Why does my sky+ show different strength for the two inputs

JohnBoy

We've been suffering quite a bit of bad reception recently, weather related, but I'm starting to wonder has the dish been moved off kilter too. I also added a connection to the LNB for a saorview combo box in recent weeks.

So I've gone into the signal section in the menu and I see that input 1 strength is averaging 50-60% and quality is fairly solidly 70-80%

however input 2 is dropping down to 30/40 and at best is getting up to 50/50

Any idea why one input would be so much worse than the other coming off the one LNB?

is it worth trying to tweak the alignment? the roof ladder is still up from installing the saorview a week and a bit ago.

(before anyone has a freakout over H&S it's really accessible from a lower roof, it's a proper roof ladder and I'm safe up on it)

Sir Arthur Daley

The cable is a factor, connector quality.

White Heart Loon

Redo connections

JohnBoy

Thanks for the quick replies folks. hmm, cant do too much to check the connections right now. Revenge is recording, I'd be shot

the better signal is coming from the cable I installed myself to add the sky+ last year. goes direct from the dish to the box.

the poorer signal is the original cable that sky put in, and I put onto a backplate on the wall with a short cable into the box.

I'll jiggle with all the connections at the weekend and see if I can improve things. might be able to temporarily bypass the wall plate too and put an F connector directly on the cable. after that I suppose it's see if there's anything amiss up top.

steveon

JohnBoy wrote: »

Thanks for the quick replies folks. hmm, cant do too much to check the connections right now. Revenge is recording, I'd be shot

the better signal is coming from the cable I installed myself to add the sky+ last year. goes direct from the dish to the box.

the poorer signal is the original cable that sky put in, and I put onto a backplate on the wall with a short cable into the box.

I'll jiggle with all the connections at the weekend and see if I can improve things. might be able to temporarily bypass the wall plate too and put an F connector directly on the cable. after that I suppose it's see if there's anything amiss up top.

Would be worth your while bypassing the wallsocket you will increase signal straight away..

Irish Steve

Before you do too much, try swapping the cables between the 2 tuners, just to make sure, I have 2 Sky Plus boxes here, and a couple of combo boxes. all running on a multiswitch system, so the LNB is isolated from the boxes. One of the boxes shows a difference between the signals, and if I swap the cables over, the signal strength doesn't change, for whatever reason, the tuners in the box are different quality.

That said, a faceplate on the wall will degrade the signal some, but it shouldn't make that much difference, unless there's something else going on with either the LNB or the cables. Some of the cable used a few years ago wasn't the best quality, so that might also be a factor.

Another possible is that some water has got into the cable, and is attenuating the signal. if the cable comes over a sharp edge anywhere on the way down, over time, especially with weather like we've had recently, the cable outer insulation can be abraded, and that can then allow the cable to fill with water, to the extent that eventually, it will start dripping on to the floor, or even short out the cable completely, stopping the LNB from working correctly on that channel.

And yes, the recent very high winds may have moved things slightly, perhaps enough to upset the signal quality, the receiver signal strength indicator is usually as good a way as any to set the dish for best quality.

JohnBoy

steveon wrote: »

Would be worth your while bypassing the wallsocket you will increase signal straight away..

would an F type joiner be better than a wallplate? I dont have the cable length to connect directly to the original cable on a full time basis.

Peter Rhea

Does the wall plate use a female f-connector socket? If it's just a 'normal' aerial plug, you should definitely get rid of it.

JohnBoy

No it's an F type wallplate alright, but there is the short bit of wire at the back which is unshielded and that mighnt be helping?

Peter Rhea

If this feed was working alright until recently, there is probably an underlying factor, as already mentioned: water in the cable or a slight movement of the dish that affected this feed more, as it may have been a bit weaker to start with.

If removing the wall plate makes any difference, it will probably just be the slight little bit needed to bring the signal back in spec., just. So might appear to have done the trick but would most likely fail again when the 'underlying factor' gets worse.