Promax Prodig-2
 

Hi All,
Just a quick note to anyone looking for a digital/analog terrestrial signal
strength meter. I recently bought the above one and its fantastic, brilliant
facilities and also mast head powering,
and no I don't work for them.


Cheers,
John

I have one of the Promax MC-377+ meters (same as the current MC-577), and
its not bad except it doesn't give any BER estimations for digital
terrestrial, only digital channel power + C/N ratio.

The C/N readings though I find to be a real pain. Theres a span control so
you can widen the bandwidth, to enable a given mux to fill the screen, but
the C/N ratio reading is a level bar that it's hard to take exact readings
from. According to the instruction manual, you go to the spectrum analyser,
adjust the span so the mux just fits vertically on screen (so it looks like
a block of noise) then it will give the C/N ratio at the bottom. This
doesn't appear to work too well though.

Measuring signal levels at home, the C/N figure quickly comes down to around
30, then slowly decreases until it reaches about 25 where it hovers. The
actual levels you read off, are taken from levels etched into the screen (or
stuck on very well) but these aren't in alignment with the vertical bars
running down the screen. it means when taking C/N readings its impossible to
tell exactly what they are. I also find that many existing installations
which work flawlessly for DTT, are being reported by my meter as having some
muxes with C/N ratios that "appear" to be around the 16 mark which defies
minimum C/N ratio requirements. Obviously in fringe areas this is most
troublesome not being able to have accurate C/N readings.

I'm considering changing this meter and either moving up to one of the
ProLink 2 models, or possibly changing it for a Unaohm EP2300 or similar. It
does rather beg the question of where one would sell a 2nd hand TV &
satellite level meter.

Sorry for the long post, but the sight of your pretty little Prodig 2 saying
"55dBuV Power" and "35dB C/N" got me thinking how mine displays results.

It has also crossed my mind that I may well not be taking measurements
properly. I've only recently started working for myself, and the company I
worked for before this used ancient analogue only meters (actually, the word
"used" implies that they aligned arrays with them, which was rarely the
case) and didn't feel the need to purchase new meters to enable measuring of
digital signals. Actually some of the things they did which they thought
were acceptable would make you very wary about calling an aerial firm out of
the blue (or Yellow....)

They did things which are downright criminal like charging customers for
external splitters, yet twisted the cables together.........charging
customers for 20 element aerials yet installing 12 elements, and then they
did things which are just plain poor like installing DAB aerials with
horizontal polarization, using FM omni's as standard, using unscreened parts
throughout (mastheads / cable / outlet plates / splitters) and using RG6
cable as standard (not sure if RG6 is the correct name, but suffice to say
it was cheap horrible stuff with wafer thin shielding and 1 or possibly 2
strands of super fine braid)

I'm so so glad I don't work there anymore, but am gradually finding out that
some of the things they "taught" me are total rubbish and I am having to
teach myself the correct way to do things. When I finally got out of there,
I actually believed a DAB aerial should be mounted horizontally...........


"John Mce" wrote in message
...
Hi All,
Just a quick note to anyone looking for a digital/analog terrestrial
signal
strength meter. I recently bought the above one and its fantastic,
brilliant
facilities and also mast head powering,
and no I don't work for them.


Cheers,
John

"John Mce" wrote in message
...
Hi All,
Just a quick note to anyone looking for a digital/analog terrestrial
signal
strength meter. I recently bought the above one and its fantastic,
brilliant
facilities and also mast head powering,
and no I don't work for them.


Cheers,
John



I have one of the Promax MC-377+ meters (same as the current MC-577), and
its not bad except it doesn't give any BER estimations for digital
terrestrial, only digital channel power + C/N ratio.

The C/N readings though I find to be a real pain. Theres a span control so
you can widen the bandwidth, to enable a given mux to fill the screen, but
the C/N ratio reading is a level bar that it's hard to take exact readings
from. According to the instruction manual, you go to the spectrum analyser,
adjust the span so the mux just fits vertically on screen (so it looks like
a block of noise) then it will give the C/N ratio at the bottom. This
doesn't appear to work too well though.

Measuring signal levels at home, the C/N figure quickly comes down to around
30, then slowly decreases until it reaches about 25 where it hovers. The
actual levels you read off, are taken from levels etched into the screen (or
stuck on very well) but these aren't in alignment with the vertical bars
running down the screen. it means when taking C/N readings its impossible to
tell exactly what they are. I also find that many existing installations
which work flawlessly for DTT, are being reported by my meter as having some
muxes with C/N ratios that "appear" to be around the 16 mark which defies
minimum C/N ratio requirements. Obviously in fringe areas this is most
troublesome not being able to have accurate C/N readings.

I'm considering changing this meter and either moving up to one of the
ProLink 2 models, or possibly changing it for a Unaohm EP2300 or similar. It
does rather beg the question of where one would sell a 2nd hand TV &
satellite level meter.

Sorry for the long post, but the sight of your pretty little Prodig 2 saying
"55dBuV Power" and "35dB C/N" got me thinking how mine displays results.

It has also crossed my mind that I may well not be taking measurements
properly. I've only recently started working for myself, and the company I
worked for before this used ancient analogue only meters (actually, the word
"used" implies that they aligned arrays with them, which was rarely the
case) and didn't feel the need to purchase new meters to enable measuring of
digital signals. Actually some of the things they did which they thought
were acceptable would make you very wary about calling an aerial firm out of
the blue (or Yellow....)

They did things which are downright criminal like charging customers for
external splitters, yet twisted the cables together.........charging
customers for 20 element aerials yet installing 12 elements, and then they
did things which are just plain poor like installing DAB aerials with
horizontal polarization, using FM omni's as standard, using unscreened parts
throughout (mastheads / cable / outlet plates / splitters) and using RG6
cable as standard (not sure if RG6 is the correct name, but suffice to say
it was cheap horrible stuff with wafer thin shielding and 1 or possibly 2
strands of super fine braid)

I'm so so glad I don't work there anymore, but am gradually finding out that
some of the things they "taught" me are total rubbish and I am having to
teach myself the correct way to do things. When I finally got out of there,
I actually believed a DAB aerial should be mounted horizontally...........

I have both this meter and a Unaohm EP314( which I find excellent) but have
to admit I always grab the prodig first. The only thing it doesn't do which
would be my only gripe would be the fact that it does not give you the exact
BER measurement, it just tells you whether Digital is a pass or fail.
"GameBashers | Carpy" wrote in message
k...

"John Mce" wrote in message
...
Hi All,
Just a quick note to anyone looking for a digital/analog terrestrial
signal
strength meter. I recently bought the above one and its fantastic,
brilliant
facilities and also mast head powering,
and no I don't work for them.


Cheers,
John



I have one of the Promax MC-377+ meters (same as the current MC-577), and
its not bad except it doesn't give any BER estimations for digital
terrestrial, only digital channel power + C/N ratio.

The C/N readings though I find to be a real pain. Theres a span control so
you can widen the bandwidth, to enable a given mux to fill the screen, but
the C/N ratio reading is a level bar that it's hard to take exact readings
from. According to the instruction manual, you go to the spectrum
analyser,
adjust the span so the mux just fits vertically on screen (so it looks
like
a block of noise) then it will give the C/N ratio at the bottom. This
doesn't appear to work too well though.

Measuring signal levels at home, the C/N figure quickly comes down to
around
30, then slowly decreases until it reaches about 25 where it hovers. The
actual levels you read off, are taken from levels etched into the screen
(or
stuck on very well) but these aren't in alignment with the vertical bars
running down the screen. it means when taking C/N readings its impossible
to
tell exactly what they are. I also find that many existing installations
which work flawlessly for DTT, are being reported by my meter as having
some
muxes with C/N ratios that "appear" to be around the 16 mark which defies
minimum C/N ratio requirements. Obviously in fringe areas this is most
troublesome not being able to have accurate C/N readings.

I'm considering changing this meter and either moving up to one of the
ProLink 2 models, or possibly changing it for a Unaohm EP2300 or similar.
It
does rather beg the question of where one would sell a 2nd hand TV &
satellite level meter.

Sorry for the long post, but the sight of your pretty little Prodig 2
saying
"55dBuV Power" and "35dB C/N" got me thinking how mine displays results.

It has also crossed my mind that I may well not be taking measurements
properly. I've only recently started working for myself, and the company I
worked for before this used ancient analogue only meters (actually, the
word
"used" implies that they aligned arrays with them, which was rarely the
case) and didn't feel the need to purchase new meters to enable measuring
of
digital signals. Actually some of the things they did which they thought
were acceptable would make you very wary about calling an aerial firm out
of
the blue (or Yellow....)

They did things which are downright criminal like charging customers for
external splitters, yet twisted the cables together.........charging
customers for 20 element aerials yet installing 12 elements, and then they
did things which are just plain poor like installing DAB aerials with
horizontal polarization, using FM omni's as standard, using unscreened
parts
throughout (mastheads / cable / outlet plates / splitters) and using RG6
cable as standard (not sure if RG6 is the correct name, but suffice to say
it was cheap horrible stuff with wafer thin shielding and 1 or possibly 2
strands of super fine braid)

I'm so so glad I don't work there anymore, but am gradually finding out
that
some of the things they "taught" me are total rubbish and I am having to
teach myself the correct way to do things. When I finally got out of
there,
I actually believed a DAB aerial should be mounted horizontally...........