channel 4 works on one box but not the other

mrhd

I have a sky disk with a quad lnb. I have my old sky box running off one connection on free to air and my new sky+ box running off the other two with my sky card in it.

Channel 4 and related channels E4 etc always work fine on the free-to-air old-sky box but 80% of the time they wont work on the sky+ box.

The usual causes of disk alignment or lnb alignment dont seem to make sense in this case as the old-sky box never has a problem with them. Is the sky+ tuner more sensitive.

Signal strength/quality is generally good on all three feeds.

Skull Murphy

Presumably the box with the subscription is receiving the "Irish" versions of Channel 4, E4 etc.: these are encrypted & the FTA box will be receiving an unencrypted version. Due to the frequency used, the Irish ones are prone to interference from DECT phones, unless good quality cable is used between dish & receiver.

If you have one of these phones, try switching it off.

Kevin!

mrhd wrote: »

I have a sky disk with a quad lnb. I have my old sky box running off one connection on free to air and my new sky+ box running off the other two with my sky card in it.

Channel 4 and related channels E4 etc always work fine on the free-to-air old-sky box but 80% of the time they wont work on the sky+ box.

The usual causes of disk alignment or lnb alignment dont seem to make sense in this case as the old-sky box never has a problem with them. Is the sky+ tuner more sensitive.

Signal strength/quality is generally good on all three feeds.

I'm having the exact same problem at the moment, realigned the dish about 2 hours ago and I'm receiving perfect picture for channel 4 on my fta box but sky box is jittery - it only seems to be channel 4 aswell

mrhd

Skull Murphy wrote: »

Presumably the box with the subscription is receiving the "Irish" versions of Channel 4, E4 etc.: these are encrypted & the FTA box will be receiving an unencrypted version. Due to the frequency used, the Irish ones are prone to interference from DECT phones, unless good quality cable is used between dish & receiver.

If you have one of these phones, try switching it off.

I have a Siemens cordless unit alright. I have my sky boxes and the phone base station in the same room. Even though I am using sat-cable RG6 it looks like you are spot on.

I switched off the cordless base station and the Channel 4 family of stations started to work fine. They dropped out again when I switched it back on. I will look at moving the base station to see if giving it a little distance is any help.

Is this a problem with all cordless phones. Is there any point in me getting a newer cordless, my Siemens is 10+ years old

Skull Murphy

I don't think changing the phone would be any help.

"RG6" has only the vaguest of meanings; seemingly the only thing the various cables so labeled have in common, is some kind of foil shielding under the braid. Some types wouldn't be great from an interference ingress POV.

"100" type cable e.g. Webro WF100, Triax TX100 will have all-copper shielding & centre conductor & is better than most RG6.

Liameter

If the LNB signal passes through a wall plate, that needs to be screened, too.

mrhd

The cable has a silver foil type screening. I looked at the markings again but it doenst give any more detail other than saying that it is 75 ohm.


I moved the phone base station to another part of the house and the problem is sorted. The base station was right next to the sky+ box so I must have been too close for comfort especially as I am feeding the TV from RF2 via a magic eye.

Many thanks.

Peter Rhea

Using RF outputs won't affect this problem in any way. Your username, is it 'Mr. HD'? You won't be getting HD from the RF output . . .

mrhd

H & D are my childrens initials. I am still on CRT, havent even dabbled my toe in the Flatscreen pond never mind HD.

Reminds me of the Dara O'Brian piece about his friend who had his HD TV connected to the sky-hd box using scart and had convinced himself that he had a HD picture. :-)