Sky News blank -greyed out

Anchises

My SkyNews has greyed out in the channel list.
It will not tune in.
Ran autobouguets - no good,
Box is an Alien2 triple with Hyperion 4.5 .
All other channels work ok.

grey out usually means scrambled ? I Think.

Anybody else has this problem ?

Bob Harris

Consider yourself lucky.

Anchises

I've just realised that all channels tuned to the Sky News transponder i'm tuned on the Alien2 box to are greyed out.
Transponder refs are 12207 27500 5/6 V. It looks like the transponder has gone down.

On my Ferguson Ariva, I'm getting Sky News on TP 12363/27500/V.

But When I scan for this TP on my Alien2 Triple + , it finds no channels......

Both boxes are connected to same quad LNB .

Now I'm puzzled.

Gerry Wicklow

I have it on 12207 V 27500 5/6 QPSK DSB-S

If you have 2 feeds to the box try switching them to see if that LNB port is dodgy. If no luck there, try the box where you know the coax feed is good to see if the Alien box has a problem.

Anchises

Thanks Gerry.
I fed the cable from the working box to the Alien and now I have Sky News working.
So it seems like the cable from the Aliens LNB is not delivering the goods.

Would one output of an LNB fail ?
It's a quad, with a spare output ( three only connected at present)

Should I condemn the LNB and simply replace it or try a swap over of outputs ?

The cabling is not continuous, so it could , I suppose, be a failed connector..

More searching. But at least I now have some clue about the problem.

Ive experienced LNB failure before but not one o/p of a quad.

Anchises

I realise that it's not an LNB 'failure' as such.

But can an LNB fail to tune some transponders ?
Can it's frequency range narrow or suffer drop outs ?
All other channels/transponders are fine .

Thanks again Gerry.

Gerry Wicklow

Yes it can happen that only some channels fail on a single LNB port. A poor connection could also have an impact. Certainly for now you could swap onto the spare port but chances are more failures are coming down the road. A replacement LNB is cheap and easy to fit.

Anchises

I tried swapping to the spare port - same fault.
Im suspicious now that the AA2+ software may be fooling me.
Ill try that box on the good cable to check.

Ive ordered a new lnb anyway.

MenloPete

Anchises wrote: »

On my Ferguson Ariva, I'm getting Sky News on TP 12363/27500/V.

Incidentally, the reason you see this on the Ariva is probably because you have an incorrect LNB frequency set in Setup/Antenna Setup. Should be 9750-10600.

Anchises

@ MenloPete : Correct ... that was the case. When changed to correct 9750-10600 Sky News was lost on it as well.

---

Oh dear ! It all seemed so simple... change the lnb..

I fitted a new quad lnb Philex Universal.

Some channels still missing..probably linked to failure of my combiner setup.
I linked the LNB directly to the box .
Works perfectly .. all channels back.

However when I use a Terrestrial and Sat combiner (pair) I lose a whole batch of channels. They come up grey in channel list. Checked and cleaned up all connectors.

It looks like use of the combiner/decombiner leads to loss or attenuation of signal.
Is that consistent ?

This happens with both my Alien and Ferguson boxes.

It worked perfectly up to two weeks ago with the combiner/decombiner setup on both boxes.
( means I get by with two cables coming through my back wall rather then 4).

Current situation:

Both boxes linked to single dish with quad LNB

Alien linked directly to LNB . All channels OK

Ferguson linked via combiner/decombiner pair. Channels missing - including Sky News, the original cause of my distress

Would the different model of LNB have affected the range of channels detected ?
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I think LNB for oval sky dishes are different from other LNBs designed for circular dishes.

The dish had to be realigned slightly to get the signal level back up too.

Puzzled..... and a little discouraged..I'm getting too old for this...

StreetLight

Try filtering your terrestrial feed before it gets to the combiner. Run it through something simple, like the UHF leg of a VHF/UHF splitter, or anything like that if you have it lying around.

Anchises

{ long post . I do go on a bit

In fact I already have a splitter to provide two outputs for terrestrial, each output being an input to the both diplexer combiners. One of the combiners is also a mast amp (Televes), while the other is a passive diplexor. Maybe the mast amp is helping. I find when I cross over the mast amp and other diplexor the quality signal is still associated with the mast amp output.

I've also realised that I have fitted a new universal LNB designed for a circular dish , while I have an oval sky dish( wider then high).

Looking at the missing channels , I see they are higher frequency ones .
The highest Vertical channel working is 12168 V
The highest Horizontal channel working is 12148H

The missing channels include Sky News is 12207 Vertical .

So it looks like the Ariva 150 demands a higher level signal delivered to it to register the channel.
The Alien 2 Triple is seeing the full set of FTA channels.
As a test , I also scanned to an Alien3 SAT only box ( a spare) cabled directly from the LNB and it found the complete list of channels also.

I spotted an LNB at FreeTv that combines SAT and terrestrial at the LNB, with 4 combined output ports. Maybe thats the way to go and eliminate all the external diplexors etc.

Maybe I should replace the whole thing with a larger circular dish combiner LNB and start again

BTW : What impact have the LNB settings in the Ariva150 on the detected channels ? The only Sky channel I have on Ariva is SkyNwsSaudiArabia and it fails if I edit the LNB setting from 9750-12600 to 9750 - 12700.. Isnt that supposed to be the spec of the LNB fitted ? If it's wrong does it just report the channel frequency incorrectly ?

Anchises

I attached the Ariva15 to a different dish and it had no problem detecting all FTA channels.
So it must be that the signal level is too low when used with the diplexors.

I did change one apparently faulty diplexor ( a wall plate type) for a different type and now I'm sure that is the cause of the signal degradation.

I intend to change the dish for a larger circular one and am sure that will resolve the issues.