HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 10, 2013 Share Posted June 10, 2013 Everything was fine Saturday night but Sunday morning I just got a message saying the box wasn't receiving a signal. Nothing had changed overnight....I fell asleep listening to the radio, but when I turned on the TV Sunday morning nothing worked.I thought the LNB might have broken so I've just swapped it for a spare...still nothing...nowt, nada, rien. It's an Amstrad drx890, could it have just died on me? I guess I will have to find another expat in the vicinity to try my box on their setup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Val_2 Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 I suppose nothing works forever especially if it gets a good usage daily. That happened to us a couple of years ago and in the end it was the arm that sticks out from the dish with the LNB on the end that had snapped through rusting away. If you have a SKY subscription, has it been withdrawn etc? Removing the car and re-inserting and plugs and cables etc I expect you have done. One last thought, has the dish moved even within a fraction which would lose the signal?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 Having had a Sky box fail in the past it is normally the power side that fails so the fact that you can see the signal strength and quality screen indicates that the box may be OK but then only connecting it to a known working dish will check that. My Sky subscription lapsed but I was still able to get BBC1/2/3 and 4 etc in standard definition. LNB's are cheap to buy and you can try replacing that. Make a note of the 'skew' (rotation angle of LNB) and set the angle the same. The angle can vary a little between one make of LNB to another but only by a small amount, not enough to stop you getting some form of signal. If you are gentle I doubt you will need to realign the dish. If you have a spare couple of inches on the cable (so you can remake the end afterwards) you can remove the connector, twist the inner and outer together and check the cable with a meter at the other end to see if there are any breaks. Actually I would do this first before buying a new LNB. Unfortunately you can't check the LNB with a meter. Checking the dish has not moved as Val said is worth checking. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 Are both signal strength and signal quality at zero?I take it you've unplugged for five minutes from the mains (you probably did that anyway as a precaution when you changed the LNB?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 [quote user="Martin963"]Are both signal strength and signal quality at zero?I take it you've unplugged for five minutes from the mains (you probably did that anyway as a precaution when you changed the LNB?)[/quote]Yes, both 0.I've done a full reset. I've also checked that single input is on. re-checked the connections...twice. Had a look along the cable length...and there doesn't seem to be much wrong with it. The dish itself seems to be pointing in the right place. I can't physically move it by hand so I don't think it's slipped itself. I'm wondering if the dish was so marginally aligned that I was lucky to get a signal, and now the satellites/transponders have been shuffled around a bit that it was enough to lose the signal all together.We did have a thunder storm just before the ING marathon started, but it was still working OK after that.I don't have a subscription but it was happily letting me have all the free stuff up to Saturday night. I've posted on the works intranet here to try and find an ex-pat who might be able to help me out with a working setup. I'm not due to go home for another couple of weeks so I won't be able to test it any other way for a while.It's not so much the TV (although spring watch is always fun)...it'sTMS and the looming Ashes that I will miss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 It's a fairly long time since I was entirely familiar with Sky boxes but if the signal strength (as well as quality) is at zero (IIRC) it can mean that either there's a bad tuner failure or that the electrical contact with the LNB is not in place. I may be wrong about that, but I seem to recall that if both are at zero it means something more fundamental than mere dish mis-alignement. Can you take a volt meter to the LNB end of things and test for the presence of 13 or 18 V DC across the coax? (with the box on of course!)(At the risk of annoying H&S folk if you haven't got a volt meter then putting the F connector contacts across your tongue will tell you if there's a voltage, although it doesn't taste terribly nice). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 did the tongue test last night (that tookme back to being a kid and those 9v batteries!)...not a tingle...but as I don't have a voltmeter I can't absolutely prove it isn't getting power...or my tongue has been completely pickled over the years and it's mostly dead as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 Nah, you'd know - if you're familiar with the taste of 9V a vintage 13/18V would have been instantly recognisable.Of course you now need to find out whether there's 13/18V at the Sky box end. Could you make up a short length of coax with an F connector on one end and something convenient (suitably bared ends) to put in your mouth at the other - ie long enough to get from the Sky box rear side to your mouth? If there's nothing there either then it's a repair or a bin....Don't you just love baiting the H&S brigade....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 will do......tongue test is normally OK...it's when you waggle it enough to touch a molar...that opens your eyes a tad! If it's broken I will probably Fleabay it as it's a +HD it's got two virgin disks inside that someone might want. Plus, I can get myself a Humax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 this is getting more weirdI tried the short cable out the back and the tongue tingle test. Worked a treat, lots of volts. So I plugged the main cable back in with a view to try the LNB end again, but the box started searching for channels and BBC1 popped up....briefly. I checked the signal and it was S 50% Q 40% ish... picture went blocky and it went back to getting the message that it wasn't getting a signal. So I think it is leaning more towards a dish realignment. Or else it's dodgy electronics in the box where it gets warm, tunes in and drops out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 If it were me I would cut off the old connectors and remake both ends of the cable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 an update...I moved everything into my colocatrice's room and plugged into her system [:)] We jiggled things around a bit for a while. The box works fine. Moving back into my room there is no juice at the end of my cable [:(] ... it must be tired and worn out.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 How odd. Certainly the first thing to eliminate is the absence/presence of voltage at the LNB end - and as Quillan says that would involve remaking both end connectors - it's just possible that the inner coax core has oxidised enough to cause a poor transfer. But perhaps even more you need to get to the bottom of why the box sometimes "appears" not to provide DC across the RF input.I have known boxes that appear to work (ie boot up) UNTIL you connect the LNB - and that's it; clearly the LNB takes too much juice from a dying PSU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 13, 2013 Author Share Posted June 13, 2013 The cable im my flat mates set up had already been made up and the coax was a lot thicker. The box stayed up and stable for 15 minutes so it looked like everything was OK. The coax in my room is a lot thinner and doesn't seem as flexible. I made up both ends again as Quillan suggested and I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong for this type of coax. I've done this lots of times over the years with different systems so I don't think it's me ... but I don't know now. At least coax is relatively cheap and I can replace it myself.There is still time before the Ashes start so I'm still hopful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 I just wonder if some work has been done in the house and somebody cut the cable by accident. Alternatively if it runs through loft space etc it might have been attacked by some type of rodent etc. If there is no voltage then it is more likely that the cable is severed as there is a lot of 'metal' for the screen but only one piece for the centre. Still you will find out when you try and pull the new cable through using the old. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 an update on the update...Thanks for all the advice.I bought some more coax today and jerry-rigged dish-to-box to check, and everything is working fine. In fact, with a slight adjustment on the skew I've now got 70% strength 90% quality...best ever. I've still got to redo the cabling properly but it's a working system at last.Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 So, it was all a question of tongue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 14, 2013 Author Share Posted June 14, 2013 and j-j-j-j-j-jiggling it around a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rabbie Posted June 14, 2013 Share Posted June 14, 2013 [quote user="woolybanana"]So, it was all a question of tongue?[/quote]As the actress said to the bishop[:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted June 15, 2013 Share Posted June 15, 2013 Sounds as though you've hit on what needs doing. Glad you're sorted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoneySuckleDreams Posted June 16, 2013 Author Share Posted June 16, 2013 The cable had been almost sheared through. My flat mate must have got a bit clipper happy when trimming the hedge. A shame I didn't find it before, as it would have been really cheap to just buy a connector. I don't seem to be able to copy/paste photos on here anymore? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted June 16, 2013 Share Posted June 16, 2013 [quote user="HoneySuckleDreams"]I don't seem to be able to copy/paste photos on here anymore? [/quote]You have to use Potobucket (or similar). Read the link below.http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/819635/ShowPost.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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