Intermitent loss of BBC channels

[Bastet]

Salut à tous,

We have Sky with a monthly contract - no probs in the 4 years we've been in France except recently, we've started to lose, from time to time, and mostly in the evening, the BBC1 channel local to our contract address (London), BBC2, 3 & 4, BBC 24 News, but not BBC Parliament (lucky us) 

We can get any other of the regional BBC1s, but not another BBC2. The signal quality and strength remain at 100% and nearly 100% respectively throughout this loss which lasts from one to several hours. The weather doesn't seem to be a factor.  The message just states no satellite signal being received.  It's not the end of the world but it is annoying. Does anybody have any ideas why it's happening?

Thanks.

[Pierre ZFP]

Yeah strange that.  There's another thread going where someone's losing sound on some channels sometimes.  I get this channel dropping too but I just assumed it was because I was using a no-name FTA box and a tiny (35  cm ) dish.  Actually, I live quite near the Astra sattelite farm in Luxembourg so I might drop by and see what's going on.  After all, it's not rocket science...........Oh yeah that's right, it is....

[Btuckey]

I would suspect dish misalignment.  The vast majority of ‘installers’ align the dish to the default transponder on Astra 2.  Even if this gives a very good Strength and Quality reading, you can still get problems with BBC and ITV which are on Astra 2D’s weaker transponders. The trick is to fine tune the dish once again but this time with the digibox set to measure one of the weaker transponders that the BBC uses. Incidentally, most satellite installers don't do this which is why there are so many dishes where BBC or ITV is lost intermittently.

 

Brian  

[Martin963]

And for some reason (observed by several "experts" in the past)  the LNB on the dish can be idealised for the BBC channels by twisting it a few degrees clockwise (as seen when standing in front of the dish,  ie south of it).  28 deg east already requires a small twist in this direction (skew correction) but for some reason it has been observed that the BBC channels are even further skewed than the Sky ones - maybe they never quite installed Astra 2D true when they last had the ladders up in the sky above Luxembourg [:)]

Seriously though it's a small adjustment,  max 15 deg off normal....    French installers are sometimes unaware of the need for skew regulation as "their" satellites are nearer due south (ie 19 E,  13 E,  and 5W) and they can get away with not knowing about the need for skew on satellites nearer the horizon.

But check the dish alignment first - as stated above your signal meter only shows the strength on the default transponder,  which isn't a BBC one.

[Nick Trollope]

I had exactly this problem a few days ago. Turned out to be the LNB (which was a very old "Cambridge").

 

[Bastet]

Hello all,

Thanks for the suggestions.    I'll show them to my husband, who installed the dish himself; I'm sure they'll make sense to him. I don't even know what the LNB is.....

[Bastet]

Hi chaps,

Sorry to be banging on about this again but would like some more input if possible.

Loss of BBC channels started to extend to some others and radio channels, so we bit the bullet and called out local TV installer who has successfully fitted several Sky systems to neighbours. After a few minutes of tweaking on Friday afternoon, the loss was rectified and we were all happy bunnies. Later that evening we had about a 5 minutes loss of BBC 1 & 2 but it seemed Ok after that until last night when it went off just before the Catherine Tate show and still hadn't come back 2 hours later.   It's fine at the moment.

It is possible that something in the LNB has degraded?  The loss of these channels has become much more frequent over the last few weeks.  Is it just co-incidental that it's worse at night?

Installer is shut today but I'll be waiting on their doorstep when they open tomorrow morning.

[Anton Redman]

LNBs do wear out and unless the system had moved due to high winds would be the second thing I would check. The first thing I would do is swop to a digibox which I knew was working becasue it is easier than going up a ladder.