?

Thanks.

tom
K0TAR

 

[tom]

We were required to deliver 0 dBmv at the end of 100 feet of RG-59 or
RG-6 for two sets per the franchise. The system was designed at +10
dBmv at the tap to allow for three or four TVs at the 100 foot range.
That was on a 36 channel system with RCA modulators& HST. It was done
for two reasons. To have a little extra signal available when the
system was built, and for conversion for a 300 MHz plant to a 450 MHz
plant without respacing the trunk amplifiers.


I build a headend& interface to tie two incompatible community loops
together. Ours was a sub split loop, and the other CATV company used
mid split. We used 2& 12 for pilots, so we fed them Channel 2 into
their return, and down converted their feed to T-9 for our return. That
headend had two RCA HSP and a combiner. The interface was another HSP
in a large stainless steel NEMA box mounted to a power pole at the
boundary of the two systems. A pair of two way splitters were used to
route the signals between the systems, as well as into and out of the
HSP. The other company wanted us to install a modulator and a
demodulator at the boundary to give us audio& video, and another pair
from our side so the interface would be baseband. Their design was over
$15,000 in hardware alone. My design was under $3000 for all the
hardware& labor to install. I had system designers from both sides
telling me it wouldn't work, but it did the job with no problems.

Very nice. We were much more constrained on the install I mentioned up
the thread a ways. The fiber was fed at E1 speed, which probably didn't
work it very hard.

We had an issue at one point.

This was a distributed proc/data system, one of the first. Each cabinet
was a standalone PBX. And you could make 126 of them look like one.
And each could survive on its own.

First fiber campus we'd done. Staggered cut to the new infrastructure.
Fun stuff.

At one point we had to do the cutover to the other large pice of the
system. Each end connected the fiber. 0 signal.

TDR from A end showed 700 meters from A end, 800 meters from end B.
Length from A to B is 1500 meters.

The work that occurred because of that was not fun. Had to go get the
guy doing fusion splicing.

Joy. Midnight trip to Pittsburgh with the salesman.

Actually it was fun. Not much traffic at night.

Landing pattern at 160mph in between DC9s into Pittsburgh at about
midnight. And they didn't like 160 at all. This was scary.

Quickest turnoff onto a taxiway I've ever experienced. Of course the
taxiway may not have been one. We didn't care.

tom
K0TAR

 

[Joerg]

Grow up. That is an excessive length drop. A standard drop is under
100 feet. You think you know everything, and that the world has to live
by your rules. You don't, and it doesn't. ...

http://www.starvision.tv/lineup_res.htm

Quote "Maximum Drop Length 300 Feet"

Now that's what I call good service.

... I'll bet you've never even
seen a CATV franchise, or the dozen of pages of specifications agreed to
by both the CATV company and the local government. The CATV company
isn't a Santa Clause machine, and local governments know why there are
limits to the service provided. If there were't, no one could afford to
build or operate a CATV system. You've never designed a headend, or a
physical plant If they build to supply higher port levels, it has to
start at the headend, and requires closer spaced trunk amplifers. The
system noise goes up from all of the cascaded amplifers, and the
equipment runs hotter, withj a very reduced service life. When you can
design an RF distribution system of more than 500 MHz bandwidth and has
over 10,000 output ports, with the gain stabilized to a couple dBmv 20
miles from the headend and over a range from sub zero F to + 100 F then
you can tell me I'm wrong.

One headend I designed and built was only off by .1 dBmv at the test
port on the first trunk amp which was a half mile from the head end. If
you can do better than that, I'll listen to you and your opinions

See above. Obviously others can. And yes, I have designed RF broadband
power amps. Lots of them. Not just lashing up boxes but the actual
transistor level circuitry including layout guidance for the nasty stuff.

Fact is, if a cable company isn't competent to do a 170ft drop they
should decline the job. Otherwise it is a screw-up, plain and simple. In
our area they'd lose their shirts to the satellite guys because there
are many houses like ours where there is no reasonable way to get from
the street to the house with a 100ft limit. We have around 200ft that's
still there from the early 90's and the previous owner said cable TV
worked just fine for them. We are not subscribed because TV ain't that
important to us.

 

[amdx]

Ok, 200ft of coax. Presumably RG6a/u.


You have been assimilated. Resistance is futile.


Something is wrong. The nominal signal from the cable drop is suppose
to be 0dBm. If there's a splitter involved, they like to crank it up
to about 10dBm. Your 200ft of RG6a/u will drop the signal from
between 4dB at the low end, to about 6dB at the high end. Your set
top box is suppose to operate with a 10dB margin. If you would kindly
disclose the maker and model, it might be possible to find the specs.
Typically, you'll have at least 10dB margin. Even with 200ft of coax,
you should have 4 to 6dB margin.

The Box is a CISCO RNG100
Only data I know how to get is;
Tuner 537.00 Mhz 2dbmv
TDC 75.25 Mhz 5dbmv
RDC 20.00 Mhz 30.0dbmv Yes 30.0

On the road, will check in this evening.
Mikek

 

[tom]

Still easier than having to use blasting caps to find the ends of a
broken conduit under the finished concrete floor in a new RADAR site.
An old fish tape& blasting cap pushed as far as it would go and
BOOM!!!. Then repeat for the other end. Then they used a jackhammer to
break out the concrete between the huge floor divots to install new
conduit. The electrical contractor had failed to tie the conduit to the
rebar& wire mesh before the pour.

Or driving ground rods through permafrost in Alaska. We drove 60' of
rod and used three tanks of Acetylene to heat the rod to get it through
the ice layer outside a military radio& TV station at Ft. Greely.

You've got me beat.

I am glad I didn't have to use blasting caps as TDR. But it does sound
kind of fun if you didn't have delivery pressure on top of it.

Sounds like good work. But not up the Giant Rat's standards, I'm sure.

Interesting that he portrays himself as young and uses that reference.
Very curious. Maybe he's old and a failure and not young and a failure
as he claims.

tom
K0TAR

 

[tom]

He was a cable grunt when Time Warner built Cube in Cincinnati, so I'd
say that he's at least 50 and still a very angry failure.

Sounds correct. He's got problems alright.

That RADAR site was at Ft. Rucker, and the problem was in the area
reserved for the new IFF hardware in the mid '70s. Weathervision was
assigned to the space while I was there, but were were in the process of
moving to another building when I was told I had orders for Vietnam. I
ended up in Alaska instead. Two weeks later that AFRTS station in
Vietnam was overrun and the engineers killed. They shipped parts of the
transmitter that survived the gunfire to the station in Alaska.

Sorry to hear that. Had friends that survived intact but were still
damaged goods from that war.

tom
K0TAR

 

[Sal]

Still easier than having to use blasting caps to find the ends of a
broken conduit under the finished concrete floor in a new RADAR site.
An old fish tape & blasting cap pushed as far as it would go and
BOOM!!!. Then repeat for the other end. Then they used a jackhammer to
break out the concrete between the huge floor divots to install new
conduit. The electrical contractor had failed to tie the conduit to the
rebar & wire mesh before the pour.

Good story. It brought to mind a promotional video I saw for a company that
had a process called explosive bonding (of dissimilar metals). They must
have been too cheap to rent lights, so they did the demo outside on an old
wooden table. It was two guys in overalls and, I swear, they could have
retitled it "Gomer and Bubba Find Some Dynamite" and nobody would have
noticed.

"Sal"

 

[Joerg]

Yawn. You constantly harp about having to meet specs in medical, but
whine like a drunken jackass when other businesses have to meet their
specs. yes, they could design the sytems to 300 feet or more, but the
cost to every customer on the system would go up.

In medical I tend to push the envelope and so do the standards
committees. Sometimes based on what we do. I designed all my cardiac
stuff defibrillator-proof, always, although it was not the law yet. Then
they made it law, because it makes sense.

Believe it or not but I like to have to meet specs in medical because
they protect people. Including you.

... Would you like to pay
an extra 20% to 30% just so a very few locations can get better
service?

Out here we do not pay extra. Our cable companies out tend do use modern
technology, not cheap stuff from the 70's. A cable company that isn't
competent enough to do more than a measly 100ft would lose their
franchise rather quickly.


Oh, that's right. You're too cheap to even have cable TV.


Read more carefully. I said TV doesn't matter to us, it is not about cost.

 

[Ian Jackson]

In message

Sorry Jeff but I never used my connectors to support my cables. You
may be right but completely irrelevant to me. To me F connector and
good connection shouldn't even be used in the same sentence. They are
what that are, cheap connectors at best that uses the center conductor
of the cable for a contact. Now that is Yech. Heat shrink has nothing
to do with the pull test or hiding poor workmanship but it does help
keep corrosion down which is the biggest problem with F connectors.
Ive never seen one pull apart except in the shoddiest of
installations. One of the best things I have found to insure you
maintain a good connection is to apply something like DeOxit to the
connectors when you assemble them. Best done while all the parts are
new.

There little wrong with good quality F-connectors. They are generally
good enough for what they were intended for. Problems are usually down
to who installs them, and how.

For personal outdoor use, I always give any connectors a squirt of WD40
- both during and after installation. [I guess DeOxit would be similar
or better.] After cleaning off most of the WD40, I then seal with
self-amalgamating tape. Obviously, heatshrink would be better, but for
me, is usually less convenient.

Mechanically, even screw-on Fs can be hard to dislodge, provided just
the right amount of braid is trapped under the screw thread. However, I
suppose that sometimes they might not provide the ultimate in screening.

In the UK, in the large CATV networks, crimped connectors are well and
truly a thing of the past. Anyone using them (even the good ones) would
be liable to be hung, drawn and quartered, and then severely punished.

The standard connector is of the 'Snap and Seal' type (and similar). In
themselves, these are pretty well watertight, and the screening is
excellent. It should be almost impossible to pull one off the cable.

However, it is unusual for F-connections to appear naked in the open
air. The final RF distribution to the home is invariably from a street
cabinet which houses an optical node or an RF distribution / line
extender amplifier feeding a bank of taps/splitters. The 'traditional'
cascade of in-line taps has not been used for a very long time. Under
these relatively benign conditions, the F-connectors probably suffer
much less from corrosion than those used on taps hanging on aerial
messenger wires, USA-style. Nevertheless, there are various purpose-made
short 'chunky' rubber sleeves which can be installed first on the tap
ports before the cable connectors are screwed on. These seal the screw
threads. Personally, I would have liked to have seen a bit of WD40 used
but I never managed to drum up much enthusiasm for this as an approved
practice.

 

[Joerg]

You do it because they wouldn't hire you if you couldn't meet specs,
just like every other consultant, engineer or tech. They might even
jail you for your incompetence for not meeting the specs.

Correct. And the spec for a competent cable company is typically 300ft,
as I have shown in the link. Plus the one below.

Believe it or not, most technical people have that same standard.
You're nothing special.

Never said I was. Except that I do exceed standards at times where I
believe it is necessary. In the case of med electronics that has likely
saved lives. I do not subscribe to the idea that a standard is always
good enough. Because sometimes they are not.

Once again the all knowing Jeorge shows his ignorance.

No. I suppose you know what MoCA is. Do you consider them ignorant?
Because they say the very same thing that I said. What matters is
today's state-of-the-art. Nobody cares about what it was in the 80's.
Today this is state-of-the-art:

http://www.cablefax.com/ct/sections...ing-MoCA-In-Home-Networking-Easier_44237.html

Quote "The Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MoCA) provides a standard ..."

then

Quote "The maximum cable distance supported between the root and the
last outlet is 300 feet, with a maximum attenuation of 25 dB". And this
is for MoCA, not just cable TV.

1: You don't know what you're talking about, about the cost of
service. Any extra operating costs become part of the basic service
that everyone pays. You won't work for nothing, and the utilities don't
give them free electricity. The service companies don't repair the
equipment for free. Do you have any idea how many amplifiers, taps and
set top boxes are needed for 10,000 active ports? To provide hotter
ports require more amplifiers, and raises the system noise floor. You
'designed an amplifier'. Big deal. A lot of engineers 'designed and
amplifier' and those companies are long out of business. ...

So how many linear RF amplifiers above 1W have you personally designed
and guided through layout?

Hint: All my clients are still in business and I am sure will be for a
long time to come.

... Current CATV
amplifiers use hybrids designed specifically for the application and
they use them for many reasons. That just leave the design of the 60V
modified sine wave to DC power supplies, equalizers, gain control,
equalization and remote switching. Some locations also have remote
monitoring so the headend can check system status on a continuous
basis. It can also report outages when some of the equipment doesn't
respond. They can even detect power failures and monitor the battery
status in the standby power supplies to give them time to get a portable
generator to the area if it is an extended outage. The local
Brighthouse system remained in operation here for over four weeks after
a hurricane even though the only way to watch TV or access broadband was
with battery power or a generator.

If that company can't do more than 100ft they'd fail miserably in our
market. It's not just our house, it's also the neighbor to the west, and
the one after that, and ...

2: '70s CATV tech was 12 channel with no return path. It was crude,
discrete point to point designs that looked like a ham put together from
junk TVs while drinking cheap beer. They were touchy as hell, their
tempco sucked, and they were impossible to service without a fully
equipped test bed. the power supplies were simple, poorly regulated
linear supplies with 85 C electrolytics that died quickly in the
southern sun. The large diecast aluminum housing ran hot to the touch
without the sun hitting them. That stuff was pretty well all scrapped
out by the mid to late '80s by 36 or more channels with return
capability. There was so much construction of upgraded systems that
there was a severe shortage of new hardware through most of the mid
'80s.

That '80s tech was gone in all but the smallest systems by 2000.
Today most systems are 450 MHz or higher, and are 'Fiber Enhanced' to
provide telephone, broadband, movies on demand and pay per view services
by breaking the system into cells that cover a few hundred homes, or
less.

3: You know nothing about CATV franchises. 'A measly 100 feet' is
more than adequate for a hell of a lot of drops & house wiring. ...

No, it is not. If you don't believe me check out Cameron Park, CA,
especially the area of the Estates. Then tell me how you want to do that
with 100ft drops.

... If that
is what the franchise calls for, THAT IS THE SPECIFICATION, ...

And the franchise would get kicked out of the market around here. You
can't serve this market with a sub-par spec. The big automotive
companies had once exhibited a "Well, this is the spec and that's that"
attitude like you do in this thread. Then they learned, the hard way. In
part by essentially going on welfare which was embarrassing.

... no matter
how much you whine like Sloman. A city or county won't pull a franchise
over one or two people complaining about weak signals. ...

They will if there's a whole big crowd showing up at the next meeting.
Now I won't because I only watch the evening news via antenna. But I
know a whole lot of folks who would be miffed to be declined service
because they are literally addicted to the sports channels. Many would
just get satellite though, they market that quite aggressively these days.

... They receive a
fixed percentage of the system revenue every month, and the percentage
was set when the economy was up. If they pull the franchise, another
provider will offer a much lower percentage. It also involves legal
fees, and causes the rates to go up for the users.

The county folks have one much more important thing on their mind: How
to get re-elected. That's what'll matter most to them. They know that
seeing complaints about what many people perceive as a utility service
they have "rights to" in the paper is not the way to get re-elected.

... Why put up with all
that for a fraction of a percent of problems. Like people who built a
private road a mile long and want to pay the standard install fee when
it will cost about $15,000 to run a feeder for that one house. Or like
that marina. It isn't a street. It's private property. If they want
better service, let them pay for upgrades with .500 cable to each boat,
with a .500 to 'F" connector for each boat. That would only cost a few
hundred dollars a boat for materials. More if the cable is jacketed.
If it isn't it won't last long in salt air. Double that for the
hardware and labor to get a good idea of the costs.

Then answer a question I asked you before but you did not comment on it:
Why did Mike's cable provider not decline service? Obviously it worked
reliably in the analog days and now with DTV it doesn't. If they can't
handle the 170ft drop after the digital switch, why did they not inform
Mike, cancel the service on their part and send someone out to pick up
the set-top box?

[...]

 

[Joerg]

Did you miss: "IN THE NEXT DECADE"?

Where do you live? The parts of FL I have seen were are technologically
advanced, I guess. This stuff is rolled out here in CA, big time. Things
like the DCX3200M box and their DVR are MoCA.

In case you've missed it, MoCA has already release 2.0. More than a year
ago ...

 

[Joerg]

MoCA is home networking, hence the 300 foot figure. A drop at +10
dBmv already allows a 25 dB loss for the cable modem, since they are
designed to work to -15 dBmv. That webpage also mentions verifing that a
"drop amplifier does not block Moca". In other words, it's home
networking for multimedia devices and has nothing to do with the length
of the cable drop. It is to allow customers to stream audio and video
within their home, and use services like Netflix & Hulu on their TV
sets.

It is the modern cable TV, like it or not. Companies not playing will
likely be packing some day. Personally I doubt it'll do much for home
networking, at least not appliance control. Computing, yes, and that's
the new game in town. Cable companies offering "all-in-one" packages
where you get phone, Internet, TV and all that from the "company store".
Pretty pricey, last time I looked it was $99/mo and that only for the
first year. Probably goes up afterwards.

 

[amdx]

It's the same as the Cisco Explorer 1540C with some features removed
by Comcast.
<http://www.cincinnatibell.com/shared_content/pdf/tv/exp1540_uguide.pdf>

How to get into the diagnostics:
Press and hold SELECT on front of unit until the MAIL light
starts to flash, then press INFO.
Or
Press and hold PAUSE on remote until MAIL light starts to
flash (around 10-15 seconds), then press PAGE-UP (-).
On some remotes, PAGE (+) might need to be used instead.

See if you can excavate the SNR numbers. Maybe there's RF garbage on
the systems (oscillating distribution amp, ingress, whatever, etc).

Hi Jeff,
I don't seem to be able to follow your directions, I don't think I
have enough buttons. To get the info I posted, Push and hold the power
button until the power light blinks, then push power again and the info
screen comes up.
I don't know what the MAIL light is, I don't have a select button nor
a INFO button.
Hey started pushing buttons on the remote, found I can scroll through
15 pages off stuuf I don't have a clue about.

Got some "RF Statistics on page 5"
Current FDC
Freq. 75.250
Level 5 dbmv
S/N 29db
Errs/Ave 0/0

Current Qam
Freq. 513 Mhz
Level -1dbmv
S/N 35db
Errs/Ave 11/0 or 11/1 or 11/3 but mostly 11/0

That's all I can see.
Mikek

 

[amdx]

I just noted I didn't have a picture on ch 42.
I went to the RF page, my 537 Mhz numbers were

Level 6dbmv
S/N 0 db
Errs/Ave 0/7 changed to later 0/1742
Status Unlocked

VS. When it was working

Level -1dbmv
S/N 35db
Errs/Ave 11/0 or 11/1 or 11/3 but mostly 11/0
Status Locked

Mikek