Advice Needed SKY Signal Problems

[Mark_C89]

The elctric shock is a by-product of the continental method of using double insulated mains feed rather than having an earth as well (as we in the UK used to do!). They can be avoided by disconnecting the box from the mains and reduced by earthing the satellite dish/mounting bracket/outer feed of the co-ax.

I think I shall do just that

 

[Captain Jack]

Given this and providing the box is ok, I was thinking LNB. Seeing as single LNB gets the channels I have lost, and also recieves better signal quality?

Well I think for the price of an LNB I might just go and buy another twin from the local DIY store.
Hopefully all will be well and that will be the end of it

Yep, seems logical. And cheap enough in case this doesn't fix the issues.

 

[timo_w2s]

I've had loads of shocks from low voltage cables, even TV aerial leads with no power, as I'm sometimes too lazy to unplug everything. Not good if you are up a ladder... sometimes you can even see sparks if it's dark enough!! (I find sometimes it helps to reverse the mains plug on continental sockets or the power connection to the back of the box if it is one of those figure of 8 removable cables)

 

[Mark_C89]

I've had loads of shocks from low voltage cables, even TV aerial leads with no power, as I'm sometimes too lazy to unplug everything. Not good if you are up a ladder... sometimes you can even see sparks if it's dark enough!! (I find sometimes it helps to reverse the mains plug on continental sockets or the power connection to the back of the box if it is one of those figure of 8 removable cables)

Well I will give it ago too when I'm replacing it too see if that helps.

It's a case of for my particular fault finding I would of been there for ages if I unplugged it every time, up, down, on, off, swap LNB, etc.

I just put some gloves off after I got the shock anyways, but now I know, and I'll probably earth the connection long term as PaulR suggested.

 

[www.wefitaerials.com]

Hello All

I've been scouring the web for some possible answers to my problem to no avail!

So here's to hoping someone could be kind enough to help

I have a SKY+HD setup, (NOT in the UK). I set this up myself just with a normal SKY+HD box when I moved abroad that I kept, and I went out and bought a large dish 1.1M.
Anyhow after some fiddling and making up the cables then having my wife stand infront of the TV shouting for a signal all was fine and away we went! Happy days! didn't get everything but I would say 90% of what was available we recieved, basically didn't get anything BBC or ITV related which was to be expected and I wasn't fussed.

After a while I lost a couple of channels which came back, ánd then a few more which were on then off then on then off. I checked the box an connections everything was fine I even moved the dish a little to try to improve signal strength as normal signal strength and quality for us was about 80%. Still it was only a few channels but a few of my favourites so I checked for any recent transponder changes and there weren't any, So I then thought I'll just unplug the box for a bit and plug it back in! OH NO! turned it back on then nothing. No Signal at all on either feed! and it's been like that since. I went out and bought a satellite signal finder because I thought if there was anything wrong with the box I would need to confirm this by making sure I still had signal.

After getting home with this and plugging it in I got nothing, obviously the standard bleep/interference when you turn it right up, but other than that turn it down a little bit and the beep was gone. I then moved the dish slightly and even replicated next doors (pointing at HOTBIRD 13o) and I know that obviouslly I should get full signal on the satellite finder on this as my dish is 3 times the size of theirs and they were watching TV actaully meant to be broadcast here. But again nothing does this mean possibly a problem with the LNB?

Sorry for such the long story but I am in no way an expert in this field but am quite capable of carrying out task in common sense, which is how I managed to set the box up in the first place!

Thanks in Advance

Mark

Hi some of the earlier hd boxs had a 100% pu supply fail rate it a simple repair for the no more than £50.

 

[Captain Jack]

If you're handy with a soldering iron, it costs no more than a few quid.

 

[Mark_C89]

Well this morning I am over the moon :-D

I went off to the DIY store and bought a twin LNB, came back, installed it and of course the channels I had lost were back.

However I am more than pleasantly surprised as now I can receive even more channels than when I installed it!
The original LNB must of been faulty since new, as my signal strength is now between 90- 100% (all of the time).

I simply can't believe the amount of channels this has now given me,now I have all the HD version of my channels too (also the +1 versions)

Thanks for all the advice

One chuffed new member :-D

(Oh the only annoying thing now, is when I'm scrolling through and get to a channel I can't receive, when I then switch to a channel I can, it kind of gets stuck on the channel I can't receive so I have to hit the standby button to off and back on again) However I'm presuming this is the box of course. I don't care about this though, I'll be getting a new box at some point

 

[Captain Jack]

Excellent! Well done!

 

[PaulR]

Great result Mark.

 

[timo_w2s]

Great news, although I assume you are still not getting Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD that are on the UK spot?

Not sure why you can't scroll past a channel with no reception though. Some old Panasonic SD boxes used to crash if you tuned to a channel that had no signal and you needed to kill the power first and do a reboot to get it going again, now that was very annoying!!

 

[Mark_C89]

Thank you all

Great news, although I assume you are still not getting Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD that are on the UK spot?

Not sure why you can't scroll past a channel with no reception though. Some old Panasonic SD boxes used to crash if you tuned to a channel that had no signal and you needed to kill the power first and do a reboot to get it going again, now that was very annoying!!

Well Alibi HD had a slight flicker! but other than that nothing. Oddly enough however I am getting ITV2, 3 & 4, E4 and More4 (These I therefore presume are not on the UK spot?) undoubtedly I say, it's sods law now I have these they will probably move with Astra 2G later this year and I may lose them.

The box doesn't need a full reboot, just a standby on and off job. However I can imagine the immensity of the annoyance having to do a full reboot everytime. If that was the case I would just favourite all the channels bar the no signal channels so that I could flick through that way

Anyway all done and dusted for now, I will be awaiting the 2G changes and see where this takes me

 

[timo_w2s]

The full reboot was even more annoying then you are on the other side of the house to the box or in bed!!

The HD versions of ITV2, 3 & 4, E4 and More4 are on European beams and are currently part of the Sky subscription.

If you are getting any kind of picture from Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD (from 2E UK spot) at some point then it sounds like you are close to receiving some UK spot beams, at least for a limited time each day in good weather. Might be worth checking some of the BBC/ITV/Ch4/Ch5 channels from time to time in good weather to see if anything else is trying to break through the noise. It'll give you a rough idea on what you might get with a bigger dish in the future.

 

[Mark_C89]

The full reboot was even more annoying then you are on the other side of the house to the box or in bed!!

The HD versions of ITV2, 3 & 4, E4 and More4 are on European beams and are currently part of the Sky subscription.

If you are getting any kind of picture from Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD (from 2E UK spot) at some point then it sounds like you are close to receiving some UK spot beams, at least for a limited time each day in good weather. Might be worth checking some of the BBC/ITV/Ch4/Ch5 channels from time to time in good weather to see if anything else is trying to break through the noise. It'll give you a rough idea on what you might get with a bigger dish in the future.

Ah, well that explains why I get these channels then, and yes I get them in HD only.

Where can I find a full up to date list of channels on the UK spot beam? I had a look online but only found a Wikipedia list which I think is out of date as it doesn't have the likes of Dave HD, Alibi HD Etc.
from this list however I do get a couple of the kids channels that are on the UK spot beam and Alibi did have the flicker earlier.
Also I've noticed that ITV channels do seem to think quite bit before giving me no signal message, where as BBC channels go to this instantly (I don't know if this means anything)

Random question, Why did they move certain channels to UK spot beams? considering that they are subscription anyway and that they leave the SD and +1 versions.
Then also the likes that they have ITV 2,3&4 HD only but everything else ITV is on UK spot beam (presumably to stop outside UK viewers), seems crazy

 

[Captain Jack]

Have a look here - http://www.lyngsat.com/Eutelsat-28A-and-Astra-2A-2E-2F.html Check the "Beam" column. Everything that's UK is UK spot beam.

ITV2,3,4HD are subscription only channels so they are on wide beam. Other "Freesat", including SD versions of all ITV channels, are not subscription one and can be received on any receiver if you get signal.

Yes, it does seem odd that Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD are UK spot - no idea why. Maybe they are short on space on the European beam? This will probably change when 2G gets up there.

 

[PaulR]

It may be a cunning ploy so that $ly can say, if they are pulled up about having all their encrypted channels on the European beams, 'Oh no we're not'. ;)

 

[timo_w2s]

Yes, it does seem odd that Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD are UK spot - no idea why. Maybe they are short on space on the European beam? This will probably change when 2G gets up there.

Sky had a few transponders rented on Astra 2D back when space was generally more limited and I guess they've just kept them (some say it was to annoy Freesat when UK spots where limited to 16 transponders).

 

[Mark_C89]

In danger of opening a can of worms here (as I'm sure this has been discussed before and could be endlessly spoken about) I don't really understand why there is any need to make anything other than any BBC related content restricted to a UK spot beam.
Being that BBC is the only thing in the UK that people pay for that doesn't have encryption. ITV and Channel 4 why?
I'm sure of course that their are some broadcasting complications with rights etc. but again if it was that much of a problem wouldn't they try to get as much as possible on UK spot beam?

Also surely SKY are well aware people outside of the UK use there service, there are websites left, right and centre that even do this for you, and SKY aren't in anyway (that I'm aware of) attempting to protest this use of their service. Of course why would they? money is money, although I am intrigued to know how much money SKY roughly make from people outside of the UK using their service.

Well I do hope with the 2G beam, I get DAVE HD and the others back, I am (one of them) big HD buffs

It may be a cunning ploy so that $ly can say, if they are pulled up about having all their encrypted channels on the European beams, 'Oh no we're not'. ;)

Their argument might be floored with only 3 channels being moved

 

[timo_w2s]

In reality Sky only care about reception in the UK and Ireland too. The fact that most "Sky" channels are encrypted means they can go on wider beams without rights issues. It is mainly the satellite operator SES who want wide beams available so they can shift satellites around for backup and future planning at different orbital slots where wide beams are needed.

 

[Mark_C89]

If you are getting any kind of picture from Dave HD, Watch HD and Alibi HD (from 2E UK spot) at some point then it sounds like you are close to receiving some UK spot beams, at least for a limited time each day in good weather. Might be worth checking some of the BBC/ITV/Ch4/Ch5 channels from time to time in good weather to see if anything else is trying to break through the noise. It'll give you a rough idea on what you might get with a bigger dish in the future.

I have checked this in various weather so far, as we have had all sorts here in the last 24 hours (rain, heavy rain, storms, sunny and clear), and in very good weather, I can get about 3 - 4 channels on the UK spot beam based on the info from lyngsat and kingofsat (albeit not BBC or ITV) just some channels like travel channel and a few other channels in the middle range of sky channels. Also on some UK spot beam channels it shows that I either have good strength and no signal, or full strength and no quality, however it doesn't go to the no signal message it just sits on the blue screen and gives me those results in the signal menu, and now and again the channels have a flicker on and off. So it does look like certain channels are trying to break through the noise, therefore I'm holding my fingers crossed for the future on hopefully not having a dish too big (double my size would be preferable limit)

 

[timo_w2s]

Just be aware King of Sat is wrong about the UK beams in the 12.500-12.670GHz range, they are 2F European beam. I've tried to suggest they correct the data but they don't seem to be interested.

Edit: I see they've now added 11579H as a 2F UK beam too, and it is clearly not the case.