andy_s37

I don't know whether anyone else experiences this. When the weather turns cold my sky tv stops working properly. It tells me that no signal is being recieved on some channels (the good ones) and not on others (the s41t ones). I've unplugged cables and wrang the help line until i'm blue in the face, and still got no-where. Has anyone got any serious suggestions on this please? Whats most annoying is that there is not a cloud in the sky (thats the one with stars in it not the tv) and its ok in the day when there is nothing on!

Ta
Andy.

jods

have you got any trees / plants nearby that wilt in the cold weather obscuring the clear line of sight of your dish ? We have a tall rose "tree" bush which needs fairly regular pruning cos it did the same thing to my signal strength.

andy_s37

No mate, its on the front of the house with no obstructions whatsoever. I think the only thing that can get in its way is the moon.

Andy.

Carl2

Which cable have you unplugged?

We get that occaisionally.

jods

We Like The Moon - the Spongmonkeys try and cash in on the kittens' success - By Joel Veitch rathergood.com, song by Joel and Alex Veitch

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Failing LNB at a guess (but I'm not an engineer, just had a couple go on me over the years)

Have you tried turning the box off at the mains, waiting 5 mins and turning back on again? This sometimes clears it.

Shark Man

Either the dish is out of alignment or your LNB is on its way out.

Or both, a slightly off dish and a weak LNB = crap signal


Problems such as boxes dying are rare, but they can overheat which can give interesting signal problems.

Best bet is to find a local independant aerial/satelite installer. Get a quaote and you'll probably find it'll be the same or cheaper than Sky's intial call out charge, and your more likely to get somebody who knows what they are actually doing.

andy_s37

Whats the LNB? Is that the bit that hangs off the front arm that the birds try to **** on?

Andy

Ta for the replies BTW.

Shark Man

Yup, one of the first signs of it going is a loss or intermittant loss of certain channels.

Scooby.Newbie

Low Noise Block-downconvertor (so called because it converts a whole band or "block" of frequencies to a lower band).

An LNB sits on the end of an arm and faces the parabolic reflector ("dish") which focusses the signals from a satellite 24,000 miles away into the "feed horn" of the LNB.

The LNB converts the signals to a lower frequency and sends them out to the cable connector, which you connect to your satellite receiver via coaxial cable.

Shark Man

I thought a simple yes was enough

Huxley Chick

This has w*rked for us many times

It cured the problem of only being able to receive bbc1, the intermittant sound problem & the not being able to watch the channels, but they were ok if you set the Sky+ box to record.

All seemed a bit weird at the time, that something so simple could solve the problem, but it did. Worth a try & it won't cost you a penny

andy_s37

Yeah i tried this but will leave it off over night and see if that works. If it doesn't i'm going to kidnap a sky engineer and keep him in my shed for when it breaks. You can all hire him for the Kosovan minimum wage as a thanks for the ideas.

Andy.

Playsatan

iTrader: (2)

If overheating can be a problem and the fault only occurs when it gets cold outside could it not be something to do with the central heating coming on? i.e. is it right next to a radiator?

andy_s37

Nah mate, nowhere near.

Shark Man

Doubt it, I've only seen it happen with it shut in a TV cabinet with a DVD player sat on top of it.

andy97

iTrader: (1)

Quick check is to take your receiver and connect it to another dish, if it works ok, then its more than likely to be

1/ dish alignment
2/ intermittent lnb
3/ poor or damaged cabling

Easiest thing to do first is split the system and find which end is playing up

Andy

hectic

As andy97 said above.. its one of the three.. most likely its a slight dish alignment issue... shame your not local to me... I could have checked it for you

bobsabuilder

Have you checked your signal strength?

On my Sky+ box, I press the "Services" button, then "system set up" then "signal test".
It then goes to a page where it displays the Signal Strength and Quality in the form of a bar. Mines never below 75% but normally around 90% +


Bob

hectic

thing is tho' Bob, it MIGHT read ok on the sig-strength bar, but could be one of the *other* Transponders causing the problem

Shark Man

Yup, the signal strength is a load of crap. There are tricks you can do to make it show the strength on the other transponders at the far ends of the frequency bands, but it's hit and miss.

FWIW, I have a white pace box that shows that I have little no signal dispite having a 2.4metre (yes, that is 2400mm ) dish plugged into it. Yet the reception is fine ...barring BBC2

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

Try a trick of the trade Andy. Turn the box off at the mains, on the front of the receiver there's a button that says back up, get someone to hold the button in whilst plugging the box back into the mains, STILL holding the backup button in, continue to hold it in until all 4 lights on the front of the box light up and you'll get a message on your TV Sky channel saying, "downloading new software, do not unplug from the mains for 10-15 minutes" etc etc. Wait until all 4 lights go out and your standbye light comes back on, leave for another 5 minutes then give it a try.

Usually does the trick

andy_s37

Tried the services and signal strength bar and its sometimes a bit weak even when there is a perfect picture and other times it says its fine and there are few channels. Will try the trick suggested by BODSKI and see where that gets me. After all the whineing its still on tonight but only time will tell.

If i don't have any joy I might get sky+ installed and get them to sort it out then. As far as i can see it won't cost much more than a call out charge to fix the old kit anyway.

Andy.

MY00PPP

this might sound stupid however....swap the batteries in the remote for new ones. My neighbour had a problem similar to yours which was fixed with new batteries I kid you not.

Worth a try for 30 seconds of your time!.

Rich

bootsy

handy site for sky
Nice Blog: Sky Plus system fault, how to fix faulty Sky+ without £65 callout fee