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Sorry but this is a long one!
History:
about 11 years ago I bought a Humax FOXSAT-HDR and at the time we lived on BUte off the west coast of Scotland. I set it up with the correct dish and everything worked fine.
We moved to lincolnshire 2 years ago so I bought a new dish/quad lnb and so on. I set up the freesat box and had no problems.
About 6 weeks ago I started to get a problem which was a complete loss of audio and video which would last for 2 to 10 seconds.
These are further details and what I have tried.
I had a Roku2 box connected and internet to them all via a Netgear Gigabyte switch both of which I disconnected.
I have also got a freeview box and a blueray player connected to the same Samsung TV. I get no dropout when viewing either the freeview box or watching a DVD.
So I thought I had proved it wasn’t the T.V but to be sure I swapped the freeview and freesat to each other’s HDMI input to the T.V but still the signal loss.
I then used a new HDMI cable for the freesat box but still no change.
I decided it was most likely the freesat box as it was by far the oldest part of the system. So I bought a Humax HDR-1100S.
Still no change.
I did a physical examination of the cables all the way to the dish and there appeared to be no damage.
I already had a cheap goodmans box in my conservatory but decided to put the old humax box in there. It worked fine and as I read that sometimes an LNB can fail due to overheating I bought a new quad LNB.
Still no change. In fact I set the old box up to display the signal strength/quality and turned the sound up on the system in my living room and watched the signal display on the old box. When the audio/video on the living room box dropped out the old one was rock solid.
The cables at the dish end had been bound with self annealing tape and as I disconnected them from the old LNB I could see they were still looking brand new with no rusting at all.
I could replace all the cable but first I thought I would ask you guys. Any idea if there is anything else I can try?
I suggest you remake the connections on the cable, firstly in the living room, then if problem persists at the dish end.
Make sure that the outer braid and inner cores do not touch each other so a good electrical connection can be made to power the LNB.
Okay tried that but no change. I have 2 part reels of RG6 cable so I made up 2 temporary leads to run directly from the dish to the HDR-1100S and reset it and got “you have a weak signal check the leads”.
Put the original connections back got a good signal but the same problem is still there!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t know what else I can do.
The old box in the conservatory is still fine with 100% signal strength and quality on a good number of channels and the worst quality is at around 60%.
If you swap the connections on the LNB is there any change?
If so there may be a defect in the cable.
The LNB is new. I changed the old one because I thought it might be failing. As my last post shows I ran temporary leads to it and I have, in any case, swapped over the connections but it’s still the same.
My wife, who knows nothing about electronics, has pointed out that maybe the T.V doesn’t like Freesat kit so I am going to swap the T.V’s over later today to see what happens. Thinking about it there was an update to the T.V software a few weeks ago so it is possible it’s a bug in that causing the problem.
As the temporary lead gave “you have a weak signal check the leads” and you had reasonable signal on the original cable, I would conclude that the temporary cable or it’s connections have a defect.
As you are going to swap the TV’s over it might be an idea to try the TV and HDR-1100S in the conservatory. If there are no problems then it is either the living room cable or possibly RF emissions from another piece of equipment.
How frequent is the loss of Audio/Video?
Having only 60% quality suggests your dish alignment requires attention. From memory I don’t think any of mine are less than 100. I will check every transponder and post details this afternoon. Incidentally RG6 is not very good quality cable. Best to use WF100/PF100.
To be honest I was amazed to see the “weak signal” message. Electronics has been a hobby for over 60 years and I have built many pieces of equipment and repaired a number of T.V’s/radios etc for friends. Both lots of cable were full spec unused satellite specific cable and the connectors were brand new. When I disassembled them there appeared to be no faults so I am baffled.
I have swapped the T.V’s and still get the problem with the old T.V As the old T.V worked fine with the old Freesat box I see no point in swapping the new box into the conservatory.
However we do have solar panels and yesterday I noticed that there is no electricity being fed into the grid from them. The inverter is up in the loft about 3 metres from the dish and about the same distance from the the T.V and Freesat box. There isn’t easy access to it but I am now thinking it has developed a fault and may be causing interference but unless it isn’t actually affecting the dish/LNB’s I don’t expect it is the problem.
Barrowman – 7 minutes ago »
To be honest I was amazed to see the “weak signal” message. Electronics has been a hobby for over 60 years and I have built many pieces of equipment and repaired a number of T.V’s/radios etc for friends. Both lots of cable were full spec unused satellite specific cable and the connectors were brand new. When I disassembled them there appeared to be no faults so I am baffled.
I have swapped the T.V’s and still get the problem with the old T.V As the old T.V worked fine with the old Freesat box I see no point in swapping the new box into the conservatory.
However we do have solar panels and yesterday I noticed that there is no electricity being fed into the grid from them. The inverter is up in the loft about 3 metres from the dish and about the same distance from the the T.V and Freesat box. There isn’t easy access to it but I am now thinking it has developed a fault and may be causing interference but unless it isn’t actually affecting the dish/LNB’s I don’t expect it is the problem.
You would expect any interference to affect a fairly small range of transponders. Seems unlikely to affect the complete Ku band IF spectrum. Wait till I can access my Foxsat and generate a table of strength quality. It will be in the same order as the manual tune all transponder database so simply using the arrow keys to work through them and compare the results.
Hopefully some sort of pattern will emerge.
I have included one sample channel from each transponder in the table.
Pretty sure all the UK spots will be 100/100 with a lower signal strength on the Pan Europe beam transponders. Better half watching Bargain Hunt at the moment. Incidentally WF100/PF100 has much superior screening to RG6.
Might be worth taking a DAB/FM portable close to the inverter, any significant rf emissions should be pretty obvious.
You may have transponders not in my list due to postcode. You will find transponders no longer broadcasting or no longer with Freesat content.
Most PE beam are 85/100 or 90/100 worst is 11567 V (eg JML Direct) at 90/80 (Who cares
)
Thanks Graham,
I got up into my loft this afternoon. The inverter has a fault. It says “int error E 031” which I have googled and it says it’s a relay failed to operate. Now watching the little LCD screen it cycles through a routine every 30 seconds :-
A green LED flashes about once per second. Display shows Grid voltage measurement and reports that it’s within limits and that it will connect in xx seconds.( xx will be current countdown point from the 30 secs.) Repeats this until 5 secs then just counts to zero. Soon after there is the error code, a Fault LED comes on solid orange for about 2 secs then it all repeats.
Because this is entirely regular over about 20 – 30 minutes while I watched I am doubtful it’s causing my problem as the loss of video/audio happens randomly with gaps of normal output for as little as 5 secs and then sometimes up to 30 – 45 mins of normal viewing. I have observed the loss of video/audio happening throughout the day from as early as 6:30 a.m to 11:30 p.m so it doesn’t seem to be related to anything we are doing or using either.
So now I am completely stumped. Considering how much I have spent in time and money so far I am going to order some WF100 and run that along the same route as the RG6 I have installed now but straight to the Freesat box not via a wall plate.
Barrowman – 16 minutes ago »
Thanks Graham,
I got up into my loft this afternoon. The inverter has a fault. It says “int error E 031” which I have googled and it says it’s a relay failed to operate. Now watching the little LCD screen it cycles through a routine every 30 seconds :-
A green LED flashes about once per second. Display shows Grid voltage measurement and reports that it’s within limits and that it will connect in xx seconds.( xx will be current countdown point from the 30 secs.) Repeats this until 5 secs then just counts to zero. Soon after there is the error code, a Fault LED comes on solid orange for about 2 secs then it all repeats.
Because this is entirely regular over about 20 – 30 minutes while I watched I am doubtful it’s causing my problem as the loss of video/audio happens randomly with gaps of normal output for as little as 5 secs and then sometimes up to 30 – 45 mins of normal viewing. I have observed the loss of video/audio happening throughout the day from as early as 6:30 a.m to 11:30 p.m so it doesn’t seem to be related to anything we are doing or using either.
So now I am completely stumped. Considering how much I have spent in time and money so far I am going to order some WF100 and run that along the same route as the RG6 I have installed now but straight to the Freesat box not via a wall plate.
Did you run through the transponders I posted and check the reception ?
Use the Foxsat it has much superior manual tuning and gives figures in percentage values rather than a vague barchart.
Sorry you will have to print and paste the two pages together (The free PDF converter is a tad limited and .xls and .htm formats aren’t allowed as uploads. I can upload a .html or .xls (compatible with Excel or free compatibles) to a file share site if it helps.
The info will help to check if it’s a frequency issue or a alignment issue.
Once this is available it might be as simple as a minor dish realignment (azimuth, elevation or less likely skew (in the case of skew channel polarisation differences is the clue).
I didn’t do the checks yet. I only did a quick check on the Inverter and have been out most of the time before and after. Might get some time tomorrow but definitely Saturday. Bidding on a replacement Inverter now. Identical to the failed one so should be an easy swap. I have a pdf editor I use so should be able to sort the file thanks.
Btw was used to much less than 100% signal/quality in scotland even with 60cm dish ( mainly all the rain
Barrowman – 11 hours ago »
I didn’t do the checks yet. I only did a quick check on the Inverter and have been out most of the time before and after. Might get some time tomorrow but definitely Saturday. Bidding on a replacement Inverter now. Identical to the failed one so should be an easy swap. I have a pdf editor I use so should be able to sort the file thanks.
Btw was used to much less than 100% signal/quality in scotland even with 60cm dish ( mainly all the rain
Was that before SES-ASTRA replaced all the satellites at 28.2E ? The UK spot beams are now very strong.
Barrowman – 12 hours ago » …Btw was used to much less than 100% signal/quality in scotland even with 60cm dish ( mainly all the rain
Your dish was either out of alignment or obscured by natural obstructions (trees, hills etc), as with a 60cm dish I have always had close to 100% signal/quality. Despite any rain
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