Hi guys, I returned home for Christmas last week and found out that my parents Sky Digital reception has deteriorated. The picture was jumpy and the sound would drop out occasionally on a few channels. It looked to me like a bad signal, Ive seen the same on my digital terrestial setup when adjusting the aerial. It came to a head yesterday when we lost all ITV channels and Channel 4, and BBC channels were jumpy. My Dad got fed up whilst trying to watch Top Gear and tried 'adjusting' the Sky dish, unsurprisingly we can't pick anything up now They stopped the subscription for Sky a few months ago and have been picking up all the free-to-air channels fine using the last viewing card they had. My mum seems to think we need a new card (ie one of those Sky cards for £25 that give you all the freeview chans), I would have thought the card expiring would have suddenly shut everything down, rather than a gradual loss of signal. I just wondered if there were any peeps here who could suggest where to go from here to get it back. I guess aiming the dish at the satellite is going to be a bit tricky, how do the installation guys do it? The clamps don't seem to give much in the way of fine adjustment.
In the options there is a menu that shows signal strength, look at other dishes in the area, see where they point and simply move it gently til the bar goes up using the other dishes as a guide. the wind has probably misaligned it.
We've been out in the cold trying to re-align the dish. My Dad marked its position before he clobbered it so we worked from there making slight adjustments and watching the signal strength. We can't get anything Network and Transport ID remain at 0000. We only have next doors dish as a comparison too, its pointing in roughly the same direction.
hmm, roughly the same is usually good enough. I have moved mine 4 times now and always guestimated the right position. keep trying I say. Although it could be a frazzled LNB, though usually that stops the signal full stop, not a gradual degradation as you say happened.
I have to agree it's just the alignment that’s out. Digital is harder to align than the old analogue was, with digital you pretty much have to get it spot on or you will either have nothing or a heavily pixilated picture. The installers use a digi meter to gauge signal strength on the fly, if you are doing it manually without a meter you need to move the dish, go to setting and recheck signal strength, then repeat.
They are useful for finding any Digital satellite signals apparently. So if you get full strength and no Sky signal it's probably cos you are pointing at the wrong satellite.
we lost our quality when the cable had rotted through... that and the LNB connection had crusted over.. new head new cable jobs a gooden
