All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
patrick mcgurk: You should completely disconnect the box from the mains supply, then after reconnecting same again check if this has rectified the HDMI problem, if not press "menu" and select "first time installation", this possibly being on option 2 depending on the model.
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William: Simply put yes! if the 9 volts is on the end of the coax when measured on the rear.
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William: I can assure you that you are not wasting my time as I rather like dealing with odd problems such as yours, and indeed when wearing my domestic hat (as my main job involves non domestic RF) I have a secondary job as an installation trouble-shooter / repair engineer.
The only difficulty when dealing with odd problems such as yours on a forum such as this is that by necessity it always involves a series of questions and answer postings, and its this fact that lengthens the process before a solution is found, because normally I would either be visiting the person with the problem or giving advice / instructions over a phone line, mostly of course on problems where guarantees are involved, although not exclusively so!
PS: Rather ironically I passed by (on M8) near to your location two weeks ago as I was up that way on a working holiday.
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William: Yes, have a good study at where the wires actually go using the test meter (on ohms) for continuity checks and with it only being set to DC for all other measurements.
Another main thing to remember being, always have the Sky box either completely switched off or with all connections from it disconnected from the wall plate otherwise you will get false readings, because the Sky box sends DC voltage up to the LNB for polarity switching purposes, these can be roughly either 13 and 18 volts dependant on the channel the box is on.
There was another test I would have liked you to carry out "first" though just to eliminate (or not as the case may be) a slight doubt that I had in my mind, the test being to put the Sky box on its signal test screen and carry out a check on each of the two "F" connector jumper leads from the wall plate one at a time, but "only" into the boxes LNB1 input to make sure that both leads indicate roughly the same level.
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William: Two points, when you get 18 volts on your master aerial point when you switch the box on is this with or without the aerial jumper lead connected into the box as well as the Sat 1 & 2 connections? if they all are then does the voltage vanish when you take out the master aerial to box jumper lead? if it doesn't then does it when the "F" connectors are removed from either the wall plate or the box.
By the way the readings you obtained across the two braidings is normal, its the 18 volts across the rear of the coax socket that isn't as there should not be any voltage indicated, although it would if you went across any of the two sat connections.
I take it that as far as voltage readings are concerned that they are always taken with the meter on DC? (which it should be)
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Craigywaigy2: When you say "plugged in a cable" are you referring to into an unused port on the dishes quad LNB? as you should not get any interference by doing this as the outlet ports on a dishes LNB are independent of each other.
I would try temporarily swapping the boxes over and see what happens, as Freesat and Sky boxes are 100% compatible in the technical sense as far as their dish connections are concerned and both can work quite happily using different ports on the same dish.
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AliceB: Its simply a case of whether or not the LNB on the dish arm has any spare outlet ports, and which "if" your parents are using a Sky+ box (recorder type) then it might have, because sometimes an engineer will just fit a quad block at the time of installation and with this leaving two spare outlets, as the cost difference is negligible between quad and dual types.
If though the LNB doesn't have any spare ports then new LNB kits can cost as little as around £10.00 or so from e-bay sources and are simplicity to install by virtually being a push fit, then all you would require is a coax to be run from the new LNB to your room.
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Craigywaigy2: No, as there is no link between them, you should try a few test post codes taken from the yellow pages or wherever thats appropriate to the area that you require, the main point being to choose one thats not anywhere near to a county boundary.
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Frazer Ashford: Its really quite impossible for anyone to give advice on your problem when you have not revealed your location, this in the form of a post code or one from nearby, as only with this info can the signal levels expected at your location be assessed and the appropriate advice be given.
Just as a matter of interest, other EPG programme numbers that are also on the same transmitter are: (19) Yesterday / (24) ITV4 / (22) Ideal World / (55) Argos TV.
The other point is, when you previously carried out a retune was it only that? as a "factory reset" followed by a retune is always the best the best policy as only that procedure corrects any corrupted data that may have been picked up.
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Thursday 20 September 2012 4:41PM
William: With regards to your wall plates I did only say "should", as facilities can vary dependant on the status of a building but you obviously have the standard set up.
However as far as attenuators are concerned, these never at any time heat up no matter what type of installation they are fitted to as there isn't any power in them to cause them to heat, except that is in your
installation because of either an incorrect (or maybe faulty) wall plate having been fitted that doesn't have DC blocking on its normal coax link through connection.
The reason why the attenuator doesn't heat up when set on one position but does at another is simply because these low cost devices are basically only variable resistors that work on the principle of slowly short circuiting the input signal as the control is being varied, and as the input signal is being shorted so is the resistance across the 12 volts which then causes the current to increase through the resistor producing the heating effect that you noticed.
You could rectify this problem yourself by simply taking the input coax off its terminal post and inserting a small capacitor between the end of the coax and the terminal post, as this would then solve the problem, but just to make sure nothing else is odd about your installation make sure that when the take the coax off the terminal post that this kills the 12 volts on the sockets output.
By the way any small ceramic capacitor would do as the value isn't critical. (eg: 500pf)