Signal Strength

[mospeed]

41? I saw one poster with 90. Could this be why I am slow at times?

[Guest wmmc]

Thats quite low, but doesn't have anything do with speed, you may want to call Direcway and have an installer align/repoint your dish.

Signal here is usually low 70's.

[ccr1958]

my sig is always 90-93 on clear days...that is if that sig strength status is to be trusted

[justinlay]

i get 72 im also on the G4R sat. that is max i can get. maybe one day ill see if i can get it higher

[ccr1958]

how can i tell what satellite i am on....i thought i was on satmex 5

[justinlay]

your more likely are on satmex5. I had to switch from satmex5 to G4R because i couldnt get it to commision. G4R also has less traffic

[ccr1958]

wonder how i get them to switch me over....threaten them that i will switch to cable

[justinlay]

Well if you geting pretty good speeds now, i wouldnt go to the effort of swiching

[ccr1958]

yeah you prolly right....best leave well enough alone...thanks

[The Reverend]

G4R is actually overburdened and is (supposedly) reserved (or WAS reserved) for the faster, corporate accounts, (like mine). Trouble is that they've sold more accounts than there is bandwidth for, so during business hours my 1.5Mbps 'down' falls to 845 or even as low as 50 on some joyous occassions. Sat-Mex5 has tons of DW4000's pointed at it and it is an excellent "bird." There are alot of DW4000 systems out there that are blowing me away for up/down speeds too. (grrr)

About six weeks ago I got into a Commercial Dish and Commercial DW6000UG modem that promised me the moon, but in actual figures isn't all that much faster than the account I had before at half the price. The only plus side is that the .98m dish will "hold" a higher signal and is resistant to "rain-fade." (...and my FAP threshold is 800MB ...which I try to break daily). heheh.

My typical (clear-day) signal is always 97 (I've spent several hours "tweaking" that dish to get the optimal performance from it ...shhh)!!! Before the new system was installed, I used (and still have) a DW4000 with a .74m dish (also "does" TV as well)....but I'm so far away from anything electrical that even the "little" dish would pull an easy 88 yet rain would kill me (....tweaked that one too, which was well worth the effort spent (((just mark your settings well before loosening those bolts)! Also, don't freak out if you "lose" your satellite for awhile. You can "scan" back and forth and up and down and find it eventually should that happen. "Tweaking" the dish is just a matter of moving it in small increments 1.Side to side 2,Up/Down ETC until you get the best possible signal. (This is far harder to do on a .74 dish than it is with a .98m dish)! *Remember that when you are messing with a "hot" dish you are standing within an electromagnetic field that is hazardous to your health ....after only several seconds of exposure you will start to feel "tingly" (arms, face, head, chest) ...which isn't good. So, make sure your dish is NOT transmitting if you wanna do like me, void your warranty (HA!) and get your hands dirty (because I have yet to have an installer truly "go for" the best possible "aim"! (Sadly)

Your SIgnal Strength truly doesn't have a thing to due with your speeds though. My best possible speed (so far) has been 1088Mbps whether I am pulling down a 97 or a 91 (even in a heavy, heavy rain the signal never got below 88 ...and my speed hung right in there.

Your Signal Strength depends upon many factors. How close is the dish to a building; trees in your 'line of sight'?: Rural is far better than Urban due to "cross-talk" (and other signals "blasting" through yours: High-Power Lines ....they all play a role. BUT, if you are not getting close to (at least) an 80 then there simply must be a building structure (called "shadowing") messing you up, or mayhaps you are trying to shoot through a limb or even one leaf (chlorophyll will kill a SAT signal in a heartbeart)! Sometimes it just takes a "tech" to pinpoint the actual problem (which they do by "trial and error." ("Tech" meaning "Installer" of course). The installer that set up my new dish told me it was the first one he had ever done ...and it showed.

Some folks swear by grounding, but the newer codes (and dishes) are adequately grounded via the coaxial and grounding block (the .98m dish is that way). I have placed a ground on the face of the "radio" several times and saw absolutely no improvement in the least (and I'm not into making a Lightning Rod out of my dish)!

With that, I'll get off the podium.....

Cheers,

The Reverend

[jim]

okay......so I e-mail direcway support and they tell me signal strength has nothing to do with speed as long as I'm above 31 I"m hooked up and as long as its over 50 my browsing speed shouldn't change. SOOOOOOOOOOO why did my speed drop from the low 900's to 1200 at most times to the present what you see here. Last night I was barely better than 50 or sixty (sial up speed) At least tonight it's back over 500. Of course you get the usual form letter of "As I understand your problem...." blah blah blah. And don't bother threatening them with cable of DSL or any other service you have access to. Seems that goes right over their heads and they never ever even mention "please please stay witrh us we love your 60 dollars a month and will jump through our ass to save your business. Here in TN all of the new lottery outlets have direcway as their means of communication and I guess they don't need us in the private sector pee-on club. Guess this time if it doesn't get any better I will switch to the DSL service like I have at work. Upload is a lot faster and I think that helps the response time for download and makes it seem faster than my Dway.

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Connection is:: 555 Kbps about 0.6 Mbps (tested with 386 KB)

Download Speed is:: 68 KB/s

Tested From:: http://www.testmy.net/

Bottom Line:: 10 times faster than 56K you can download 1MB in 15.06 second(s)

Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?Test_ID=S8SVFCGR3

[The Reverend]

For additional info on DirecWay, how they operate, WHO owns DirecWay, etc ....kindly proceed to www.direcwaysux.com and become enlightened.

I have their very best and most expensive "plan." Cost $1,000.00 up-front and $129.99 monthly for two years. "Up To" 1.5Mpbs 'down' and enhanced 256kbps 'up. In reality, I've never gotten faster than 1088 at any time ...and that was on here. (I'm using a DW6000 UG (commercial modem) with a .98m Dish). My "plan" is no longer being advertised ...the fastest I've seen now is 1.0Mbps 'down' ...so that translates to about 700 I guess). Heck, there are folks on this forum with DW4000's systems that are blowing me away when it comes to speed. My only advantage is a FAP threhold of 800MB ...and I had to FIGHT for that too).

My speed started falling dramatically too not all that long ago ...like from an average of 982kbps all the time down to as low as 50kbps 'down' during business hours. Tech Support told me that DirecWay did NOT guarantee ANY speed would be achieved. In fact, they don't even guarantee you will have access to the Internet. I said, "Okay Bub, and I never guaranteed that I would pay you suckers either." (Then I called and "froze" my Visa). After my account became 15 days overdue my speeds suddenly came up to what they used to be, and I got the typical "canned" letters and total run-a-round that DWAY is so famous for. (Idle threats and the usual cock-n-bull stories ya know...).

So ....my speed came up, and thus I called and let them charge me for 1/2 of the amount they wanted since I figured I only got about 1/2 of what I was paying for. Within that same hour my speeds dropped to the bottom of the well again. I called my Bank ( who issued my VISA used for the DWay account ), and they suspended payment. Miraculously my speeds JUMPED back up to about 1022Mbps and have been holding there ever since.

I guess the only way to deal with them is to shut off the money flow (they could never legally "bind" you to a 2-year contract since they aren't holding up their end of the deal at all)! They are operating in the "grey areas" of the law regarding ISPs and they know it, so don't be afraid to step into those same areas to give yourself a fighting chance. (Calling their Tech Support won't do you any good if you are sure that everything is set up correctly). THEY say to use their LCCU and DO NOT have any of the boxes "checked" in your browser. I found out that if I check both Proxy 'boxes' that my speed would rise by 200kbps. Dr. TCP gave me another nice little boost and "leveled me out" (kept me from having wildly fluctuating speeds from second to second). I have no clue as to how or why ...I just know it works with a DW6000 (and not much can be done when you are using a DW6000)!

DirecWay DOES NOT care if you have any speed or not. If you can log in you are supposed to kiss their shoes and be grateful for it no matter the price you are paying. I've changed my payment method to "by private cheque" only. If they "fall out" on me, I'll "trim" them. If they cut off my Internet access, I'll take them to court. It seems that this is the only thing they understand because my speed has been VERY steady ever since the last "tiff" we had. Perhaps they know I'm wise to their games and decided to save themselves some headaches?

You cannot depend on their Tech Support for anything, because only a select few of them have a clue what they are doing (they read through a book or through their own database to search for things to tell you and/or do to your computer which have no consequence at all. Heck, I've even spent over four hours on hold before. During November I spent well over 60 hours on hold before I finally had their entire "scheme" down pat.

Write them a letter, at the bottom of the letter have it say: cc: Steinberg, Goldstein & Warran, Attorneys At Law ....(or pick a Law Firm out of the phone book). cc: = Courtesy Copy (get my drift?) You'll get better results, AND you'll have written proof to show a judge if it ever comes to that.

I pray for your sake that they will stop placing you in a "floating" bandwidth sharing 'bin' and leave you there. If you scream loud and long enough (and NOT pay), eventually you'll get results. They can't legally shut you off if you are "in litigation" or otherwise in a formal "dispute" with them ....so you could drag on for months not paying them, and that's why they moved me over to a system that would give me about 80% of my "Up To" speed. Many people say that I'll never see it that high. What it strange is that the day it was installed, for the first 8 hours I was pulling an easy 2.0Mbps down, then the "radio" blew. Ever since it was replaced I've never gotten above 1088 with a Signal Strength of 97. (Back then I did not know about testmy.net so I was using www.toast.net as a guide. You can't use DirecWay's speed test because that thing is so pathetically wrong it isn' funny. It has me uploading over 900kbps (usually), and "downing" at 150 when it is actually about 1022 'down' and 105 'up' (averaged).

I can't wait for DSL to come up my road. I am begging for a line but they keep turning me down with the same "coldness" that DirecWay uses.

Don't let DWay get you down, there are better things coming (as always). The only way to beat the system is to use it against them. Write a letter and e-mail, (return receipt requested on that letter by the way!), then stop paying them if they won't get you up to speed and leave it there. Worked for me once they figured out I didn't care if I had "web" or not. lol.... You will be covered by law because you will then be in a legal dispute (no lawyer is necessary), they can't shut you down, and after they have exhausted all of their "scare tactics" they'll give in and you'll get back to normal. (Then they'll find another victim and rob THEM blind).

DWay is operating illegally according to US Law but they are not being "pinched" ...so there's money being passed under the table somewhere. There are few laws that are controlling the Internet to any degree (at this level because it is easy for the ISP to say that you don't know how to properly setup your PC, or that the weather is causing interference which they have no control over ...I've heard it all (and they'll lie like a rug to you). ISPs know this and far too many of them take wrongful advantage of it. DirecWay is in the Top 10 of those type ISPs.

Cheers!

The Reverend (and just as disgusted as you are)