Old digibox problems?

[Richard]

We've recently moved and had a new dish installation. We have two 'digiboxes' fed from a dual head on the dish (perhaps, more correctly, a split head - sold as such, not just 2 cables to 1 head). One digibox is a Skybox around 5 years old, the other is a FTA box around 2 years old. The problem that we're encountering is confined to the Skybox, which for certain channels, notably BBC2 and News24, initially displays the message 'No satellite signal being received' but then, after perhaps a minute or so, the station appears and picture quality is fine. The FTA box works correctly on all channels all the time. It's not a great problem and we can live with it, just a matter of waiting for the programme to appear, but I wondered if it was a 'known' problem, either with older boxes or with the dual head set-up and whether there is likely to be any simple remedy (apart from buying a new box!)

[Chancer]

Grundig?

[ColinE]

Hi Richard

I get some think like this with my set up in the UK, I believe its static build up, try disconnecting from the mains for a short while, then try again, I have a multi room set up, it all seem to start with this, some times I get nothing, so go through the same routine, this normally sorts it.

[Richard]

[quote user="ColinE"]

Hi Richard

I get some think like this with my set up in the UK, I believe its static build up, try disconnecting from the mains for a short while, then try again, I have a multi room set up, it all seem to start with this, some times I get nothing, so go through the same routine, this normally sorts it.

[/quote]

Thanks, I'll try that, although the problem has remained constant throughout many 'box-swiches', cable changes, etc.

Yes, the Skybox is a Grundig, using the '£20' Skycard (card bought about 3 - 4 years ago).

[Chancer]

In my experience it will progressively get worse until it is unusable or gives up the ghost, in the meantime you will have to do more and more forced reboots until it gets to be too much trouble.

In my case it was a blessing in disguise as I now watch French TV via free.fr

The problem is underrated electrolytic capacitors in the power supply which must have saved the makers less than a penny per unit, some people sell kits of capacitors, or they can be bought individually much cheaper once you have the values but as the sellers of these kits say "this should be good for a couple of years" it dint seem worth the bother to me, and I have (stored somewhere!) all the kit to do the job.

There are plenty of new type skyboxes on e-bay (UK) but the difficulty for me has been to win the auction of one close to my home there just before I am due to return, although many are advertised as willing to post to France or Spain so I think people know of their value here!