No signal fix - Irish supplier?

Soarer

Morning all.

Having a little issue with my Skybox F5S (some channels aren't coming through), and it turns out something like this from ebay should cure the problem.
Before I order from the UK, I'm wondering if there are any Irish suppliers of something similar?

Thanks.

Peter Rhea

I take it that you're only missing vertically polarised channels? Or maybe you've checked the voltage going to the LNB?

That stuff in the seller's description about 'decent quality LNBs' is nonsense: specs. typically quote voltage for v. pol. in the range 10.5-14.5 volts & for h. pol., 15.5-21 volts.

Soarer

Never realised that that was the link between them, but now that you mention it, it is the vertically polarised channels.
Haven't checked the voltage (tbh wouldn't know how to!).

The problem goes away when I disconnect my other boxes and leave the F5S to it's own devices.

Peter Rhea

Soarer wrote: »

The problem goes away when I disconnect my other boxes and leave the F5S to it's own devices.

Yeah, I had a bit of a browse of some forums that deal with these kind of boxes: fair bit of mumbo-jumbo 'this works for me' kind of stuff. Mention of diodes & capacitors but, no explanation of what the actual cause of the problems might be & why any of the 'fixes' work.

The guy who posted this might be onto something:

Guy From Other Forum wrote:

The reason why these Sky/Openbox are failing to work correctly is because they are cheap chinese crap end of story

Soarer

Read somewhere that the F5S sends an 18V signal to the LNB regardless of whether the channel is horizontal or vertical. So when a vertical channel is looked for, the 18V outgoing signal kinda drowns out the 13V incoming signal. Better made boxes have the intelligence/capacity to adjust the outgoing signal depending on the incoming one.
The capacitor/diode thing basically trims 5V off the outgoing signal, so should leave the 13V vertical channels through.

Also, it's not that it's not working correctly. It works perfectly well as long as I don't have my other 2 boxes drawing from the lnb at the same time.

Went ahead and order from the UK. £8 delivered and a moneyback guarantee if it doesn't fix the problem. Can't say fairer than that.

Peter Rhea

Soarer wrote: »

Read somewhere that the F5S sends an 18V signal to the LNB regardless of whether the channel is horizontal or vertical. So when a vertical channel is looked for, the 18V outgoing signal kinda drowns out the 13V incoming signal. Better made boxes have the intelligence/capacity to adjust the outgoing signal depending on the incoming one.
The capacitor/diode thing basically trims 5V off the outgoing signal, so should leave the 13V vertical channels through.

Any satellite receiver, dirt cheap or not, should be able to perform that most basic of functions of putting the right DC voltage range on the cable to switch the LNB to its horizontal or vertical aerial probes.

There shouldn't be any effects from other receivers connected to the same LNB either.

Diodes are used as rectifiers, changing AC to DC. There would be a voltage drop across them too & ebay guy only mentions dropping the voltage. It's possible he just copied his 'design' from somewhere & doesn't really know what's going on.

steveon

I've never seen such rubbish all he is providing is a lenght of cable how is that supposed to fix the problem? The problem is your dish is badly aligned or is blocked by trees etc.

Peter Rhea

Reading the forums would suggest there is a diode & capacitor soldered across the cable inner.

Soarer

steveon wrote: »

I've never seen such rubbish all he is providing is a lenght of cable how is that supposed to fix the problem? The problem is your dish is badly aligned or is blocked by trees etc.

Peter Rhea wrote: »

Reading the forums would suggest there is a diode & capacitor soldered across the cable inner.

Thanks for the reply Steve. But as Peter explained, it's not just a length of cable.

As for my dish, it's perfectly aligned and has no trees blocking it.

steveon

Always found them skyboxes to be rubbish....well hopefully it will sort your problem but i'd be shocked if it did...but I really hope it does and as you said refund if it doesnt cant say fairer.

Soarer

Just to bookend this.

That little yoke worked a treat, and I'm fully operational now! Thanks for the help guys.

steveon

Soarer wrote: »

Just to bookend this.

That little yoke worked a treat, and I'm fully operational now! Thanks for the help guys.

Amazed but delighted you got it sorted :-) happy viewing and thanks for letting us know!