Channel 4 signal breaking up

Ciarrai76

Anyone else have a problem with Channel 4 on sky? the past few nights it starts breaking up and is unwatchable. Its seems to be the same with E4 and More4 too.
don't know what to do with it...

Avns1s

Any cordless phone equipment close to your skybox or cables?


It can cause exactly the symptoms you describe.

Ciarrai76

well there is a cordless phone on its holder on the other side of the wall in the kitchen, but its been there a while and this only started this week I think.

Avns1s

It would want to be close enough (3-6 feet) to cause a problem in my experience.

It could also be the cable, the lnb or even the box itself. I know that really narrows it down!! Sorry!

Ronnie Raygun

You're better off with Freesat if you only want the main UK channels.

Ciarrai76

what is freesat? not heard of it. Can you get it all over Ireland? we are looking to reduce our sky bill, but can't agree on what to drop from it! Have been talking about what other options are available to us without loosing channels we enjoy (well so I don't loose channels like E :lol). Our sky bill is too high so open to checking out other options. I'm in Kerry so the likes of UPC isn't available here yet.

Ronnie Raygun

Remove the card from your Sky box & see what's left, that's Freesat (more or less). If you want to keep the likes of E!, it's a no go.

Cantona's Collars

Ciarrai76 wrote: »

what is freesat? not heard of it. Can you get it all over Ireland? we are looking to reduce our sky bill, but can't agree on what to drop from it! Have been talking about what other options are available to us without loosing channels we enjoy (well so I don't loose channels like E :lol). Our sky bill is too high so open to checking out other options. I'm in Kerry so the likes of UPC isn't available here yet.

Ring Sky,they might give you a discount.The premium channels (Sports & Movies) are the expensive ones.Many people drop them for the Summer months & save up to €43 a month in the process.

Regarding picture breakup on ch4, move the cordless phone and see if that helps.

Ciarrai76

we dropped a few things a few months ago, got our bill down a little. We have multiroom, a sky+hd box and an old sky digi box (which is the one the channel 4 problem is on...maybe its cos its old!).
I rang sky to ask if we could upgrade the old digi box to a sky+ box and they expect us to pay a ridiculous price for it so I said not a hope!

muffler

Ciarrai76 wrote: »

we dropped a few things a few months ago, got our bill down a little. We have multiroom, a sky+hd box and an old sky digi box (which is the one the channel 4 problem is on...maybe its cos its old!).
I rang sky to ask if we could upgrade the old digi box to a sky+ box and they expect us to pay a ridiculous price for it so I said not a hope!

You should pick up a new box for around 50 or 60 euro over on Adverts.ie

Ciarrai76

I spoke to someone about picking up a box and if I don't have the cabling done in the other room (where the old digi box is) it won't work.
Ideally I'd like to get rid of Sky as I'm sick of them, but my husband isn't so sure...God forbid he'd loose sky sports etc! lol

muffler

Ciarrai76 wrote: »

but my husband isn't so sure...God forbid he'd loose sky sports etc! lol

You have a good man there

Puggy

I have Freesat, you can get info here http://www.freesat.co.uk/ or http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/. It would cost you to buy a freesat + box, maybe a Humax or EchoStar. I have the Technisat box, its a single tuner, so stay away from it if you want to have Sky HD+ functionality.

I also have Sky as I wanted F1 coverage, but could not see all the races on BBC any more. Got a 12 month sub, but will be dropping it, as the only channels my wife/daughter watch that are not on freesat are E! and MTV.

batistuta9

i noticed this too just tonight, after seeing this thread i checked when watching it

it's definitely happening with CH4, CH4+1, BBC1 & BBC2 didn't really check the rest (E4, etc.) the the rest of the channels seem fine

me & the OP can't be the only 2 in ireland to have this problem

montgolfiere

in our case itsounds like your dish may require 'fine tuning' or your Lnb might be on the way out..... The C4 E4 on their own situation can be caused by interference......

kbell

Op, power down the phone base station completely, just moving it sometimes won't solve the problem as the frequencies are still present.
If your box Is a Thompson then it's likely a psu failure.

montgolfiere

montgolfiere wrote: »

in our case itsounds like your dish may require 'fine tuning' or your Lnb might be on the way out..... The C4 E4 on their own situation can be caused by interference......

Yes, if it's only Channel 4 then it is a DECT related issue, here's why.

The transponder which carries the encrypted Irish versions of Channel 4 is downconverted by the LNB to a frequency where DECT phones interfere with it. It shouldn't be a problem unless there's a fault or the cable is badly shielded. A currently unoccupied transponder on Eurobird is also susceptible to the same problem as it would be downconverted to a similar IF.

12480-10600= 1880 MHz. I've attached a photo from my router (which contains a DECT base station) that illustrates this.

batistuta9

after only noticing this on the channels i mentioned last night today i seen this was happening on RTE1, RTE2, TV3, TG4 and some of the other sky channels sky1, living, maybe it was happening to every channel idk

so after seeing the posts about the wireless phone possibly being the problem i unplugged it completely, turn sky off at the plug too, restarted & tried sky again - it seemed to fix the problem.

i plugged the phone back in though since & the problem still seems to have gone

i never moved the phone though & it's been in that spot since sky was installed and there was never a problem before.

wonder was it just a coincidence? or anybody have another explanation

Ciarrai76

I was adding some extra channels back on as I'd unplugged the box last night & lost my itv2 etc. I noticed there was channel4 on the list, so added it out of curiosity and when I watch it from the extra channels list its perfect. When I go into it on my normal channel list, its breaking up!??

Weird or what!

Ciarrai76

Ciarrai76 wrote: »

I was adding some extra channels back on as I'd unplugged the box last night & lost my itv2 etc. I noticed there was channel4 on the list, so added it out of curiosity and when I watch it from the extra channels list its perfect. When I go into it on my normal channel list, its breaking up!??

Weird or what!

Yep, the one you tuned in is one of the FTA versions on Astra 1N.

Ciarrai76

Karsini wrote: »

Yes, if it's only Channel 4 then it is a DECT related issue, here's why.

The transponder which carries the encrypted Irish versions of Channel 4 is downconverted by the LNB to a frequency where DECT phones interfere with it. It shouldn't be a problem unless there's a fault or the cable is badly shielded. A currently unoccupied transponder on Eurobird is also susceptible to the same problem as it would be downconverted to a similar IF.

12480-10600= 1880 MHz. I've attached a photo from my router (which contains a DECT base station) that illustrates this.

sorry but I'm totally lost lol

Ciarrai76

Ciarrai76 wrote: »

sorry but I'm totally lost lol

Don't worry about it, just giving some technical info as to why cordless phones interfere with Channel 4 on Irish cards. The version you tuned in isn't affected by cordless phones.

Ciarrai76

I forgot to move the phone in the kitchen last night, but I've just done it now and unplugged it and the all the channel 4 stations are perfect again!
Must have been the problem after all!
Thanks for the help

batistuta9

Karsini wrote: »

Don't worry about it, just giving some technical info as to why cordless phones interfere with Channel 4 on Irish cards. The version you tuned in isn't affected by cordless phones.

if you're saying cordless phones only effects CH4, then how or what would've effected all the channels i mentioned on mine?

batistuta9

batistuta9 wrote: »

if you're saying cordless phones only effects CH4, then how or what would've effected all the channels i mentioned on mine?

In your case it must be something else - maybe dish alignment, water ingress in the cabling or PSU failure on the receiver.

batistuta9

Karsini wrote: »

In your case it must be something else - maybe dish alignment, water ingress in the cabling or PSU failure on the receiver.

restarting the sky box & unplugging the wireless phone for a bit seemed to fix it though, what are the chances that this was a coincidence.

or could this have been some problem with sky? i didn't think any other channels were effected until today, maybe they weren't or the OP never noticed.

but if it's any of the things you mention it should only be a matter of time before it happens again though, right?