All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
James B: If you have carried out the signal strength / quality test mentioned in my reply and the indications are in line with that also mentioned, then the actual box is almost certainly the cause of your problem.
Purchasing a Freesat box is almost guaranteed to cure your problem, provided of course that its not your TV at fault! as it indeed it wont be if the noise vanishes when the Sky box is switched to standby or off all together.
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Jeanette Gibson: Try swapping the two LNB connectors over on the rear of your box, because if the LNB1 feed is faulty then the signal should return by doing this, the LNB2 input being basically used for recording.
Should it transpire that the signal does return then that indicates the possibility that water has gained access to the connector used on the dishes LNB from the boxes original LNB1 input cable.
The "F" connector concerned would require to be unscrewed from the LNB and then further unscrewed from the cable for purposes of being dried out with a tissue, then with the connector being smeared inside with some Vaseline before being re-assembled.
Of course if access was gained to the dish after the picture had returned by having swapped the cables over, then the possibility of water in the connector can quickly be verified (or not) by swapping them over again "on the dish", as this action should cause the picture to vanish again.
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Tony Hill: According to my understanding you can receive Sky HD channels without a subscription being in force but are limited to that indicated below.
Free to view "without" a Sky card being used. (none inserted into slot)
BBC1 HD - BBC HD - NHK World HD
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Free to view "with" a Sky basic viewing card.
BBC1 HD - BBC HD - ITV1 HD (England and Wales only) Ch4 HD - Ch5 HD - NHK
World HD.
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John: Many thanks for the update! and I'm please to hear that you have been successful in sorting the problem out, although I do suspect that its the new cable / terminations on that has played the biggest part in rectifying the fault, albeit the situation having been further improved by you having moved the aerial, a device that is deceptively good for its size as I use various types of these log aerials in conjunction with variable boosters on fault finding missions in difficult (and sometimes distant) reception areas.
Pleased to have been of assistance!
Regards / JB.
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D Williams (Mr): This is a link explaining the meaning of an LNB's skew position, although I suspect thats its just possibly the case that the dish requires slight trimming in the horizontal plane (right to left) as any misalignment is nearly always in that plane, a test being to press the end of the dish on one side and then the other whilst viewing the signal check screen, as this will soon reveal the direction it requires to be moved.
What is LNB Skew?
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Viv Gunton: The wavering bar that you refer to is, as you will most likely have sussed out the cause of your problem but unfortunately one that up to a point is outwith your control, although the more important aspect of the two indications seen is the quality, and if this is observed to fluctuate in a fashion that can be classed as "diving up and down" then even using a more powerful booster will not really get over the problem, and terrible as it might be to say but nor is it likely that anything else would either, as problems of that nature is nearly always caused by intermittent obstructions to the signal path from trees and such likes, even when bare, although reflective elements can also come into the equation because RF signals have elements of the unpredictable attached to them with regards to what happens once they leave the mast.
Just out of curiosity is the booster within sight? and if so could you give an update on the model number of the device, as these come in a wide range of gain ratings and it would be interesting to know what it is.
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Gill: If you are referring to a Sky box then I have just tested the undermentioned procedure / settings on my own box and it worked perfectly OK, the result of the search adding the following / Ch5 / Ch5+1 / 5 USA / 5 USA+1 / 5* / 5* +1 Press SERVICES on your remote control Select (4) :- SYSTEM SET UP Select (4) :- ADD CHANNELS FREQUENCY :- Punch in 10.964 POLARISATION :- H SYMBOL RATE :- 22.0 FEC :- 5/6 then select FIND CHANNELS If these settings still fail to work then disconnect the box from the power supply then reconnect it again after about 30 secs or so and let it go through the usual searching for listings procedure before trying to add anything. Before trying that though carry out a signal test to make sure that the minimum of 60% (or equivalent of) is indicated on the strength / quality bar.
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Andi: The channels referred to will have been wiped from the memory by carrying out a retune "if" the multiplex they were originally stored from is not picked up for some reason, as obviously applied in your particular case.
You should carry out a test to check if the signal is actually there but is possibly sitting under the reception threshold for the boxes tuner, hence the reason for not being stored, this done by pressing "menu - set up - installation - manual tune and entering Ch45 but do NOT press search, because if the signal is there it will immediately be indicated as soon as you enter the channel number, giving an update on the result.
By the way, this method can also be used for adjusting the aerial, as in effect you are using the box as a signal sniffer free of cut off threshold level restrictions, these only coming into play once search is pressed.
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Mike: Its very difficult for anyone to advise in cases where non-standard receivers are being used as devices such as these can suffer problems outside of the norm for Freeview TV's or boxes and there is nothing to compare them with.
That said, if the signal is as strong as you have reported at 10 miles away from the Bilsdale transmitter, then even although the signal strength on PSB1 might appear as being almost identical to PSB2, in reality this might not necessarily be the case and PSB1 is possibly slightly overloading the tuners input, which if this applies is liable to cause instability to occur in the tuner resulting in the corruption any data that might have been picked up, or indeed maybe even completely blocking reception of the mux as this type of thing can happen with standard Freeview TV's or boxes.
Try a reduced signal test by turning aerial about 10 degrees or so away from Bilsdales bearing of 305 degrees, or maybe even just using with a short length of wire (about 5 feet or so) connected into the aerial socket, you will of course have to carry out a retune as the mux data will not have been stored.
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Wednesday 2 January 2013 4:39PM
ken sullivan: You cannot successfully split a cable used for satellite reception because the box sends instructions to the dishes LNB for polarity switching purposes, this being why satellite boxes requires a separate feed from the LNB for each input, Sky+ or a Freesat recorder requiring two feeds each because these devices have twin tuners.
You will have to change the LNB on the dish to a quad type which gives you four independent outputs, these being obtainable as a kit from numerous e-bay outlets for around £10.00 or so.