lgdt330x signal strength WAS Re: [linux-dvb] AirStar HD5000-PCI signal strength

[Trent Piepho]

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006, Mac Michaels wrote:
> My question/complaint level is exceeded. Time to do
> something to reduce these questions. Lets hack this to so
> it can be used. This proposal is a total hack to report
> signal strength.
>
> If we have FE_LOCK return a signal strength of say 42 or 100
> or 0x7FFF or 0xFFFF (pick one) otherwise return 0. This

This would be nice for application programmers.  I don't want my programs to
consider a channel tuned unless they can reasonably expect to receive valid
data from it.  If the signal strength is zero, then I don't expect to be able
to receive valid data.

This really happens with my or51132 based card with digital cable.  Sometimes
after tuning a new frequency, FE_LOCK is reported but signal strength starts
at only about 1%, when it should be near 99%.  I will not receive valid data
when signal strength is so low.  I have my code wait until signal strength
rises before considering the channel fully tuned, and I have seen other code
which does this too.  This is useful to me (and others too it would seem) but
will fail for a driver which always reports zero signal.