Portsdown-4 No Picture (RESOLVED)

[G1INU]

Hi Guys,

I have built a Portsdown-4, a PicoTuner and added my 90cm dish and LNB.

From what I understand when I hit RX followed by RECEIVE it should change screens and end up showing the QO-100 beacon, but instead I end up at a grey screen. What have I not setup correctly please?

[g0mjw]

Sometimes the beacon is not working properly. Try again.. all looks OK, the MER is sufficient and it is clearly receiving it. You might just have picked a bad time.

[G1INU]

Sometimes the beacon is not working properly. Try again.. all looks OK, the MER is sufficient and it is clearly receiving it. You might just have picked a bad time.

Hi Mike,
Unfortunately it is doing the same thing this morning and I think it's a deeper issue with my PD4.
I have a mother issue that it shows the same grey screen when I try to stream to the PD4 using OBS and FreeStreamCoder. I select M2/IPTS Monitor but get no picture on the PD4 screen.
My reading leads me to believe both issues involve VLC and/or ffmpeg but that's as far as my 'understanding' goes. Could it be that vlc or ffmpeg have failed to install during compilation of the img. Is there a way to check or test them?

[gu6efb]

Hi

Have you checked that you have 18 volts coming out of the tuner as this is required to power the LNB in horizontal polarisation mode?
May need to power the LNB via a bias tee at 18 volts.

73 Keith

[g8lce]

See my recent posts! I had a problem with one of my Portsdown 4,s and it was eventually cured by going back to an old firmware version and then updating. It may cure your problem if you try a clean install. Some of the bits in the installation of the software may not be 100% (hopefully rarely) and another try from scratch ie. formatted SD card, may help.

Martin G8LCE

PS. It was also a problem that only showed with the Picotuner - but now is OK

[G1INU]

Hi

Have you checked that you have 18 volts coming out of the tuner as this is required to power the LNB in horizontal polarisation mode?
May need to power the LNB via a bias tee at 18 volts.

73 Keith

Hi Keith,
Just put the meter on it again after reading your message and it's putting out 18.73vdc at the box.

[G1INU]

Hi Guy's,

and again thank you for the support and help trying to resolve this issue.

I would like to say it is now resolved and it was "this" or "that" but in all honesty I am none the wiser as to exactly what the issue was, be it software or hardware?

Whilst doing my umpteenth new image I also took the Portsdown apart, removed the pi4 from the touch screen and removed all ribbon cables and connecting wires. After rebuilding the hardware, installing the latest new image and running the install_portsdown file it finally started working. I am leaning towards it having been a hardware issue because I must have done 6 or seven fresh images on an assortment of SD Cards with no change.