Sky/Freesat/FTA reception issues

Gulliver

Hi all

I have a strange problem with my satellite signal - my Sky+ box just doesn't get the same signal strength as an FTA or Freesat box.

If I connect a Lidl SD sat receiver, I get 98% strength and 96% quality on a signal test.

If I connect a Sagemcom Freesat HD box, I cannot activate the normal way (put in NI postcode) as it says no signal is being received. However, if I skip that bit, I can do a manual scan and get all the Freesat channels, including BBC/ITV HD channels and red button. This box now shows 95% strength and 91% quality.

HOWEVER, if I attach my Pace Sky+ box, signal strength varies from non-existent to less than 10% and quality goes up and down between 20% to 40% (never even reaches the half bar stage). Certain channels like SyFy are unwatchable (waits for joke about it being unwatchable anyway...) due to blocking.

The LNB is an octo LNB and dish is standard minidish.

I have checked all the terminations (all tight, no corrosion, no stray braid touching cores), borrowed the two other sat boxes to test signals, made minute adjustments to the dish alignment while attached to each of the 3 boxes to see if it was slightly off, but nothing changes. The Sky signal never gets any better. The others never go higher than 98%.

I have no clue where to go from here. A friend suggested that the Pace box is just useless anyway and has crappy tuners.

Can anybody shed any light on this?

Avns1s

Try the pace box on another known working dish & LNB and you'll know whether the issue is with the box.

What you've written would suggest the box is faulty.

Gulliver

Avns1s wrote: »

Try the pace box on another known working dish & LNB and you'll know whether the issue is with the box.

What you've written would suggest the box is faulty.

Thanks. Getting someone to volunteer to let me loose on their system might be difficult, though.

I was thinking the box might be coming to the end of its life, but I assumed it would just die completely. Might look into moving up to a Sky+ HD box.

Peter Rhea

Gulliver wrote: »

. . . If I connect a Sagemcom Freesat HD box, I cannot activate the normal way (put in NI postcode) as it says no signal is being received. However, if I skip that bit, I can do a manual scan and get all the Freesat channels, including BBC/ITV HD channels and red button. This box now shows 95% strength and 91% quality.

HOWEVER, if I attach my Pace Sky+ box, signal strength varies from non-existent to less than 10% and quality goes up and down between 20% to 40% (never even reaches the half bar stage). Certain channels like SyFy are unwatchable

SyFy is on Eutelsat 28A at 28.5 degrees east (as opposed to the Astra sats. at 28.2), as is the Freesat data channel. Maybe the transponder used by the Sky box for signal readings is there too.

You could try nudging your dish slightly eastwards, shouldn't affect 28.2 much.

Maybe first you could use the FTA or Freesat receivers to check signal quality on some of these channels.