DSTV Drifta Signal Issues

Below is my message to Multichoice, which I have sent to them via their site and also posted on their forum.

http://forum.dstvmobile.com/showthread.php?p=4322#post4322

Hi,

I stay in Highveld, Centurion and I have had extremely erratic signal from day 1.

I brought my Drifta on Saturday, and I had 0% signal on Saturday. On Sunday morning, I woke up and I suddenly had between 80% and 100% signal in the same room. That afternoon I once again had zero signal.

The next day I used a laptop to check the signal and I moved around outside of my home. I finally managed to find a spot with good signal, and using the laptop I moved the device into a good spot inside the house. This was in the centre of the curtain railing of the one room. My signal was constant at 100%. We watched for several hours. The next day I came home and I switched on the Drifta only for it to tell me that I need to do a channel scan. I performed the channel scan and it could not find a sufficiently good signal even at the 100% location. I moved around outside the house to the locations where I had had very good signal the night before and it could not complete the channel scan.

My only conclusion is that the signal antennas are being adjusted on the towers on a daily basis. I can understand that DSTV are trying to optimize the location, but this is extremely annoying for users. I don't believe the service is ready to be payed-service and I would like to speak with a technical person who can assist me so that I can reliably watch DSTV at my home.

Connect your drifta antenna to a fixed outside antenna on your roof that is pointing at a regular TV sentech tower. (Only to the inner wire of the outside cable) This pushed my signal from 0% to 100% constantly.

My experience is that I will not pick up a signal on switch on. I wait a few minutes and try changing channels and then it picks up 100%. Or sometimes when I switch on I touch the aerial and change channel and then let go, then change channel again. I will then pick up 100% signal. My body somehow creates an impedance that allows the drifta to lock - 100% signal suddenly and everything is perfect. So the indicator is rather ****ty RSSI implemenatation.

I don't think tranmitter is adjusting on the daily basis - rather that being in a fringe area (for me) the signal fades below a threshold for signal lock. I think the threshold for signal lock is set too high - as once it locks I have 100% signal.

Channel scan does not work well where I am. Sometimes it takes a drive to a strong area and then at home it picks up 100%. In the early days I climbed on the roof, and with a 2m stick to elevate the drifta I switch on and pick up signal. Then I connect to PC.

Both of your comments suggest to me that the device is not ready for commercial use.

My experience is different Vis1/0N, assuming that I am not forced to do a channel scan like last night, I will get signal lock within seconds. But the Drifta keeps saying that there is 0% signal. I have seen on several instances that if you change the location of the drifta with 30cm that signal strength goes from 100% to 0% or vice versa. I find this very hard to believe.

I will give it another try tonight... but this will annoy the living daylights out of me if I have to search for a signal spot every day that I want to use the device.

I cringed when I discovered that touching the antenna and changing the channel also magically changed the signal strength from 0% to 80-100%. Thanks for the suggestion, but oh boy...

Have any of you experienced signal strength changes with the latest DSTV Mobile Decoder updates? Using my external antenna my signal strength use to be between 60% and 100%. Then after a few updates my signal strength was at 0% yet I had perfect video coming through with no jitter.

My other question is in which way do you connect the external antenna to the Drifta? Do you still extend the Driftas antenna fully and then use a crocodile-clip to connect your external antenna to the Drifta's antenna? It use to be necessary for me to do this, as I would get no signal if I don't extend the Drifta's antenna as well.

Its becoming quite difficult for me to get my signal going at first, because I use to have a routine where I would set it up, touch the antenna, switch channel etc until my signal bar suddenly jumped to life. Then I could connect the external antenna and enjoy. Now with my signal strength constantly being at 0% I tend to miss the signal strength jump.

Wyzak said:

Have any of you experienced signal strength changes with the latest DSTV Mobile Decoder updates? Using my external antenna my signal strength use to be between 60% and 100%. Then after a few updates my signal strength was at 0% yet I had perfect video coming through with no jitter.

My other question is in which way do you connect the external antenna to the Drifta? Do you still extend the Driftas antenna fully and then use a crocodile-clip to connect your external antenna to the Drifta's antenna? It use to be necessary for me to do this, as I would get no signal if I don't extend the Drifta's antenna as well.

Its becoming quite difficult for me to get my signal going at first, because I use to have a routine where I would set it up, touch the antenna, switch channel etc until my signal bar suddenly jumped to life. Then I could connect the external antenna and enjoy. Now with my signal strength constantly being at 0% I tend to miss the signal strength jump.

Click to expand...

Extend the antenna a little and then use a crocodile clip.

madmax2010 said:

Extend the antenna a little and then use a crocodile clip.

Click to expand...

Hi Madmax,

What is "a little"? The antenna divides into three sections, thin, medium and thick. Do you pull it out all the way, so that you can access the bend, and then depress it again until only the thick part is showing?

Wyzak said:

Hi Madmax,

What is "a little"? The antenna divides into three sections, thin, medium and thick. Do you pull it out all the way, so that you can access the bend, and then depress it again until only the thick part is showing?

Click to expand...

I leave only the thick part out as its more robust.

madmax2010 said:

I leave only the thick part out as its more robust.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Do you then connect the crocodile clip to the top, middle, or bottom of the thick part of the antenna?

Wyzak said:

Thanks. Do you then connect the crocodile clip to the top, middle, or bottom of the thick part of the antenna?

Click to expand...

Anywhere really - I do it to the top, again because its a more robust part.

I'll give it a bash, thanks again!