Q mini and extenders

Channel Hopper

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Another client has had the Q system delivered to site with three mini boxes and a couple of extenders but no matter where he has fitted them (within 10 meters of the receivers) the signal drops out daily requiring a reset of each device.

THey have BT broadband and I will be looking later to see if there is a frequency conflict plus a general scan of the property. It is isolated from the neighours by a good 50m or so and there are no steel joists or large bits of iron in there, so is there anything else that might be causing the system to fall over this regularly ?
 

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I've already told them to change the Skybox standby settings from eco to none before anyone mentions it, no difference
 

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Not familiar with Q but I'd like to hope they're using dualband wifi, if it's 2.4 only there could be a multitude of other signals from leaky ovens to CCTV. One of my dongles has a fault that although it will link at 54 or 72MB if it's on any channel other than ch1 the connection speed drops to almost 0 as soon as it starts shifting data. Can they try placing a mini box close enough to get a direct connection without the extender and see what happens?
 

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Looking throuugh this guide it is a dual band system, 5GHz for streaming and 2.4 to connect to the third party broadband system.


I'll have a better idea once I'm on site.
 

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I've had some major signal problems with the 5 GHz WIFI band, found out that AT&T was swamping the lower channels, I got a tripple band router that has the upper or high band on 5 GHz, set it up and it's been working fine.

Question? What do you use to scan the WIFI bands??
 

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I have an RF explorer that scans up to 6.1 GHz with a selection of different antennas.

There are also a couple of decent apps available but I use them as a backup.

The main issue that seems to be apparent is the lack of range of the Q extenders in the property. No matter where they are positioned no greater than around 8m from any of the q minis or the main SkyQ boz, they continually lose sight of the 5GHz mesh signal they are supposed to be carrying to each box.

When signal is lost ( including recordings in the sky box) the message that comes up on the q mini screens mentions 'fault with the broadband' though the main q box has perfect connectivity to the BT router about 10 m away.

What is the specified minimum reliable range of these things ?
 

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So, the initial visit has cleared up a number of issues, (eliminating the other services from the inquiry)

What is the total number of Q minis that can be fed from the main box ? I thought it was four, but the system as it is does not allow more than two before warnings are flagged up

20200228_182152.jpg
 

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2 max at anytime. :(



Edit: you can have 4 max, with only 2 viewing at anytime.
 
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2 max at anytime. :(



Edit: you can have 4 max, with only 2 viewing at anytime.


Thanks. Is this in a sky contract somewhere since the client has had five mini boxes sent to him and he was expecting four on top of the main unit to function ( with one put into standby)
 

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I got a thumbs up with the move of the extenders on one side of the property, no loss of service to three tvs over the whole day so the mesh in that area appears to be sorted.

Having looked into this last night in more detail there could be a further limitation based on the main unit that is on site.

From the Sky community forums

You can have up to four minis but they are subject to the following simultaneous use
  • With the 2TB box you can use 2 minis simultaneously
  • With the 1TB you can only use 1
So my assumption is they have the 2TB box, which is functioning well with just two minis

I had been trying for another hour to run the third simultaneously and kept getting the above 'maximum reached' message, so the original claim by Sky to the client was wrong. Why would they have even delivered five mini boxes in the first place ?
 

Dave5118

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Thanks. Is this in a sky contract somewhere since the client has had five mini boxes sent to him and he was expecting four on top of the main unit to function ( with one put into standby)

No, as far as I remember it's due to bandwidth issues, the idea is they allow for 'spare' bandwidth to be able to connect up to 2 phones or tablets as well.

It is possible to order extra minis, so can understand 4 arriving, but He would/should have been told only 2 allowed at once. Maybe he ordered another seperately?
 

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Thanks. I assume that by bandwidth, you mean the 5GHz provided by the Q system, so phone and tablet use should should not be impacted.

For an existing Sky customer, used to a faultless (sic) system that had four HD boxes /Octo LNB previously, this upgrade falls far short of the mark. I'm not sure that Godzilla in UHD will make up for the troubles.
 

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It is possible to order extra minis, so can understand 4 arriving, but He would/should have been told only 2 allowed at once. Maybe he ordered another seperately?

They had three sent out to compliment the Q box, Sky has sent another two in the past few days with no correspondence detailing the potential problems of runnng everything together.

Looking online over breakfast, whilst Sky is very cagey about the extender specifications, other sites claim a throughput of 50Mbps, which - regardless the mesh configuration (Main box + 2 minis + 2 boosters ) - means at least 10Mbps free to other devices when fully loaded.

Range will impact on this of course, along with obstacles such as walls and ceilings, but I can't see how the specified performance has been restricted to the point where the system falls over this regularly. There is really no more than 10m in the corridoors, and maybe 8m plus brickwork where there is no line of sight. No RSJs, or nuclear bunker lead shielding in the property.
 

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I was under the impression the Sky Q app connected directly to the Sky Q box using 'wifi direct' but that may not have been the case then, especially now the Sky Q app has been discontinued.

Have you had a look in the 'engineers menu' maybe something to adjust in there?
 

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Too bad you cant use something like my new AC2200 tri-band router, it blasts through walls and cement siding at 800 mW, I can even see it way down on the back side of the property,(200 meters) it boasts 833 MBPS on the high band at 5 GHz.

My new 4K HDTV loves it.
 

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I was under the impression the Sky Q app connected directly to the Sky Q box using 'wifi direct' but that may not have been the case then, especially now the Sky Q app has been discontinued.

Have you had a look in the 'engineers menu' maybe something to adjust in there?

I dare not touch the advanced menus unless I absolutely have to.

Having returned today I can see the Q minis are giving false results of the network and incoming broadband, the main box appears to be permanently happy with what it is seeing from both the dish and the BT router. I am highly suspect of the extenders as well when it comes to loading and data transfer, especially with the Netflix that is bundled in.

20200302_160601.jpg20200302_142957.jpg
 

Terryl

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Can you see the router at the minis location with a laptop??
 

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The main Q box can see the router without trouble, this is all the Q system requires for functionality across their own network.
 
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