Dreambox 800HD SE no longer getting most channels?

[AlanTreet]

I've had a Dreambox 800HD SE since about 2012/2013, and for quite some time it's worked perfectly fine.

Now, I find loads of the channels have dropped out, and for those I do get some signal on, it can be quite spotty. There's nothing blocking the dish, and after a rescan, it's found loads of channels, but a lot of BBC/ITV/C4 HD variants aren't available. C5 HD does seem to be, though.

The box is set to Astra 2A/2C/2E/2F/Eutelsat 28A (28.2E), but on looking at Lyngsat now, it's saying a lot of channels are on 28.5E, so does that mean this box is completely goosed, and that only another box would sort this out?

As far as I know, the dish and cables are fine, so I'm just wondering why the whole thing feels like it's just given up?

 

[Analoguesat]

Pop the top off & see if the capacitors on the main board are bulging, especially around the power input area. Thats a VERY common point of failure on boxes that old due to a faulty recipe being used for the electrolyte inside them.

If it looks ok then the dish may have moved, the cable got water ingress, the lnb failing etc etc - there are probably a couple of dozen reason for loss of signal but thse are the commonest reasons..

 

[AlanTreet]

Thanks for your reply. I haven't gone inside just yet (how do I tell if a capacitor is bulging? I'm not that technically minded), but isn't there a definitive change if the satellite channels have moved from 28.2E to 28.5E? Looking back at recordings, it seems to have changed over the past month.

They were pretty much perfectly fine, and then for example, Channel 5 is mostly fine (inc. HD), but the other main channels have all packed up and moved away.

 

[Analoguesat]

Badly affected caps are normally easy to identify. See the images here. A capacitor is a cylindrical item, normally with a T K or X embossed into the top surface

Spotting Bad Capacitors - Robot Room

Identify bad capacitors by bulging, ruptured vents, crust / residue, or lifting off the printed circuit board. Here are examples from failing Samsung 206BW and Samsung 226BW LCD monitors.

www.robotroom.com

KEEP YOUR FINGERS WELL CLEAR OF THE MOTHERBOARD!! Modern circuitry can pack enough of a punch to give you a seriously bad day!!!

Ive had 3 or 4 receivers die with crap caps over the last 20 years. A Grundig Sky box was the first - channels started disappearing off the epg , then it started having touble booting, until it expired completely over about 6 months.

 

[AlanTreet]

Thanks again for the info, and I still haven't got round to opening the Dreambox yet, but what about the fact that according to Lyngsat, the satellite has moved from 28.2E to 28.5E, so since mine will still be pointing at 28.2E, does that make enough of a difference to cause this?

I can't find out when this change happened, nor why. It does seem odd. Ta.

 

[ozumo]

The satellites haven't moved, Astra 2E is at 28.5°E, 2F & 2G are at 28.2°E, on a small Sky dish in the UK the difference between the two positions is all but unnoticeable.

 

[Manikm909]

rather than risking possible electric shock for the sake of flakey signal - how about doing some more basic and obvious checks.

he "thinks dish \ cables are fine....." - but why would you think this, without inspecting?

@op try another STB on existing feed, check\replace the LNB - especially if old, and unchanged in a while, also, and probably more obvious, check to see if the dish is actually out of alignment.

 

[AlanTreet]

Well, in the end, the problem was that the outside hedge had overgrown more than I thought, and was encroaching on the direct line of sight for the dish. So, that was easily dealt with. Thanks for the earlier help on that one.

However, in the past few days, another problem has occurred and I'm getting zero signal on the box. I've taken some pics which might not get across the hedge height (which is empty of leaves anyway), but it's not blocking the line of sight. The only possible change (since I can't remember when it happened) is that an old phone cable has fallen down onto the LNB arm, although I can't see that having any effect because it's not a heavy cable, hence I've not got round to removing it yet.

That cable may well have fallen down before, but it's the old BT phone line which I no longer use.

However, as of about a week ago, the signal has just gone altogether. I've rebooted my Dreambox, dis/reconnected the F-connector cable, and nothing. I know about 2-3 weeks ago, there was a succession of storms, the last of which blew off some roof tiles, so there could be damage from that which has knocked it out of alignment, but to my eye, I can't see any visible difference. However, it was still working for a time after that.

Is there any way I can work out what the problem is (Dreambox? LNB? the cable from one to the other?) without any specialist equipment, or is it a case of having to get someone out to look at it?

Just any additional troubleshooting I can do in the meantime, please?

I have a video below of one of the last things I recorded, when I got barely a few seconds of choppy nonsense from a TV show.

 

[ozumo]

Try to find a Sky receiver, you should be able to pick one up locally for next to nothing. That would at least give an idea if it's the dish/cable or the Dreambox. Looking at the dish mount and LNB it appears to be an older Sky dish, it may be the LNB is past its best.

 

[AlanTreet]

Thanks for the reply. I don't have one available, but one irony is that had this happened a year ago, shortly after my mum passed away, she had a spare digibox to hand, but after all this time, it's long gone.

However, looking at the recordings over the past 2-3 weeks until I realised it had gone wrong (since I don't actually use it much these days), it looks like it was failing around the time of those recent storms, as the amount recorded each time has tailed off, and then stopped a few days later. I think that must be the answer, and hence it needs someone to come and check the dish and LNB. It's been about 22 years since it was put up, so it's lasted a fair while.

These days, I don't really use the dish because everything is online, and if I miss something, I can find it online, so I'm wondering whether to bother at all - or just get it done because otherwise, it would irritate me just sitting there in a broken state. Even Sky, themselves, are moving over to online streaming rather than using a dish. They have a system called Sky Glass, but oddly, they're forcing you to buy a new TV that incorporates it, rather than making that an option.

 

[ozumo]

Sky Glass is a mess and not something I would recommend to anyone. The enforced purchase of a low end TV (many of which have backlight uniformity issues) is a strange decision too.

As it coincided with a storm and then a gradual decline in signal it may be water is getting into the cable. If you are confident using a ladder swapping and aligning a replacement dish using a simple cheap meter isn't too difficult.