Sat. signals

[CeeJay]

Please excuse my being totally confused but last night whilst just about to watch the dire England game against Third Division opposition it started to rain here in 34, not a lot but sufficient to hammer down on the roof. Consequently the television screen showed that a signal was not being received, fine, but I could still get C.4 & C.5 and most of the other funny channels but I could not get any BBC & ITV programmes.

Now I realise that signals are being received from different, albeit very close, satellites, but surely BBC & ITV signals should be stronger(?) than these other odd channels.

I did check the signal strength and signal quality during this period and they were both down from the usual, when I did at last receive a signal they were both up!

As I write this there is another heavy shower, not storm, and once again those two channels are not being received but the others are! Am I being thick here in thinking that there something wrong with my setup which is affecting the strength and quality of signal during inclement times or is this the norm. I would appreciate comments from our well known boffins (Martin?).

[Acegundog]

Hello Ceejay

Here's a thread with a similar topic.

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1079038/ShowPost.aspx

Hope it helps.

AGD

[Anton Redman]

As it is too wet to render, garden or paint :

 

The BBC have as a opted to move their services to the beam which is most tightly focussed on the UK. Steps that you can take:

1. Minimise the number of joints between the dish/LNB and your digibox. I have mine set up so that the lead from the LNB emerges from a hole in a blanking plate rather than having a socket with a fly lead on the wall.
2. Minimise the cable run from the dish to the digibox and use the best quality cable.
3. Make sure you are using the best LNB
4. If possible arrange you dish under the eaves so that it has a clear view of the satellite but the rain does not fall on the path from the dish to the LNB
5. Fine tune dish alignment and skew for BBC1 instead of the default transponder.

 

Fine tuning the dish alignment.

 

Before you start moving any thing. Mark the elevation on the dish with a paint line or scratch so that you can recover the same position if every thing goes wrong.

Walk down the garden at least 10 metres and hammer a stake into the ground so you can find the exact angle if anything goes wrong.

Wait for a dry day (August 2009 ?) if possible and take you digibox and a small portable TV outside so that you can see them as you move the dish by minute amounts.

Maximise the signal strength then quality on the default transponder:

1. Move the dish up and down and left to right by minute amounts first maximising strength then quality.
2. Lock the position then move the LNB clockwise or anticlockwise and also in and out again concentrating on quality

 

Use the following sequence on the remote control

 

Services (green oval button)

4   System Set Up

0  1  Select ( NB nothing is shown on screen till you press Select)

2  Default transponder

 

The Default Transponder Menu Looks like this

 

Frequency (GHz) 11.778

Polarisation V

Symbol Rate (Mbaud) 27.5

FEQ 2/3

Save New Settings

 

For ITV1 you change the setting to

 

Frequency (GHz) 10.758

Polarisation V

Symbol Rate (Mbaud) 22.0

FEQ 5/6

Save New Settings

 

For BBC 1

 

Frequency (GHz) 10.773

Polarisation H

Symbol Rate (Mbaud) 22.0

FEQ 5/6

Save New Settings

 

Repeat the steps for maximising shown above.

 

Restore the default settings and check signal strength and quality are still OK (they may be a bit worse but if they are still good it is a step in the right direction)

 

We lost BBC2 for about three minutes last night but we had at least 3 cms of rain in under 2 hours.

 

Best of luck

[Martin963]

Can't add anything to Anton's excellent advice;   the BBC moved from Astra 2A with wide European coverage to Astra 2D (more tightly beamed on the UK) so that they could tell the rights issuers that they could only be picked up in the UK,   allowing them to abandon encryption.   Herault is getting close to the limit of "easy" reception of 2D and it's likely to be the first signal to go.

Having said that our 2D signal has deteriorated recently - Wendy swears blind she only bashed the 5 deg west dish with the mower but I'm beginning to wonder if she's fibbing (or doesn't know the difference!).   If it would only bl**dy stop raining for half an hour I'd try and find out what's wrong.

We've been over here for two months and we've had seven nice days in that time.   Surely a record for miserable weather......?

[CeeJay]

Martin & Anton

Thanks for the replies, I didn't realise that the signal for BBC had been focussed so that may well be the root cause of the problem. Now I need to sort out the connections as detailed from Anton and hope to stabalise things.

[Martin963]

Perhaps I should add that the BBC changes took place in summer 2003,  so if your problems commenced more recently then there's probably a "local" explanation....

[Chas]

A bit of a hijack really but we have also lost our signal and have followed Anton's advice without success. Nothing in the signal strength or quality, network ID 0000 and transport stream 0000.  [:(] 

I'm certain that the dish has not moved but on the LNB the plastic 'cover'(?) that faces the dish is badly cracked. could water ingress during last nights heavy rain have shorted something out and caused my problem.  If so are LNBs standard items and readily available? All advice greatfully received.

[Gyn_Paul]

The others will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think modern boxes have short circuit protection, older ones had an actual fuse ! Turn the box off at the wall or pull the plug out of the back. now go to the lnb and unscrew the f connector. Next unscrew the connector from the end of the cable. now inspect it for water ingress. (slapping the end of the cable into the palm of your hand will usually leave a damp patch). If you have access to an AVO meter, disconnect the cable at the box and measure the resistance. That will soon tell you if the cable is clean or not.

Your only option now is to cut out the wet bit and re-make the connection.

paul

[Chas]

New LNB purchased, installed and skewed. Perfect picture.  [:)]  Dismantled the old LNB - as you do - and there was indeed a significant amount of water inside.  Thanks for all help and advice.

[Fridgeman]

Hello Ceejay

After reading your post a couple of times and then the answers people have given, which I must say has all been good advice I feel the one point that seems to have been missed is what size dish have you got, if it is smaller than 80cm in my opinion you are liable to get drop out in poor weather (heavy rain, snow ect) apart from that I think everything else has been covered.