Sky problems 12th Nov?

[Stefan]

Has anybody heard of anybody having problems with Sky tonight ( 12th at around 1930 Local)....[geek]

I gather the message is "No satellite signal is being received" - perhaps it is just my neighbours Sky box on the blink [;-)]

[Acegundog]

Hello Stefan

We have had the same message in the past. Turn the sky box off and back on and normally this clears the problem.  Apparantly it could be due to bad weather too.

 

[Stefan]

AGD

I told my friend...[;-)] He pulled the plug out of the wall, waited five minutes and then plugged the power back in .it works fine now, thanks - now he's complaining that having fixed it he can't find anything worth watching but I guess that's not as easy a problem to resolve...Thanks again

[Acegundog]

Glad to be of help and I wish I could help with what's on but that's a little more tricky!

 

 

[Martin963]

It is EXTREMELY rare for satellite transmissions to fail as (generally) they're backed up with a positive army of reserve equipment.   It's therefore always worth looking nearer home for causes of blank screens.

Having said that,  TPS was off air on at least three transponders last Friday (or was it Thursday) -  something I've never witnessed before on a "serious" satellite broadcaster.   So it can happen.

[Pierre ZFP]

If you like, I'll swing by the Astra Satellite farm on the way home tonight, it's not far out of my way at Wasserbillig.

'Hey Guys, what are you up to? It's not rocket science you know!'  -  Oh wait a minute.... yes it is..... [geek]

Flying back to Lux on Monday morning, we took the Easterly approach to the airport which takes you just over the German border before swinging around over Wasserbillig. Now I was looking out the window and I noticed that we flew EXACTLY in line with the sat dishes such that the aerial bit was pointing straight at us.  I can imagine the conversation  in the control room. 

'Hey we just got a big blip on all our transmissions!!'

'Don't worry, it's just a little Fokker flying in front of the dishes'  [:$]

 

[Deimos]

I had a similar problem same day around the same time.  Picture kept pixelating really badly mostly frozen with occasional blips of sound.  Signal quality and strength were both excellent (really really good).  Seemed fine until changing channels when it immediately went bad.  Then, changing channels a bit more would eventually find one ok then back to original as it might be ok until next channel change. I disconnected from mains waited a bit and then powered up again and all went fine.  I had a power cut most of the morning so put it down to an electrical supply blip when the power came back on, but maybe they were doing a software update or something (I have had reception problems related to software updates before - not a duff update but something to do with the process of updating).

Ian

[Pierre ZFP]

Hmmm that's about the time of day when a whole squadron of cargo Jumbo Jets from China take off/land. I bet they cause a bigger blip than a little Fokker when the wind is in the wrong direction.

[Martin963]

Update problem causing receiver instability sounds possible. 

Bear in mind that the BBC channels (at least) are uplinked direct to 28 2 deg E from the UK and not from Luxembourg.

I can't prove the physics,  but I would have thought that at the distance a plane is likely to be from the uplink dishes it would appear as a speck in the beam and not cause the slightest problem.  A hand over an LNB stops the signal dead,  but move your hand two feet away and wave it in the signal path and it won't have any effect....

But that's only my empirical guess!

[Pierre ZFP]

I was only kidding [:(]

and it gave me the chance to work 'Fokker' into a posting ....twice [:D]

Didn't know about the BBC uplink, thought it was all from Lux due to their 'special' communications status in the EU.

[Acegundog]

"and it gave me the chance to work 'Fokker' into a posting ....twice "

 

Looks to me like you managed to get three 'Fokkers' in if you count the last one too!

 

 

[Martin963]

A Dutch anesthetist friend who has a house near us in 24 asked us about an incident that had happened to him earlier in the year when he had been asked (at his hospital in Holland) to put a mid-20's English woman to sleep for an operation.

In his best bedside manner he said to her as he approached,  syringe in hand - "Now don't worry,  I'm coming with a little prick".

We confirmed - as much by our actions as anything we could say - that the resultant helpless laughter had not been a one-off.  They had to wait several minutes while the patient regained control of herself.

I did enjoy the Fokkers too!

Laters:  the whole point of this post has been lost because this forum won't let me type pr*ck!

[Deimos]

Happened to me again last night.  Previous time was whilst watching Film 4, last night on Channel 4.  Switched to BBC/ITV and reception fine; just Channel 4 with virtually no sound and a mostly frozen very pixelated picture.  Unplugged and re-started and problem remained.  After 15 mins it all went away and was fine again.  All the way through the signal strength and signal quality were both excellent and weather remained clear throughout.

Ian

[Martin963]

Difficult to say.   The signal strength and quality meters only look at one transponder (unless you do a series of manipulations to force them to look at another) so they won't always tell you of a problem on another specific transponder.

There are examples of this sort of thing happening at the same time of day every day,  although mostly it's been reported from Spain where the signal can be weaker.  In these cases it's been a question of re-aligning dishes for the best compromise between Astra 2A,  2B,  2D and Eurobird (and soon 2C,  if it isn't already there).  If your dish is (say) optimised for 2D (and therefore the BBC and ITV) it could be that a small and temporary reduction in power on - say ch 4 - would show up.   I can't remember the exact details of when it happens but the sats do rely on battery power when the earth passes between them and the sun;  in addition they move about in their slots (by up to 150 kms) which can JUST cause trouble if your dish is not quite on that satellite when it's at the "end of its tether".

I wouldn't do anything unless the problem persists,  and I'd borrow someone else's box to check,  and take your box to someone else and see if the same thing happens there....(if you can)