Skybox problem on FTA

gulliver92

I have a sky receiver with a UK free to air card. It worked fine until recently when ITV and Channel 4 and Five became pixellated. CNN has gone totally pixellated and there is no sound whatsoever in that station at all. Skynews works in spurts. Sometimes it behaves as if someone is pressing pause and then play repeatedly. Sometimes BBC 1 and BBC have excellent reception. The only channel that works well is Reality+1, Channel 188. Funnily 188 is always fine.

Obviously I cannot report the fault to Sky. Could any of you guys out there suggest what is the problem. Is it Sky sabotage, a problem with my skybox, a minidish defect or problems with connections? Why is Channel 188 always perfect? Do I need to buy a new Skybox?
I would greatly appreciate an opinion.

Thanks in anticipation.

djpaul

A guess? May be your LNB might need replacing, when do you last do a back up? How old is your digibox.

Macy

Could it be the dish has moved slightly? How recent is recently, given the high winds a few weeks back - could be that, especially if the bad reception coincides with rain.

gulliver92

Thanks DJ Paul and Macy,
My dish and skybox are about three years old. The cable connecting both is about ten years old, a relic form an analogue system. The digital sky installer said the cable was OK three years ago.

I don’t know what doing a back up means.

It has been giving trouble for three weeks and it gives trouble on dry days too. The wind was not particularly bad in the past few weeks where I live.

djpaul

gulliver92 wrote:

Thanks DJ Paul and Macy,
My dish and skybox are about three years old. The cable connecting both is about ten years old, a relic form an analogue system. The digital sky installer said the cable was OK three years ago.

I don’t know what doing a back up means.

It has been giving trouble for three weeks and it gives trouble on dry days too. The wind was not particularly bad in the past few weeks where I live.

How to do backup. Unplug your digibox. Hold down backup button on digibox. Plug back in your digibox (still holding the backup button) Your digi box lights come on, and an onscreen message will appear. (let go the backup button) Wait for your digibox to reset, After 2 mins, power on. ch 998 will appear, try the rest of your channels, Let us know how you get on. Paul.

clarkbelt

Bit more info here.




Plug out mains lead at wall socket or at back of digibox .
Press and hold back up button on front of digibox.(not remote)
Plug back in mains lead, making sure to keep backup button pressed .
After approximately four seconds, red standby light will come on .
Keep backup button held , after approximatly six seconds, all four lights will come on digibox. You can now release the backup button.
Wait for approx ten minutes until lights go out.
Box will go into standby - just one red light on.
Switch on as normal.

Tom Dunne

You have to be careful here. Don't go replacing any hardware until you confirm that it is actually the hardware. I have found in the past that it is usually due to bad weather, or a while back the dish had acually moved in high wind.

Check your signal strength first of all. Go to Services->Setup (can't remember exactly where). See what the signal strength and quality are like, and the lock indicator. If these are all fine (fine being over 50% on my system), then maybe you could look at the cable/dish setup.

djpaul

clarkbelt wrote:

Bit more info here.




Plug out mains lead at wall socket or at back of digibox .
Press and hold back up button on front of digibox.(not remote)
Plug back in mains lead, making sure to keep backup button pressed .
After approximately four seconds, red standby light will come on .
Keep backup button held , after approximatly six seconds, all four lights will come on digibox. You can now release the backup button.
Wait for approx ten minutes until lights go out.
Box will go into standby - just one red light on.
Switch on as normal.

As I said :rolleyes: , just in more detail.

Greenman

clarkbelt wrote:

Bit more info here.




Plug out mains lead at wall socket or at back of digibox .
Press and hold back up button on front of digibox.(not remote)
Plug back in mains lead, making sure to keep backup button pressed .
After approximately four seconds, red standby light will come on .
Keep backup button held , after approximatly six seconds, all four lights will come on digibox. You can now release the backup button.
Wait for approx ten minutes until lights go out.
Box will go into standby - just one red light on.
Switch on as normal.

Some people suggest taking out the card!!!

gulliver92

I tried doing a backup but the “no satellite signal being received” kept registering so the back up didn’t work. When I plug out it takes ages to find the satellite again.

I will get a man from the TV shop out to look at it. I feel it may a waterlogged LNB from what I have been reading on the Boards.

Thanks for all you help.

Tony

Greenman wrote:

Some people suggest taking out the card!!!

THIS IS A MUST, I'm amazed at guys here forgetting this vital point. If you do not take out the card while doing a forced back up you run the risk of disabling it permanently

clarkbelt

Tony wrote:

THIS IS A MUST, I'm amazed at guys here forgetting this vital point. If you do not take out the card while doing a forced back up you run the risk of disabling it permanently

Don't think that is correct Tony , have you any experience of " permanent disablement " ?

Tony

clarkbelt wrote:

Don't think that is correct Tony , have you any experience of " permanent disablement " ?

yes

SPAWKER

I have also had this experince,I once did a forced download and forgot to take out the card which was a B.B.C. one at the time whern they were still issuing them and it killed it.I rang the call center and told them but they had to send out a new card.

clarkbelt

SPAWKER wrote:

I have also had this experince,I once did a forced download and forgot to take out the card which was a B.B.C. one at the time whern they were still issuing them and it killed it.I rang the call center and told them but they had to send out a new card.

Sorry , you are talking about FTA cards , I thought you were including Sky cards , my mistake .

Booms

If your box is a Panasonic, try changing the box output from RGB to Pal, and see if the problem disappears. Some models can display this type of fault on RGB output.