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Completely off topic, but I thought someone here might know a thing or two about Sky boxes.
We have a Sky box that we use for Freesat (Sky Freesat card) and over the last few months, we have been getting a lot of audio and visual glitching, essentially making any channel but the Sky information one unwatchable. To make matters worse, if you go to change the channel, the box freezes and needs to have the power cable unplugged to reset it.
I have now been given an ultimatum by my wife to get it fixed, but before I hit the internet flea market for a new freesat box, I was wondering it anyone had seen anything like this before and knew what was causing it (i.e. knackered box, knackered LMB, bird mess on the dish) so that I can avoid getting the same problems after spending money.
As far as I can tell, it's a standard Sky minidish with a standard Sky receiver. The dish is about 9 feet up the side of the house with a good view of the sky, and a pretty much direct cable run through the wall into the back of the box, although I do plan to replace the current internal cable with a new one at some point. TV is a standard 32" flat panel.
Any help gratefully received.
does it happen at all times of the day?
knackered box,
could be
knackered LMB,
could be
bird mess on the dish
not likely
As a starting point, it might be worth looking at the signal strength meter in the box's config screen. A strong signal would point towards a box fault, whereas a weak one would be more likely to be LNB / alignment issues. I think.
TBH though, if the box is locking up then I can't readily see how it can be much else other than a faulty box. They're made out of trifle anyway so it wouldn't be particularly unusual.
Signal strength has always been pretty good from what I can remember, and it happens at just about any time in the day, month and year.
I thought it might have been heat or dust related, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
Looks like I'll be shopping then. Any recommendations? Was thinking a Humax Foxsat thing, possibly with a hard disk, but any ideas of good brands are welcomed.
The LNB could just as easily be at fault
Do you have any spare outlets on it that you could try?
Not that I know of. I'll try and get some pics of the setup at lunchtime, but as far as the physical setup goes, I know sod-all about satcoms. I'm more of a software man...
Some Sky boxes had internal power supply problems which cause picture and sound breakup (followed by the box dying). Could be that. We replaced all the capacitors on the power supply in our HD box at the end of last year... fixed the problem instantly.
Alternatively get another box off ebay - pretty cheap.
If you unplug the box for a while, do the channels come back when it is turned back on? If so looks like a box problem. Check the signal strength on the user settings and see what that shows, Others have already mentioned possible causes, dish/LMB/dirt, another one is what is the condition of the co-ax cable from the dish downwards.
On the Freesat side, we bought a SAGEMCOM box with hard-drive, that freezes up frequently and requires the power to be pulled for a few minutes before it decides to work. When it needs replacement I will not buy a similar one but will look towards Humax who seem to have a fairly good reputation
have now been given an ultimatum by my wife to get it fixed,
Is she unable to phone satellite system installers/maintenance types ?
We're not on a contract with Sky, and the normal repair people seem to be quite expensive. Strangely, given my reputation with bodging/DIY, I would have thought that would have been her first choice to get it fixed, but it seems this time I am allowed to try (as opposed to putting shelves up, from which I am banned).
The box does seem to get hot, but I think this is normal an it has a fair amount of airflow around it. The channels do come back after being unplugged, but they usually start glitching again, or glitch as soon as you go to a channel that's not the Sky info channel.
The Sky info page is generated within the box rather than off-air
It really is impossible to pin down between the LNB and the box, given the info you have - do you know anyone who'd lend you a box for an hour or so?
Box
Dish
Cable
Try to eliminate each in turn.
Could the dish have moved in high winds over winter? Has a tree grown larger since last summer so that now the leaves have come out it's obscuring the view of the sky?
Got a mate with a spare box, so am planning to borrow that for the night.
Just tried to do a forced download of new software, but no joy on that, guessing it is because we're on Freesat and Sky have washed their hands of us.
I checked the settings just now and the signal strength and quality seem bang on, certainly very high, so I'm going to go and get new cable for the inside section tomorrow night.
Strangely, after trying to do the forced upload, the glitching has gone and I can change channels without it locking up. It's still quite warm on top though.