No satellite in bad weather

Conar

Whenever it gets excessively windy or even when it rains I lose my satellite signal.
I am using a freesat card from Sky.
Could this be because I am on the edge of their footprint so the signal is low, or would it simply mean my dish needs tightened/re-alligned?

Our man in Havana

Possibly all of the above, but most likely badly alligned dish.

Conar

Any idea how much it costs to get someone out to reallign it?
Should I ask to see the signal strangth on the tester before they go or are most trustable?

watty

Would you know what the BER readings mean?

Conar

LOL.....thats a point.

MenloPete

If the dish is accessible you can easily check the alignment yourself, just by nudging the dish slightly in each direction and watching the signal quality indicator. Just take it easy, very slight adjustments can have a big effect.

natbraddy

check if it has worked loose first even slightly wobbly can send it off tighten it all up and it should go back to an original position without adjusting the dish if no joy you will have to get a technician out i am afraid

120_Minutes

I've suffered from this problem too, and my dish was professionally installed.

Mumha

We changed our LNB to a quad and the picture breaks up during heavy rain especially. Don't think there is really anything to be done.

Conar

120_Minutes wrote:

I've suffered from this problem too, and my dish was professionally installed.

Mumha wrote:

We changed our LNB to a quad and the picture breaks up during heavy rain especially. Don't think there is really anything to be done.

Are you guys using a freesat sky card or just normal sky tv?
Just wondering if its something I will have to accept when using freesat.
Maybe I'll borrow my parents sky card and test it on a rainy day.
Mine was also professionally installed btw, but it was at the beginning of summer and it works fine in calm weather.

cauliflower69

I professionally install sky systems with many other things but the common symptom is that your sky dish is not aligned properly or has moved slightly with wind etc, thus reducing your signal strength/quality. It may also be your LNB the unit with the white lid on the end of the dish.

It does not matter what type of system you own, as all systems function the same regardless.

You can go into the services and then to system signal and then just move dish slightly left to right (SLIGHTLY) and see does this help. If not try up and down. If no help then your LNB is duff and you can get one of them on ebay pretty cheap.

General call out fees are about 100 euro.

Hope this helps

Mumha

Conar wrote:

Are you guys using a freesat sky card or just normal sky tv?
Just wondering if its something I will have to accept when using freesat.
Maybe I'll borrow my parents sky card and test it on a rainy day.
Mine was also professionally installed btw, but it was at the beginning of summer and it works fine in calm weather.

I have both and it didn't matter. It was professionally installed.

Mumha

cauliflower69 wrote:

I professionally install sky systems with many other things but the common symptom is that your sky dish is not aligned properly or has moved slightly with wind etc, thus reducing your signal strength/quality. It may also be your LNB the unit with the white lid on the end of the dish.

It does not matter what type of system you own, as all systems function the same regardless.

You can go into the services and then to system signal and then just move dish slightly left to right (SLIGHTLY) and see does this help. If not try up and down. If no help then your LNB is duff and you can get one of them on ebay pretty cheap.

General call out fees are about 100 euro.

Hope this helps

But my Quad functions fine normally, just it is affected in very heavy rain. Don't think it is duff.

cauliflower69

Mumha wrote:

But my Quad functions fine normally, just it is affected in very heavy rain. Don't think it is duff.

Usually means poor signal. Check the bars in signal test when fine and when raining etc.

Or you may have a cheap quality LNB

Conar

cauliflower69 wrote:

I professionally install sky systems with many other things but the common symptom is that your sky dish is not aligned properly or has moved slightly with wind etc, thus reducing your signal strength/quality. It may also be your LNB the unit with the white lid on the end of the dish.

It does not matter what type of system you own, as all systems function the same regardless.

You can go into the services and then to system signal and then just move dish slightly left to right (SLIGHTLY) and see does this help. If not try up and down. If no help then your LNB is duff and you can get one of them on ebay pretty cheap.

General call out fees are about 100 euro.

Hope this helps

Nice one. The problem is that the issue only arises in bad weather so I'd rather fiddle with it then so I could see if it worked straight away.
No way I'm getting up on my roof in the wind or rain though so I guess it'll have to be a little trial and error to see if it resolves it.

cauliflower69

Sorry m8 forgot to mention if your box is old about three years or so the tuners are very weak.

Conar

cauliflower69 wrote:

Sorry m8 forgot to mention if your box is old about three years or so the tuners are very weak.

Its a Thomson DSI 4101. I remember reading that it was quite a storng tuner when I got it, you reckon thats true or am I kidding myself with dated tech?

cauliflower69

Very well may be if you have access to a new box plug it in and I guarantee that there will be a difference.

The new Amstard DRX 550 are a lovely little box.

Conar

How much would I pick a DX 550 up for? (If I found that my Thomson was a little weak)

Edit:
Just checked it out. Nice looking box. Mines a bit ancient looking compared to that.
http://www.amstrad.com/products/digisat/drx550.html

watty

The Tuners are fairly nearly irrelvent, not Weak/Strong, but vary according to ability to handle strong signals beside weak ones (irrelevent in Ireland, only important in Strong South beam areas with weak 2d, e.g. Gibraltar).

The "beginning bit" of the receiver is in the LNB.

With any working Digibox fast enough for the EPG software with correctly alligned dish the only difference of importance is the long term reliability. In the past Amstrad receivers were not reliable.

watty

Mumha wrote:

We changed our LNB to a quad and the picture breaks up during heavy rain especially. Don't think there is really anything to be done.

It is dish Alignment AND/OR rotation of the LNB. The LNB should be rotated clockwise/anti clock wise to maximise the Quality bar in Services |Setup | Signal test

Tony

Mumha wrote:

But my Quad functions fine normally, just it is affected in very heavy rain. Don't think it is duff.

If you want to simulate rain get a damp dish cloth and hang it over the lnb, you could then try moving the dish slightly to see if you can get an improvement on your sig strength/quality

watty

If it was OK before you switched from single to qual, it is the skew (rotation). Do what Tony says with someone viewing the QUALITY bar.

120_Minutes

My system is a standard sized dish, quad lnb, newer pace box (1 yr old) in livingroom (with sky sub card) and older panasonic box (5 yrs old, no card) in bedroom. During the last bout of heavy rain and wind, the panasonic was losing signal while the pace seemed to be fine (ish) I cant remember which box the card was in at the time (i move it from box to box as needs serve) but i think it was in the pace. The pace has lost signal in bad weather before, so i think the fault may lie in dish alignment rather than tuner trouble (the panasonic has never really let me down)

any thoughts?

snaps

Make sure cable is good quality with no kinks in it. My dad had terrible problem with signal loss. When i looked at the cable I noticed it was half CT100 and half normal TV coax. Replacing a full length of CT100 it works fine.

phildevan1

i've problems with 1 or 2 of the sports channels breaking up,the signal strength bar graph how high should it be.

watty

Signal strength is nearly irrelevent.

The Quality wants to be at least 70%

Conar

I just checked my signal strength/quality.
Strength is at 50-60%.
Quality is at about 10-15%.
Does that point to a pretty definite alignment issue as opposed to a cable/digibox/dish/lnb issue?

watty

usually, yes. Especially if unplugged digibox from mains till it totally cold and it does this from cold.

At that quality level reception would be erratic to non-existant. You could try VERY SLOWLY rotating LNB in holder to see if quality improves, but squew alone unless 40 degrees off would not make it so bad. Squew hardly affects level