Sky Q communal system issues

[Amcevoy]

As above, all flats will have twin cables from the TV point up to the roof as per older Sky+/HD equipment.

You will use one cable for the SkyQ services, with the receiver set to SCR mode and the other cable is fitted with a power supply that is connected to the fifth oulet on the DSCR switch.
Unless you have disconnected cables, the engineer that came out did not bother to reroute the second cable onto the Johansson/Unitron box (it will have a green LED when powered up).
Has anyone else been up on the roof to 'adjust' things ?

Well my two cables go down to an equipment cabinet on the ground floor (well, a flat roof above the bin store on the ground floor) and then I presume from there they go up to the roof. So I presume it’s the cabinet you mean when you mention adjusting things. I haven’t disconnected anything. When Sky Q was installed (Wed 25/8) they used the single cable and the second cable was just left spare next to my Sky Q box. At this point I had pretty much zero knowledge of these systems so assumed what was needed had been done. Less than 48hrs later (early hours of the Friday I assume) the satellite signal went. When the engineer came out 2 weeks later he used the second cable for something but again I couldn’t say specifically what or how as I couldn’t see everything. He didn’t go anywhere near the equipment cabinet from what I saw - I could see him go to his van from my window. I would have thought the engineer would write a report detailing what they did and what method they tried but that doesn’t seem to be the case. As for anyone else looking at the equipment….not on behalf of my case they haven’t. I managed to get up there and grabbed a look for myself on another day (without touching anything) which is where the pictures came from. In the first engineer visit I presumed he would do what needed to be done… be it visiting the cabinet or whatever. At the time my satellite signal was off and he managed to get that back on by effectively turning the sky Q box off and on again (pulled the power cable and reinserted) - I was doing this previously but hadn’t tried it in the previous 24hrs or so as I was busy with work etc. he then tried whatever fix he tried (I believe it was a splitter and power inserter combo of sorts but could be wrong). That didn’t work so he took those back out and basically left it at that. The second visit…..wasn’t a visit as such. He rang me and argued down the phone with me and basically said he’d already looked at it and it couldn’t be sorted any other way. Sky were meant to send a different engineer but the booking had been given back to him for some reason. Since then I’ve had numerous calls with Sky technical and so on which haven’t really got me anywhere. Besides having another visit booked (9th of October) where they could potentially send the same engineer yet again so I’ve been told. The latest person I spoke with is escalating it to the team leader (?) and is due to call me back on Tuesday. What I don’t want to happen though is they just send another engineer who does the same thing and doesn’t sort the issue. I find it hard to believe that it can’t be rectified somehow and they should be the ones that know exactly how.

In terms of me calling up to cancel and seeing what they offer - besides a reduction in the price (which would be nice lol) I fail to see where that gets me. I either end up with no Sky or I end up in the same boat with an intermittent service but at a maybe a lower cost. If I can get to the bottom of it and get Sky to realise what needs to be done then I’ll go down that route and have a working system. If they can’t work it out then I’ll go down the route of cancelling.

 

[Amcevoy]

The impression I get from Sky is that their own engineers (which is who I had for the last two visits) won’t go near these cabinets or equipment and they will use a third party contractor - ASHA - for this. In saying that I’ve also been told that Sky stopped using these contractors a few years back so I’m not really sure. Although it was one of these ASHA’s that installed my Sky Q

 

[Channel Hopper]

Which part of London/postcode are you ?

 

[Amcevoy]

Aldgate E1. Funny enough the signal has just come back. Similar to last weekend. I got home from work on Friday at around 4:30 and the signal was on - I turned the box on to check. I then went back out to sort something and when I came back around 5:15-5:45 it had gone. I presume the signal has just came back within the last hour so I don’t know if this is someone that goes away on weekends or what.

 

[Manikm909]

jesus christ - what a hassle! get one of those dishes that has a sucker, and stick it to your window! thats as technical as i get.

dont forget you'll need a wideband LNB

 

[Amcevoy]

Hahahaha if only. If Guinness spotted that I’d only have to remove it. I emailed the ASHA that installed the system and hopefully they are going to get someone out. Can’t see why Sky didn’t just do that

 

[a33]

What really is a shame: The (german term: ) "Potential Ausgleich", i.e. the common earth connection of the eight bottom output cables of the upper right multiswitch, has been removed! And now rests at the right bottom of the photo (vertically)?

What professional could have taken away a safety measure????????
It should be put back immediately.


BTW 1. Are there any free outputs on the three multiswitches? (3x32 connections = 96 outputs)
BTW 2. Do the multiswitches have their own power supply (19V), at the right of the multiswitches? That is not visible, alas.

BTW 3. One of the outputs of the MDU dSCR is marked 112. Is that your number?
Otherwise, it looks like there are some barrel connectors at the bottom the cabinet, that are connected to the original cables from the appartments. Are there numbers on that, that might indicate your apartment?

Greetz,
A33

 

[Fring]

Contact Sky and ask they escalate your issue to the MDU Ops team, it will get sorted once this happens.

 

[Amcevoy]

Sorry A33 just saw your reply. I’m hoping it’s now resolved….(time will tell I guess) no thanks to sky who really are useless. It’s all great when it’s working but the moment something goes wrong…..sky customer service is shocking. I ended up contacting the third party contractor that sky sent to install it and they got someone out (quicker than Sky could too! And with a pretty specific arrival time as opposed to 8-5!). Sky weren’t willing to ask them for whatever reason. They just said you have to wait for the engineer. We can’t guarantee anything or do anything besides tell you to wait. This came from a manager/supervisor in the technical department too. Fring….thanks wish I’d known that sooner although surely they should have passed it on to them anyway considering none of them had a clue!
Hopefully it’s sorted now!
Thanks for the help all!

 

[PaulR]

Any idea what they found was wrong and what they did to correct it?

 

[Amcevoy]

The problem is or was as posted originally. Sky Q would cut out at certain times and I would get the not satellite signal message and this could last days.
The plug in adaptors were not powered where they were fitted due to no local power and when it was installed in my flat there was no power inserter installed (at the time I didn’t realise it may be necessary. I just assumed they had powered the plug in adaptor elsewhere.
It seems another resident with Sky Q fed from the same adaptor had a power inserter and for whatever reason was turning it off at certain times causing me to lose signal at the same times.
The engineer from the third party installers tried changing the plug in adaptor but that didn’t change anything. He fitted a psu and small Unitron DiSEqC power inserter inside my flat. He said he didn’t know if that would solve but he hoped it would. I also had a sky engineer booked in so kept that appointment incase the first solution didn’t work. When the sky engineer arrived about 3 days later it was still working. He had a quick look and said he was going to do the same as what had already been done - he had the bits with him. He did say the coax cable pair I had may be insufficient so he replaced that for a thicker single cable from the tv module plate to the Sky Q box and the extra cable for the power inserter was replaced too. Not sure if that was necessary but I figured it wouldn’t hurt so let him do it.
The signal hasn’t cut out since (that I’m aware of - busy with work and I’m on nights so tend to be a zombie during the day lol) so hopefully it’s now resolved. Only time will tell I guess.
Effectively what I posted previously about the different ways to power the plug in adaptor was correct and that seemed to be where the problem was. I don’t think they have really powered it in the best way still but I’ve spent enough time trying to get it sorted without spending more time on it. Not sure if any Earth connections were put back as I didn’t go to the equipment with the engineer - due to the location (slightly tricky to get to and if you don’t look official someone would probably question a random person being there).
If anyone else has the same problem and the system was installed by a third party contractor on behalf of Sky - I’d recommend going through them first as opposed to sky as the technical department have very little knowledge of communal systems and they seem to have little interest in rectifying their own errors.

 

[Channel Hopper]

A better solution would be a permanent psu in the cabin where the DSCR switches can be fed with power at source, negating the need for intrusion into each property/splitters/accessory cabling etc.

 

[Fring]

Sorry A33 just saw your reply. I’m hoping it’s now resolved….(time will tell I guess) no thanks to sky who really are useless. It’s all great when it’s working but the moment something goes wrong…..sky customer service is shocking. I ended up contacting the third party contractor that sky sent to install it and they got someone out (quicker than Sky could too! And with a pretty specific arrival time as opposed to 8-5!). Sky weren’t willing to ask them for whatever reason. They just said you have to wait for the engineer. We can’t guarantee anything or do anything besides tell you to wait. This came from a manager/supervisor in the technical department too. Fring….thanks wish I’d known that sooner although surely they should have passed it on to them anyway considering none of them had a clue!
Hopefully it’s sorted now!
Thanks for the help all!

Glad to hear you got a resolution, if it happens again at least you will know how to get it resolved by Sky.

 

[Amcevoy]

A better solution would be a permanent psu in the cabin where the DSCR switches can be fed with power at source, negating the need for intrusion into each property/splitters/accessory cabling etc.

If it were my choice….

 

[a33]

The only advantage of the PSU in your own home being: you can switch it off, when you don't need the (extra) power?

But I'm glad to read, that the problem does not occur anymore.

Greetz,
A33