# Sky Users !! Bad BBC1 signal today?



## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

Just wondering if it's only me, my BBC1 signal from Sky has been breaking up for the last few hours. It's as if they moved it to a weak transponder or something.


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## lenwuk (Oct 3, 2004)

I had the same problem on my Freeview BBC channels this morning - seems OK now.

Regards, Len


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## PhilG (Jan 15, 2002)

and a couple of days ago I was having Ch4 (and More4, More4+1 etc) problems

Perhaps Sky is wearing out??


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

I've had to realign my dish this last week or so, as the BBC was dropping out, along with ITV. 

I have seen reports on other forums about Astra making a slight adjustment to the position of the Astra 2 birds twice a year, and this may be one of them. For Astra 2A and 2B it makes little difference, and for 2D it makes very little difference in the UK, but outside the UK where 2D reception is more difficult that can make the signal totally drop out (as it did to mine).

Adjustment required? Less than 1mm of elevation pole adjustment. Time taken, about an hour.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

kitschcamp said:


> I've had to realign my dish this last week or so, as the BBC was dropping out, along with ITV. Adjustment required? Less than 1mm of elevation pole adjustment. Time taken, about an hour.


I checked, it really is only BBC1 that's giving me problems. For me that's too specific to require a dish adjustment. I didn't set the dish up myself, I got a local expat sat specialist who got a MUCH better signal than I'd managed to. I was losing the ITV2 and E4 signals almost every night until he tuned it in for me. I don't wanna risk making it worse.

I just did some research, I tried ALL the BBC1 channels on their individual channels (971 - 988) and found that some channels were perfect, some breaking up (including my BBC1NE channel) and some were so bad they showed "no signal", although that might not be a reception problem, perhaps they're just not there for me.

So I've decided that for the next week or two, all my BBC1 recordings (not that there's many of them) have been changed to 974 (BBC1 London). I'll see how things go. If it doesn't get better then I might make it permanent (call Sky and maybe Tivo and do a guided setup, or change my season passes somehow)
.


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## mini__me (Jun 11, 2002)

Check on http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html to see if the channels your having problems with are lumped together.


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

b166er said:


> So I've decided that for the next week or two, all my BBC1 recordings (not that there's many of them) have been changed to 974 (BBC1 London).
> .


The only BBC1s I get are BBC1 London (absolutely rock solid), BBC1 Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (most of the time fine). BBC2 of all sorts is fine.

BBC1 London, iirc, shares the BBC3,4 and News24 transponder and is by far the strongest and easiest to pick up of the BBC transponders.

The England regional ones are on vertical transponders which are notoriously awful to try and pick up away from the hotspot.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

mini__me said:


> Check on http://www.lyngsat.com/28east.html to see if the channels your having problems with are lumped together.


Great link mini_me, Thanks. That hit the nail right on the head that one. I made a list of which channels were good and which were bad. ALL the ones I found to be blocking/stuttering are in the 10818V tp48 frequency/transponder which is on 2D. I guess I'm gonna have to get used to using 974 because I don't imagine Sky would be happy switching me to BBC London when my registered address is in the north east. Especially after I just called Sky 3 days ago to cancel my subscription. In a month (after the cancellation period) I'll be switching to Freesat. Maybe now is my only chance to get a switchover. Hmmm.


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

If you have a friend in London you could do so "officially", but be careful, you may end up with your ITV moving to London, also, which may not be easy to pick up... before doing it, check via the add channels menu whether it would work or not.

Given a choice of choosing which BBC of the many listed so when things do move around you can fix it yourself, or ITV screwing up for F1, I know which I'd prefer.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

I do, and I'd considered that, but too late now. My digiguide is updated to 974 (BBC London), as are the active SP's so it's "cushty"  Really glad I got this sorted before New Years Eve, I had a recording set for the last 3 hours on BBC1 (Graham Norton, Little Britain Abroad *2 and the new year/fireworks.


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## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

I did reply on a different thread.

Watching Eastenders the other day via TiVo, breaking up all over the place, Audio was fine.

TiVo via NTL.

Watched the same episode via Media Center (Freeview Card) and had the same break ups all the way through it at the same places. 

Conclusion, happy it was not the TiVo HDD.


P.S. 
I remember years ago, the BBC had people they paid to sit and watch the output, they had to log every little glitch in a book... Wonder if that still happens??


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## frogster (Jan 4, 2006)

b166er said:


> I checked, it really is only BBC1 that's giving me problems. For me that's too specific to require a dish adjustment.


Change your LNB.


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

b166er said:


> Great link mini_me, Thanks. That hit the nail right on the head that one. I made a list of which channels were good and which were bad. ALL the ones I found to be blocking/stuttering are in the 10818V tp48 frequency/transponder which is on 2D.


Yup, the vertical BBC ones are very difficult to get outside the UK. Don't be surprised if ITV2/3/4 go the same way, too, as they are vertical. Here in Sweden they are impossible to get to all practical purposes. Despite a 2.4m dish and so on, it still can't get the ITV bouquet and FilmFour.


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## b166er (Oct 24, 2003)

kitschcamp said:


> Yup, the vertical BBC ones are very difficult to get outside the UK. Don't be surprised if ITV2/3/4 go the same way, too, as they are vertical. Here in Sweden they are impossible to get to all practical purposes. Despite a 2.4m dish and so on, it still can't get the ITV bouquet and FilmFour.


I'd love to know why it's only in the last few days that it's suddenly a problem though. Up until then I'd had about 3 years of perfect reception. I guess I'm either the tiniest of bits misaligned (too tiny for me to risk trying to get it right, I'm more likely to make it worse) or my LNB is on the way out. I never heard of ITV bouquet, I don't keep up with the new channels much, but Film4 is fine. I'm already over-spec'ed on my dish for here. People say they get a perfect signal with 80-90cm round dish and I've got an oval one that's 1m wide and 1.2m high. All is well now though with 974 BBC1 London


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

b166er said:


> I guess I'm either the tiniest of bits misaligned (too tiny for me to risk trying to get it right, I'm more likely to make it worse) or my LNB is on the way out.


Could be. Alignment on Astra 2D is really critical, whereas you can get away with murder on 2A and 2B!


> I never heard of ITV bouquet, I don't keep up with the new channels much, but Film4 is fine.


The ITV bouquet is the transponder with ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 on. Practically impossible to get here in Skåne.


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

We got the leftovers of the UKs high winds yesterday, and it's knocked my dish out of kilter again, so I've got a fun day ahead of me. Grrr.


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## Milhouse (Sep 15, 2001)

Just before christmas when it was extremely foggy I lost the signal on my dish (not sure it was due to fog but that was the only unusual condition at the time). I called Sky support who told me how to get into the installer menu and reset the LNB:

1. Go into Services -> System Setup
2. Press 0 (zero) then 1 (one) followed by Select to access the Installer Setup menu
3. In "LNB Setup", set both "LNB Power Supply" and "22KHz Command" to OFF
4. Press Save
5. Switch off the Sky box
6. Turn on Sky box
7. Now re-enable "LNB Power Supply" and "22KHz Command" options in step 3.

Did the trick for me!


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## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

Doesn't do much when the dish has been knocked about 10 degrees out of alignment and shaken a flipping huge set of bolts loose


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