posted
I'm told that the J beta release will probably become a full release shortly, as it is doing what it is supposed to do. Probably good for those of us who have no problems installing new firmware and rolling back if necessary to give it a try, so we can provide feedback before they make it the new standard.
Don - Oregon has pointed out in another post that the new firmware solves misidentification of satellite 87 and 83. The other big one has to do with the system light not coming on after pointing, a problem that primarily has affected 7000S users on SM6.
There was a post yesterday on BroadbandReports.com from a fixed installer who said there had been a bulletin from Hughes telling installers to always force range before leaving an install. He said that he found that, when he did not, there were often strange results; everything from TX7s to complete loss of commissioning.
I talked with Ed about this, and he confirmed that the solution in the 3.92J code is in fact a forced range that is done the way I do it in my Admin program. It is not automatically done - they are reading modem status and doing the forced range when there are problems, and they repeat the range as needed until the modem is correctly responding.
All in all it sounds like there are some good benefits in 3.92J, and I repeat what I said above that those of us who aren't afraid of trying new firmware updates will be doing a service by trying it while it is still labeled beta. I will be installing it today on mine.
posted
I installed 392j this evening to check it out.
I'm using idirect platform (D3 is set for "iDirect" in config page) this may not be very interesting for those not using the idirect platform.
After the update "Signal Strength" is no longer displayed, it's now fixed at a value of "6" but nothing appears in the graphical bar. It should read in the hundreds... I believe this is a bug.
it is in 392j as it also is in 391: once the D3 has done it's peak and pol, etc., it starts telnetting to the idirect modem to update the LAT and LONG. At that time, the GPS light on the D3 goes out in the controller and on it's web page. It'd be nice for the GPS light to remain lit from the time that it gets valid GPS from the UCB if in fact the D3 has GPS lock from the UCB or maybe it could blink the light on the front of the controller and the GPS icon on the web page to correspond to each time it successfully updates GPS in the idirect sat modem to this indicate activity.
I'd love it if I could configure "showmessages" and "showdebug" to persist to ON through reboots similar to how the controller is able to store the username and password it uses to access the idirect modem for the LAT and LONG updates.
I like more info, espcially when the D3 and the netmodem require chatty integration to work, it'd be great to have this info come to you rather than having to telnet into the D3 or the netmodem to determine if it's functioning properly.
I'd also love to see GPS altitude data diaplayed in the D3's interface, it's good information to have, especially for those who don't have other GPS hardware.
adding in the gpsd daemon to the D3's firmware would be fabulous, it would allow other computers and applications on the LAN to access the gps datastream. I'm running it now on a laptop with another GPS reciver in the bus but I'd love to nuke that and point my gpsd client apps to the D3 since it's already on all the time.
adding the ntpd daemon to the D3 firmware would also be really handy so that folks would be able to keep their computer's clocks sync'ed to the GPS time. It would effectively turn the D3 into a virtual stratum 1 timesource and is far more accurate than hitting an NTP server over sat and across the internet.
Finally, if the connection between the D3 and the idirect modem is interrupted, i.e. the router in between gets powered off, it takes a couple of "find satellite" dish up, point, give up, stow" cycles for the D3 to get past the -25 errors, long after the modem is again reachable via telnet. Maybe the D3 needs to attempt to re-establish contact with the modem on a more frequent period than it does now.
When the dish is up and the idirect modem is peaked and online if you turn off the D3 the modem goes offline, too. Does this have to do with an interruption of the LAT and LONG updates? How would you configure an idirect modem in a fixed dish install?
Finally, it would be delightful if there were a way for the D3 to have a page to allow one to update the datastormusers.com map from the web page instead of requiring one to run an app (I can't, I'm on a Mac) or visit the web page for a manual update.
posted
I don't have IDirect but if I understand what you just wrote and it is due to the 392j I think I would fall back like yesterday. I can turn off the D3 and keep right on trucking. Modem and router stay on. Once up and running I do not need the D3. I use atomic clock to sync the computer and that is really good enough for gov't work. Sounds to this guy like you have taken two steps back without at least one forward. :-(
-------------------- Chris the Bigfoot 2006 Alfa See Ya 2008 Saturn Outlook Living our dreams See where we are. Posts: 524 | From: Full timing someplace | Registered: May 2004
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posted
I can't figure this out, it works fine for me. First I loaded "J" and tested. It loaded the upper board, peaked and I was onlne. It feed the LAT/LON to the iDirect and all was well. I restarted with nvclear and reset all the parameters, including the motorspeed that I always have to enter, because my dish is a prototype with a couple of problems. They fixed the password issue with the iDirect and we no longer need to set that with telnet.
As for the Lat/Lon, the modem will go down if the D3 stops sending. Thats because we are setup as mobile in the config file.
I don't know why mine worked so well, EXCEPT, that I load Lat/Lon into the D3 manually, again due to problems with the prototype mount and its GPS.
posted
I installed 3.9.2J on an F2 when it was first available a few weeks back without issue. We hoped it would resolve an odd GPS problem but did not. A new UCB resolved that problem. The software however has performed flawlessly. I installed 3.9.2J on my own system today and performed an NVCLEAR and Dish Cal. before doing a new search. All went well other than it passed the correct satellite even though it briefly showed a low 40's SQ. I am on SM6 and it when just a bit further to SM5 identified it and returned to SM6 in short order. I then disconnected the LAN from the D3 and plugged it in again. The D3 showed an err -48 for a few seconds and then the SQ returned. I then unplugged the modem for 10 seconds and once again the D3 went to err -48 and restored the connection in short order. This alone is a pretty nice change if this continues. I had not had any problems with my system so it's hard to know what it might have improved but I don't see any problems either. My system is setup with everything on the LAN side for ease of setting up non-commissioned modems so it would be worth seeing how things work setup with the modem connected to the WAN side.
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15778 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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posted
When I had my system upgraded a short time ago, the installer stated he preferred to use D3 version 3.89 - not sure why. Any risk in updating to 3.91? Thanx.
Posts: 68 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Bob, 3.9.1 is great! Load away! Don, What's up with the no LNB light with 3.9.2J. Once the dish is stowed the light goes out. As soon as you begin a search it comes on again and stays on for the duration. I noticed that there is a new message at the beginning of the search routine about turning on the DVB and that appears to be when the LNB light comes on. My search results with 3.9.2 are now officially mixed. When we stopped in Golden, CO last night the antenna kept locking onto something at about 12 degrees and didn't want to move far from that location. Finally after 15 minutes or so I began a manual search and found the satellite at 180 degrees. Today in the Denver area and pouring rain it locked on just fine.
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15778 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I just finished installing 3.9.2J. I did the hard boot load, nvclear, calibrate dish and it all went smoothly. My first search went past 89W and landed on 83W, then quickly went to 89W. The thing I wanted fixed most, didn't seem to happen. If I search without a skew offset and Isolation Optimization set to high, it is not able to pass ACP and will end with a stow. With Isolation Optimization set to low, it works but revalidation is very low. Both low and high work good with the skew offset. I was hoping the tilt sensor fix mentioned in the change log was going to fix this. I am going to do some manual adjusting to see if the skew offset, for the best ACP score, has changed.
-Steven
-------------------- HN7000s 5.8.0.82 ProPlus w/o static | 89W/1270H | 2 watt F1/D3 3.9.6T Datastorm | XP/W7/BSD/Android/iOS 6 LAN is now using a wifiRanger Posts: 322 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Has ANYONE ever seen an F1 antenna deploy, rotate 180 degrees, return to the zero starting point and then begin a search? That's how it is supposed to work to properly set the tilt sensors, but I have only seen this actually happen with an F2 (don't know about FX series or F3). MotoSAT claims that every antenna should have this search pattern but I have never, ever seen an F1 do this.
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15778 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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posted
I have never seen an F1 move on a tilt calibration.
-------------------- Michael Day F1|D3|7000 5.8.0.72|Currently no Hughes|1 Laptop: XP Home|1 Desktop:Vista, 1 Win7|Cradlepoint 1400|Verizon MiFi 4GLTE| Newell Coach, PT Cruiser Turbo Find Me Here (Map) Donations Help Support This Site Posts: 2815 | From: Everywhere (home is Austin, TX) | Registered: May 2003
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Mine does, well, a 360, all the way around! Then it went to 83, this is how it was able to pass over 89W on the West coast. It does remember, though, and this only happens to me after the update. Maybe after an nvclear (don't remember). I don't move around much, yet.
-Steven
-------------------- HN7000s 5.8.0.82 ProPlus w/o static | 89W/1270H | 2 watt F1/D3 3.9.6T Datastorm | XP/W7/BSD/Android/iOS 6 LAN is now using a wifiRanger Posts: 322 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Steven, That's not what the routine is designed to do and no matter what MotoSAT says, I don't think any of their F1's perform this routine and that likely means that the tilt sensors are not taken into play. Michael, I did not say anything about a tilt calibration. MotoSAT claims that every time you click on the search button with 3.9.1 or higher software, the antenna should go up, skew, turn 180 degrees, return to zero and then begin the search routine. This does happen with an F2 but I have never seen it happen on an F1.
-------------------- Bill Adams Winegard Company Posts: 15778 | From: Traveling the Western US | Registered: May 2003
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