Merged: Setanta Reception Problems

irishtoffee

Anyone else having trouble with setanta channels when it rains,ie the channel gets stuck or no signal appears.All other channels are fine.

Drag00n79

Yeah, it's very bad sometimes. Setanta are the only ones causing me trouble. It only started in the last few weeks and it's not dependent on the weather with me. Apparently, many viewers are having the same problem. Here's a thread on Digital Spy about it.

ricey

Iv had Setants simce last year and the reception
sucks. Its always blocky and skipps.

Has anyone else this problem? Im thinking of gettin out the sub
but id like to keep it for the football.

colmranger

Folks,

Just to let you know Setanta signal and service is crap!

I joined up a few weeks ago and was counting down the days to the start of the new premiership to watch Aston Villa V Liverpool live on Setanta and guess what happened?

As soon as the game kicked off it began to rain outside and the signal was lost for the entire match.

I checked all the other channels both Sky and Setanta and they all worked fine except fo rthe one bloody one that was carrying coverage of the match.

Anyway i called Setanta and after waiting on the phone for 15 minutes i got through and the lady told me that this is because Setanta's signal is not as strong as Sky's signal.

She took my machines setup details and said she would try to send a stronger signal.

JUst to warn potential Setanta customers that this service looks to be way below the par of Sky and i told the lady i am considering pulling the plug especially if this is going to continue.

Anyway bottom line is that i have paid for a service that is not there!:(

L1011

Erm. Both you and the person you talked to have no idea about satellite broadcasting technology (Setanta's callcentre staff have no idea about anything much, from experience).

Neither Sky nor Setanta own satellites. They have no "signal". There is no way to send a "stronger signal" than the satellite supports. Both Setanta and Sky use the same collection of 4 satellites.

If your picture broke up when it started to rain, it is a problem with YOUR equipment at your premises - and nothing else. You need a bigger dish, or you need your current dish realigned.

irishtoffee

Thats bull in fairness,i am having the same problem.It started to rain with 15 mins to go and the picture froze.I put on sky sports and watched the wolves match and it was perfect.

dmeehan

it was fine for me today

?

SMERSH

+1

Get your dish checked before coming here and posting that tripe

L1011

irishtoffee wrote:

Thats bull in fairness,i am having the same problem.It started to rain with 15 mins to go and the picture froze.I put on sky sports and watched the wolves match and it was perfect.

Again, that's a problem with your equipment. Some transponders are stronger than others, but a poorly installed dish will frequently lose Eurobird in bad weather. Both Setanta and Sky use Eurobird for some of their channels.

Our man in Havana

MYOB wrote:

Erm. Both you and the person you talked to have no idea about satellite broadcasting technology (Setanta's callcentre staff have no idea about anything much, from experience).

Neither Sky nor Setanta own satellites. They have no "signal". There is no way to send a "stronger signal" than the satellite supports. Both Setanta and Sky use the same collection of 4 satellites.

If your picture broke up when it started to rain, it is a problem with YOUR equipment at your premises - and nothing else. You need a bigger dish, or you need your current dish realigned.

+1

OP go read up on sat signals. I suggest a call to someone and get your dish checked.

L1011

Was absolutely fine for me too, but my dish is properly installed (and massive).

byte

Threads on same subject merged.

irishtoffee

MYOB wrote:

Again, that's a problem with your equipment. Some transponders are stronger than others, but a poorly installed dish will frequently lose Eurobird in bad weather. Both Setanta and Sky use Eurobird for some of their channels.

Dish was checked and installed properly,every other channel is always perfect no matter what the weather is like.

Sir Oxman

No signal loss for me either today - as the Sat guys on here have said, if people actually lost the signal on Setanta today then it's their equipment/alignment is the problem.

PS Not overly impressed with the picture quality though - not as crystal as Sky Sports (IMO) plus the aftermatch analysis/show was crap!

L1011

irishtoffee wrote:

Dish was checked and installed properly,every other channel is always perfect no matter what the weather is like.

Check against Raj TV, BEN+1, Fizz or Sumo TV next time. These are on the same transponder and WILL be breaking up similarly if there are problems.

Note that all of enthusiasts and professional installers (who will all have properly installed and maintained systems) on here with Setanta had no problems, whatsoever.

mike65

I'll throw this in

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=640591

Mike.

L1011

They're reporting sound issues. And on DTT. Where the picture is lego at the best of times.

We're talking about dropouts, and on satellite.

KdjaCL

SMERSH wrote:

+1

Get your dish checked before coming here and posting that tripe

Setanta has always been **** for me, but sky is perfect, which half of my dish should i get checked?


kdjac

byte

More relevant thread perhaps:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=640397

Anyway, problem is with home setup, not with Setanta itself (maybe they should've used Astra 2, but Eurobird is cheaper).

L1011

KdjaCL wrote:

Setanta has always been **** for me, but sky is perfect, which half of my dish should i get checked?


kdjac

Alignment: its very possible your dish is pointing too far west and only picking up 28.2 reliably, which is where most (but not all!) Sky channels are; Setanta is on 28.5.

Could also be a niche problem due to a cordless phone but its usually Sky Movies that gets affected; that'd be due to poor cabling.

leex

Bolton V Newcastle was on before Villa V Liverpool yesterday and it was unwatchable on my tv - breaking up the whole time. Was getting "no sat signal" being received for start of Pool match but it cleared up again for most of Pool game. There was a light shower of rain outside which corresponded with this. It looked like symptoms of misaligned dish to me. A hotel nearby had same issue I heard.

Is the signal stength meter in the setup menu only for Astra? How would one correctly align for 28.5deg?

Mossy Monk

You could check the signal strength by going into the installer menu and typing the frequency in there.

Widescreen

leex wrote:

Bolton V Newcastle was on before Villa V Liverpool yesterday and it was unwatchable on my tv - breaking up the whole time. Was getting "no sat signal" being received for start of Pool match but it cleared up again for most of Pool game. There was a light shower of rain outside which corresponded with this. It looked like symptoms of misaligned dish to me. A hotel nearby had same issue I heard.

Is the signal stength meter in the setup menu only for Astra? How would one correctly align for 28.5deg?

I also felt reception on Bolton/Newcastle was not up to Sky standard clarity.
Strangely though for AVilla v scousers reception was 100% perfect. Only thing was though when severe downpour came the picture broke up but on checking all my other channels at the same time they still worked perfect :-/

I think Setanta may be doing things on the cheap. For a start I reckon the bit rate for Irish only broadcasts must be lowered deliberately and for the UK broadcasts they have to be seen to be up to standard otherwise they would get hammered in the uk press. Every other channel on my box was 100% perfect except that Bolton match...?!?!?!? anyone agree..or not!

Mossy Monk

Widescreen wrote:

anyone agree..or not!

No I don't. Setanta's bit rates are low for sure but no worse than ITV. Watch a game on that and you may aswell be streaming.

Widescreen

Mossy Monk wrote:

No I don't. Setanta's bit rates are low for sure but no worse than ITV. Watch a game on that and you may aswell be streaming.

Funnily enough I find the ITV matches perfect on Sky. Why though was the Villa match coverage perfect (ie sky standard), and Bolton v Newc not as good???

scart

Widescreen wrote:

Funnily enough I find the ITV matches perfect on Sky.

An appointment with your optician would be recommended:)

Drag00n79

I've never had a problem with the clarity of ITV's Champions League matches either. Far better than Setanta IMO.

ricey

im getting it out there support team are muppets!

this has been like a year and still its crap. id love for
it to work but what can you do.

L1011

ricey wrote:

im getting it out there support team are muppets!

this has been like a year and still its crap. id love for
it to work but what can you do.

Did you avoid reading the entire thread? Its a problem with YOUR EQUIPMENT not Setanta. Get a decent satellite installer out and it'll be fixed. Their support team are crap but as this isn't their problem, thats irrelevant.

colmranger

MYOB wrote:

Did you avoid reading the entire thread? Its a problem with YOUR EQUIPMENT not Setanta. Get a decent satellite installer out and it'll be fixed. Their support team are crap but as this isn't their problem, thats irrelevant.

I disagree,

Was raining heavy all evening and my Setanta picture was excellent!

I reckon Setahnta did some improving on the signal as the rep told me they would ove rhte phone Sat night

byte

Setanta have no control over the output power of transponders.

The only possibility was if the transponder was on low power temporarily (not sure if that's possible for individual tps) but that wasn't the case as many had no problem receiving Setanta.

So issue is down to user equipment. Most likely fault being misaligned dish, or LNB skew not correct, or cabling used is crap.

irishtoffee

Lashing all night here and setanta is perefect,rained barely on saturday and i couldn't see a thing.They must have done something with the signal.

L1011

colmranger wrote:

I disagree

You're wrong, though. Read byte's post.

irishtoffee wrote:

Lashing all night here and setanta is perefect,rained barely on saturday and i couldn't see a thing.They must have done something with the signal.

And you...



There is nothing Setanta can do to improve or disimprove one, or many peoples reception. They have no control over the power their channels are transmitted at. They transmit on four transponders, on both polarities, but all on one the one satellite. Which suggests you had a problem receiving Eurobird 1 on Saturday.

The problem on Saturday could have been to do with clouds - which I doubt you're taking in to account - or a problem on the part of Eutelsat (who own the satellite - and are the only people who can control transmission power). There certainly wasn't any problems over uplink, or else we'd all have been affected; and there was no general outage so I doubt there was any Eutelsat problems.

Widescreen

scart wrote:

An appointment with your optician would be recommended:)

Must be a white stick you need mate

Mossy Monk

colmranger wrote:

I disagree

Why then is it only affecting some people and not all?

Our man in Havana

User error, equipment not set up correctly, bad cabling take your pick.

leex

Watching Toulouse game currently. Reception was fine up to the 65th min then back to Saturday's pixelated vomit.

L1011

leex wrote:

Watching Toulouse game currently. Reception was fine up to the 65th min then back to Saturday's pixelated vomit.

And yet its still not Setanta's problem. Where are you, South Dublin just had absolutely TORRENTIAL rain.

ro2

Same here, I'll have to get the meter out and check the dish.

ro2

MYOB wrote:

And yet its still not Setanta's problem. Where are you, South Dublin just had absolutely TORRENTIAL rain.

Well Setanta chose the cheap option. If they got wallet out and went with Astra it wouldn't be a problem..

L1011

ro2 wrote:

Well Setanta chose the cheap option. If they got wallet out and went with Astra it wouldn't be a problem..

Sky use Eurobird too! And the main problem here is Sky using the cheap option of too small dishes for Ireland.

Additionally, there is currently zero capacity on the Astra 2 craft.

The Sparrow

Ok so does anyone know how much it would likely cost to get somebody out to check that my satelite is aligned properly? I'm having a lot of problems with Setanta breaking up.

I know the experts on here say that it is the users problem because of their equipment not aligned properly but I think most ppl would blame Setanta for this because they will see that the other channels that they watch like Sky Sports are fine and naturally assume that it is Setanta's problem. I would say that it could be a real problem for Setanta as the weather gets worse. I was in a pub this afternoon watching the liverpool game and every twenty five minutes or so when it rained the signal would dissappear. Obviously the publican wasnt happy because ppl were leaving and even when I tried to expxlain what I had read here most ppl were still blaming Setanta.

weehamster

Well Astra 2c is on its way to 28E as we speak (currently at around 25E and moving about .5 degrees a day) so extra capacity will be available soon.

Theres nothing wrong with Eurobird 1. Yes, its a bit weaker than the Astra2 satellites, but its more than strong enough to be pick up with a 60cm dish, even in heavy rain.

Now the monsoon rain showers which we have seen this summer is simply too heavy for any signal and I have easily lost Astra2D channels (which are the most powerful of all the fleet).
Don't forget that someplace's will have heavier rain than others. Some very heavy showers we've seen this year have been very localised.

However I do wish to point out that Dish's which are poorly aligned, installed or have moved (please don't forget people that dish's CAN move, even soon after they have been installed), will show up weaker signals.

There are other possible causes for poor signal:
Old or faulty LNBs - Older LNBs are crap and aren't as good for getting rid of noise (so will show up the weaker signals) as new ones today and over time tend to get worse. They also used poor plastic covers which over time let water in. Even if the LNB isn't that old, it is possible water can still get inside.
Check to see if birds haven't pecked a hole in the plastic cover (like they do with milk bottle tops).

Cable/Connectors - I've seen many installation's using poor quality cable. So during heavy rain, the poor cable will show up the weaker signals.
Also check to see if water (there has been loads if it lately) hasn't got into the cable (copper core has green on it). Water will bring down the quality signal down. Check for signs of rusting on the inside of the F-con on the LNB.

Receivers - Again like the older LNB's, old receivers are crap compared to new ones, especially the tuners which are visibly weaker. Even if you had a new receiver, it could have a faulty tuner (I have came across this a few times).

I was in the Goblet pub after the Dublin game and I also saw Setanta 1 breaking up,giving a No Signal message. Now I know that the dish in there have NEVER been checked since it was first put in and that the receiver they have showing Setanta is an old silver Grundig which can easily be faulty (infact I am surprised the receiver is still going). So basically what I'm saying, like most pubs, they haven't bothered to maintain it or update their system.

So don't be cheap-skates. Maintain and update your satellite system. If there is a problem with signal, get an installer out to look at it. They have the equipment (good installers that is).


So basically, please don't be typically Irish and give out to the first thing that come into your head. Yes Setanta isn't the best, but it is getting better and don't forget that they are MUCH SMALLER (and newer) than Sky. So I think they are doing a not bad job at all.

L1011

weehamster wrote:

Now the monsoon rain showers which we have seen this summer is simply too heavy for any signal and I have easily lost Astra2D channels (which are the most powerful of all the fleet).
Don't forget that someplace's will have heavier rain than others. Some very heavy showers we've seen this year have been very localised.

I've had complete wipeouts on a 110cm, properly aligned dish with a .3dB Fortec LNB and decent cabling, decent box etc in some of the rain this summer. I could BARELY get Astra 19 analogue on it, but it was like a snowstorm; and no digital from anywhere. Thats how bad it has been.

lecouvie

Setanta has just arrived in Canada and is being delivered by Bell Express-Vu to us. We are in a 2 week free preview and the service is awful.
1. Digital signal has been intermittent since day one, some soccer games are better than others, but many are not watch-able.
2. The guide information on Express-Vu is often incorrect, both venue and sport.
3. The times are wrong on the yellow screens you use to show what is up next, especially as you do not indicate time zone.
4. And finally there is no commentary at half time in the EPL games, just the yellow screen with the wrong times.

And for those who want to tell me about reception factors, the Sun is out, the sky is blue, no clouds and I have a 95-97% signal strength.

lecouvie

I have problems with them and it is sunny, blue sky, 75 degrees F and no trees in the way, 95% signal strength, they are awful.

Mossy Monk

Reallign your dishes. It's your setups that are ****ed, not Setanta.

Mossy Monk

lecouvie wrote:

And for those who want to tell me about reception factors, the Sun is out, the sky is blue, no clouds and I have a 95-97% signal strength.

That's all well and good. This thread is about Setanta through Sky Digital.

Our man in Havana

Is it simply a rebroadcast of the UK channels or is it a candian version?

Aquos76

Mossy Monk wrote:

Reallign your dishes. It's your setups that are ****ed, not Setanta.

Mossy is spot on. I have had to reallign at least 5 dishes so far. Setanta on mine is perfect also.

The problem lies with where that Setanta channels are. The majority of our dishes are lined up to 28.2E where as all of Setanta channels are on 28.5. The dish and the LNB need to be tweaked ever so slightly.

byte

Hasn't Setanta been available in the USA for years? I'd imagine the Canadian version to be similar to the US version?