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The freesat receiver had been dropping signal occasionally and now it can't find any stations at all. Have wiggled the dish a little but nothing substantial. Checked all cabling and seems fine. Performed a fresh install on the box and still no signal. Using a satellite finder app all the freesat (astra 2) are pointing in the opposite direction to ours (about 150 degrees) that has worked for years and would point the dish directly to our caravan blocking the signal. Other caravan has theirs pointing in similar direction. What else can I try or what satellite could it be looking looking at instead of astra 2 in that direction?
Different box? Cheap sky box will do. 150*Deg out is not the right sat get one of those cheapo inline sat meters to test it
150deg difference? So your dish is pretty much pointing north? That's weird, all the TV satellites are (pretty much) above the equator.
Unless your dish is mounted really low, your caravan is unlikely to block a signal, the 'sight line' from the dish to the satellite is pretty high.
Sorry, dish is currently pointing 150 degrees and astra 2 are at 20 degrees east as I understand it. Its worked for years but doesn't like something
If the dish is old you may need a new LNB. I just had to have my Sky dish replaced due to signal dropping all the time and LNB was the issue.
Freesat is on the Astra family of satellites at 28.2 degrees east.
You might not have it quite lined up properly if you’re just at 20 east.
Can you try your box on a known working system to figure out if it’s box or dish??
That’s weird, all the TV satellites are (pretty much) above the equator.
all direct to home satellites are around the equator, a concept first thought up by Arther C Clarke apparently!
You mean the Clarke belt yup it's his idea along with drone insects as pollinators
If the dish hasn’t moved one of the most common faults I get on dishes is the f connectors on the cable ( at the lnb end ) need chopping off and replacing.
Even though the lnb has a pull down plastic cover, damp gets in there and causes them to stop working.
Popped to Screwfix and got a new LNB but mistakenly bought a digital TV signal meter for an aerial, any possibility that can be used to find the strength of satellite signal? Its an in line tester
@cogglepin it may have moved ever so slightly, how much tolerance is there in the alignment or is it very precise?
No they are different sorry don't adjust the dish it's a last resort. Do the other thing first.
And is 28.2 degrees east the same as 28 degrees on a compass? The dish is pointing about 150 degrees, so south more or less. If I know which satellite it's trying to find I don't need to move it much
LNB has been swapped out to no avail 😞
Has your Freesat box got both the power and signal bars in the settings?
If it's showing power but no signal the dish may have moved.
No power and no signal could be cable chopped in half, lnb failure or the box.
3/7mm swing will drop your signal even less in the vertical axis. That's why moving the dish is last resort.
No trees?
The elevation is only 17/25degs on the dish so anything in the way will kill your signal.
If your box is not sending volts up the cable (max9v) the finder below might not work
https://www.diy.com/departments/tristar-satellite-finder/571702_BQ.prd?storeId=&ds_rl=1272379&ds_rl=1272409&msclkid=6d749c4a18cc1ca4ff2cfd6213789dba&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PX%20-%20GSC%20-%20EPHC%20%2B%20Generic%20(Bing)&utm_term=4580221845514180&utm_content=2.%20T%20-%20EPHC%205.3%20-%20-%20Data%20Comms%20-%20GSC&ds_rl=1272379&gclid=6d749c4a18cc1ca4ff2cfd6213789dba&gclsrc=3p.ds
On the freesat settings it only has a signal strength bar showing 0%, other fields are network id and transport id (both blank).
There are no trees in front of the dish, a big open field. I'll try to get one of those signal testers tomorrow. Thanks for your help
All joking aside, have you turned it off and on again?
Had a problem when I put up our new dish, signal tester was picking up a good signal but nothing from the freesat box, no picture or signal strength on the menu.
Turned the box off and unplugged it for 10 mins, turned back on and away it went!
Always try the easy stuff first!
My money is on the box.
So when I go to a faulty sat system I would check in this order.Obviously I have a sat meter to check the signal.
1. The f cons at the receiver end. They unscrew.
2. The f cons and signal strength at the dish. If signal is ok then it’s either f cons or cable.
If the dish is badly rusted a few mm drop and your signal will be lost.
I really don’t get many faulty lnbs and if your dish has moved you would know as you would be able to move it with your hands, if you can’t it won’t be that.HTH
I got something like this from Screwfix which says it's for aerials only, but toolstation says it works for satellites, they're identical apart from a logo on the box, got to be worth a try?
https://www.toolstation.com/proception-dvbt-and-satellite-finder-meters/p80914
Due south is 180 degrees. so 28.2 degrees east is 151.8 degrees on a handheld compass. Beware that it will only really give a rough indication and that any metal in the dish will affect the needle so use with caution to get a rough idea only if you're in the ball park area. Our dish sometimes drops by a degree and that is far more likely to result in lost signal than being a half degree out in the horizontal plane.
At the point at which you're playing parts darts I'd be paying someone else to come out and fix it. Randomly buying a replacement LNB on the strength of no other diagnosis than "it doesn't work" is a madness.
If your signal strength is zero then I'd get a standalone signal checker to verify if it's the dish/LNB/cable or the box. As with anything in a chain, test one bit at a time as suggested by cogglepin.
Note: DVB-T and Satellite use different frequencies, the linked meter is for DVB-T
Sometimes the box will just get confused, as fettlin says, turn it off, leave for a while to let the electrons go to sleep (sort of kidding) then power it up.
The outers on cables can degrade over time and small cracks appear that allow water inside. We had this on an old system - a bit dicey to have a couple of cm of water inside a TV!
All sorted now. The sat dish is on a pole and I'd been adjusting the clamp at the top, which was proving fiddly. Loosened the pole and rotated that, used another dish on site to get some orientation so once I'd found the signal it was much easier to keep the position. All surplus parts to be returned.
Yay