Argh! Sky is doing my head in!

LeeSouthEast

In January I upgraded my parents to Sky+ and Multiroom (2 additional boxes). In the previous 7 years, the reception has been flawless. Since January, we experience break up on select channels (particularly bad on any supplied by Virgin I notice!), Discovery Crime & Investigation, ITV and a few others. On the majority of the 'Sky' channels (Sky 1 etc) it tends to be fine.

This breakup can be just the picture freezing periodically, the sound going, or the video decoder getting stuck completely and while the sound continues, the same broken picture frame stays on the screen forever until you flick the channel back and forth. This occurs on THREE different makes of Sky box (including the brand new Sky+ one), so I can rule out an individual box. I've updated the firmware on all 3 and, while it improved it marginally, it still happens. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all, other days it's unusable.

I ordered a Sky engineer out. He came out, and it behaved for his entire visit (typical). That evening, we had to turn it off in the end. He did check the signal strength, which was fine. Signal quality was fine. LNB was reset. The dish while old is in good condition, the LNB is new, the cables are all new and the dish is on the roof with an unobtructed view of the sky.

Anyone else suffering from this ? Thoughts ? Suggestions ? :mad:

Pokerlad

Do you have a DECT cordless phone near the box that could be interfering?

My initial thought was badly alligned dish and although he tested the signal that would of just been from one transponder (possible one you have no problem with). Is it always the same channels and if so can you list all off them? Is it always certain times of the day?

LeeSouthEast

Thanks for your reply

There are 4 DECT phones in the house, but none of them (handsets or base stations) are near the boxes themselves or any of the cabling. On our Sky+ box (don't know if it's the same for all of them mind you), it lists the signal strength and quality for both transponders, both of which come up in the high 90% bracket (in terms of bar filled). The Sky+ is further fed into every room in the house with a TV by means of those little eyes. Two other rooms in the house have dedicated MultiRoom boxes (one 10 years old, the other around 4).

The particularly bad channels off the top of my head are:

ITV (103)
Discovery C&I (551 & 553)
Virgin 1 & +1 (121 & 122)
Discovery & +1 (520 & 521)

These form the bulk of the channels we actually watch primarily, so it's highly irritating. Yet, during the episodes, switching to any of the 'main Sky' channels (Sky 1 as just an example), it's 100% fine. It's not any particular time of day. Sometimes it'll do it all day long, other times just in the evening, and sometimes just in the morning. It's so infuriatingly unpredictable I could probably have worked it out myself by now if it were not for seeming randomness of it all!

I'm loathed to call Sky out again, as to be frank the guy that came was rude, didn't know the product in the slightest, and was of dubious technical capability. He wasn't a Sky installer but some 3rd party service engineer?? I don't really want to go through that again.

Pokerlad

LeeSouthEast wrote: »

Thanks for your reply

There are 4 DECT phones in the house, but none of them (handsets or base stations) are near the boxes themselves or any of the cabling. On our Sky+ box (don't know if it's the same for all of them mind you), it lists the signal strength and quality for both transponders, both of which come up in the high 90% bracket (in terms of bar filled). The Sky+ is further fed into every room in the house with a TV by means of those little eyes. Two other rooms in the house have dedicated MultiRoom boxes (one 10 years old, the other around 4).

The particularly bad channels off the top of my head are:

ITV (103)
Discovery C&I (551 & 553)
Virgin 1 & +1 (121 & 122)
Discovery & +1 (520 & 521)

These form the bulk of the channels we actually watch primarily, so it's highly irritating. Yet, during the episodes, switching to any of the 'main Sky' channels (Sky 1 as just an example), it's 100% fine. It's not any particular time of day. Sometimes it'll do it all day long, other times just in the evening, and sometimes just in the morning. It's so infuriatingly unpredictable I could probably have worked it out myself by now if it were not for seeming randomness of it all!

I'm loathed to call Sky out again, as to be frank the guy that came was rude, didn't know the product in the slightest, and was of dubious technical capability. He wasn't a Sky installer but some 3rd party service engineer?? I don't really want to go through that again.

It's possible the phones are causeing interference, try turning them off next time it happens.

Ignore the signal and strength bars in the setup, they are not accurate to begin with but all they are pointing at is the default transponder so dosnt mean all channels are that strengh and quality. As a slightly more accurate reading though, go to Virgin 1 and record, and then go to Virgin+1 and record at same time. Then look at the Strength and Quality, what is it like? (what this has done is force the box to look at the transponder carrying those channels not the default).

Inactive

Did either of the installers actually check the dish/ LNB/alignment by checking the signal strength at the dish itself?

If not, they should have, they have a signal strength meter to do this.

LeeSouthEast

Neither of them went on the roof at all, besides to actually fit the new LNB to begin with.

Thank you both for suggestions. When I'm next off work I will play with the ideas presented and if necessary call Sky out to come and do the job they should have done first time round