All posts by jb38
Below are all of jb38's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Ellen Dickson: Should you be referring to satellite reception from Sky, then if your reception is being affected by the wind then one of the three circumstances applies, (1) that the dish is being partially obstructed by facing into a tree, or (2) that the dish mountings are not tight enough and are allowing slight movement to occur, as the very minutest of momement will cause what you are complaining about, or (3) that cable from the dishes LNB or plug on the end of is defective and requires attention.
By the way if you are using Sky+ then try swapping the boxes two rear LNB inputs over, because if (3) is applicable then the fault should clear albeit it will then affect recording.
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jill: No, as Sky will disable the recording / playback side of the box at around the same time scale as they do your ability to view Sky's dedicated package channels.
You could of course take out a new subscription with Sky @ £10.25 per month for the dubious privilege of enabling you to use the recording / playback side of the box, however many consider it a better bet to purchase a subscription free Freesat PVR and which is totally compatible for use with the existing dish.
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J.M.Carter: Thanks for your update as I was just in the process of typing out a reply with one or two bits of advice with regards to the best procedure to use for the tests.
However, pleased to hear that you have been successful with the test, and even if your signal does take a dive late spring though partial signal blockage being caused by tree foliage it should be relatively easy to rectify by the aerial being mounted in the loft, although I would always advise anyone carrying aerial position tests to leave their TV on the manual tune signal test screen (as previously described) because by using this procedure the TV's tuner then acts just like a signal meter enabling levels right down to zero to be seen, far in a way more accurate than these low cost (under £25.00) signal level indicators that's designed to be placed in line with an aerial.
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e williams: You should really have mentioned the type of Sky box that you are referring to, however error code 25 or 29 just means that the box is unable to find the default transponder used to provide the EPG menu listings, this nearly always caused a problem associated with the dish being slightly out of alignment or possibly a fault on the LNB mounted on the end of the dish arm or maybe the connections to same.
Have you as yet carried out a signal test?
If using a Standard or Sky+ box:
(1): Press: "Services" - 4 - 6 and this will take you onto the signal checking screen.
If using a Sky+ HD box: (latest menu system)
(1): Press "Services" and you will see the main menu with "Options" being highlighted.
(2): Press the right arrow once to change from Options to "Settings" and press on once highlighted.
(3): Finally, scroll to the right to select and press on "Signal", the grey bars now displayed will show you the strength / quality of the signal.
Any signal level indicated has to around the 55% (or equivalent of) "minimum" level (75% being ideal) to resolve a stable picture and especially where the quality is concerned, because if the quality is observed to be under that of the signal strength then that generally indicates that the dish requires slight re-aligning.
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a.blumenfeld: Basically yes! because your local Weymouth transmitter is a PSB only station that does not transmit commercial programmes, and with the reception predictor indicating a mixture of variable to poor as far as reception from the main Rowridge station is concerned.
Although I would be inclined to accept what your local aerial installer has said as after all he knows the area, it might still be prudent to make one or two local enquiries just to verify what you have been told, although it must always be remembered that when receiving a signal in situations such as yours its not necessarily the case that a signal that can be received at one location will be at another, even when relatively nearby such as 30 yards or so, and sometimes much less.
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val: If snow temporarily is temporarily killing reception from Sky then so will the case be with Freesat, as satellite signals cannot pass through snow.
If your dish is within reach of a long shafted brush then why don't you just "carefully" sweep the snow from the bowl of the dish, also lightly pull the brush head over the front of the LNB were it faces into the bowl of the dish as that will rectify the problem.
The point to emphasise being, not to press hard on the dish or the LNB just in case you accidentally move it whereby making the situation worse.
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Alexa: Does the aerial system being used belong to you or are you on some form of communal system? although should it be yours then if you have any form of booster installed then it has possibly been accidentally connected into a mains supply thats used a timed circuit such as communal lighting or cheap off peak electricity.
Have you made any enquiries with your neighbours to determine as to whether or not the problem is solely confined to yourself? or that others are being similarly affected?
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t shreenan: If you want to retain Freeview reception in the bedrooms as well as being able to via Sky, then the main input from your Freeview aerial will be connected into the Sky boxes aerial input socket.
You then connect the "feed" thats presently used to supply the three bedrooms with a Freeview signal into your Sky boxes RF1 output socket, then provided that the Sky box is powered Freeview should still be receivable as before.
Finally switch one of the bedroom TV's over from DVB to analogue and then proceed to carry out a rescan on the TV whilst its set on analogue to pick up the Sky boxes RF modulator, storing the analogue channel on the TV once complete.
By the way, make sure that a channel has been selected on the Sky box before carrying out the analogue scan on the bedroom TV.
You then repeat this procedure with the other two TV's.
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zoe carter: Obviously he has aimed well and knocked the snow off the dish bowl, at least enough of to enable the signal to be reflected onto the face of the LNB.
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Thursday 21 March 2013 7:49PM
Mr J M Carter: An aerial amplifier will boost all channels from Ch21 to Ch69 and so if defective would affect all channels, but though it would be of assistance to know what level Humshaugh's mux Ch42(ITV1) is being received at, because Ch42 and the missing Ch39 should not have been that terribly different from each other.
As far as your aerial is concerned, if its facing Humshaugh (@ 207 degrees) then it should be vertically mounted, whereas the Wall transmitter (@ 330 degrees) requires a horizontally mounted aerial, and so maybe you could confirm (or not) that your aerial is facing Humshaugh and likewise is mounted vertically.
Should it be found not to be, then try a manual test tune (do not press scan) on Wall's mux Ch52 (BBC1) and see if anything is being indicated strength wise.