Conf Interruptions

Discussions around the satellite system and video distribution.
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techgy
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Conf Interruptions

#1

Post by techgy »

The last 20 minutes of this mornings conf broadcast was VERY intermittent. We have two receivers, ASL and English and both were erratic. The GSC says they had no reports of trouble at their end. Did anyone else have problems?
russellhltn
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#2

Post by russellhltn »

That's about the right time for problems with sun outage. If your signal or aiming is marginal, you'd be more affected than others.
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techgy
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#3

Post by techgy »

I thought about that but the sun fades occur in the fall. Also the nature of the interference was more like a loose connection. The sun fades come in a specific way and you lose signal for a few minutes the it all comes back. Our problem occurred over a 20 minute period and was intermittent. Definitely weird.
russellhltn
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#4

Post by russellhltn »

techgy wrote:I thought about that but the sun fades occur in the fall.
I'm pretty sure I've had them in the spring as well. It all depends on when conference weekend falls in the solar year.

But yes, the pattern is a good clue. A total outage would be as described, but it could simply increase the noise to the point that you have drop outs. But I would expect it to be for a certain time with a noticeable peak and then return to normal. Not unless you have some other interference or noise source that sun problems are brining out.
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techgy
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#5

Post by techgy »

When the problem started a pair of missionaries went to another building and saw the same problem. I checked the solar outage schedule and nothing is noted for our area this month.

We've had solar outages before and this just didn't act the same way.
russellhltn
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#6

Post by russellhltn »

What sort of problems? I did a fast review of the last 20 minutes, and I didn't see any drop-out. There might have been some video freeze, but that's likely an artifact of fast playback. I certainly didn't hear my receivers clicking as they do when the signal gets bad.
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techgy
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#7

Post by techgy »

The video would be scrambled and then go off. The audio also would drop.
The symptoms were very similar to a loose connection. However we have two receivers (ASL/Eng) and both were acting up at the same time.
It's possible that the dish might have a problem, but it's behind a block wall with a locked gate so we couldn't check.
When the problem first appeared during the final 20-25 minutes of the morning session one of the full-time missionaries called down to another building and they said they were having problems also.
My thought is that it's not us but something wider spread.

The GSC said they had no reports of any issues. I also checked the Internet Satellite Fade information and nothing is expected for our area until later in the year (Oct).

We finally shut down the satellite and went to the Internet which was working fine.
Presently this makes no sense.
If Sun Fade were the problem it would have disappeared after 15-20 minutes. Our problem started around 10:35 AM and last through the end of the morning conference.
When we started to view the afternoon session around 1:00 PM (Pacific Time), the same thing was happening again.

I'm contacting the FM group tomorrow and ask that the equipment be checked.
russellhltn
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#8

Post by russellhltn »

You might want to pin down what problems the other building was having. It might be different/unrelated.
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lajackson
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Re: Conf Interruptions

#9

Post by lajackson »

techgy wrote:The video would be scrambled and then go off. The audio also would drop.
The symptoms were very similar to a loose connection. However we have two receivers (ASL/Eng) and both were acting up at the same time.
Both receivers use the same dish. This points to something before the receivers as the problem.
techgy wrote:When the problem first appeared during the final 20-25 minutes of the morning session one of the full-time missionaries called down to another building and they said they were having problems also.
My thought is that it's not us but something wider spread.
Hold that thought. It's a good one, but with everything else I read in this topic, I believe it was just coincidence in this case. Besides, we did not have any problem at all with satellite reception this conference.
techgy wrote:If Sun Fade were the problem it would have disappeared after 15-20 minutes. Our problem started around 10:35 AM and last through the end of the morning conference.
When we started to view the afternoon session around 1:00 PM (Pacific Time), the same thing was happening again.

If the same problem happened at 10:35 am and again at 1:00 pm, it was not sun fade. Sun fade does occur twice a year, by the way. It can last for a few seconds up to a few minutes, and it happens at around the same time of the day every day for a few days.

Just a wild guess. Do you have a microwave shot passing overhead between your dish and the satellite? Feeds for NCAA basketball were gearing up around then.
techgy wrote:I'm contacting the FM group tomorrow and ask that the equipment be checked.
Bingo. My guess is you have something bad on the dish or in the cable to the receiver that affected the signal going into the receiver, and then the receiver did not have enough data to process the picture. Since you lost sound, as well, that points to the entire signal not making it to the receiver, or a very weak signal the receiver was not able to process.
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