Intermittent loss of signal

J

John Banfield

New Member
My Satellite Setup
80cm dish, unknown LNB, 2 x Humax HB1000S receivers
My Location
Nr Thiviers, France
Hello folks,
I am having a silly time with my sat Rx system......

For no apparent reason, my system is losing signal, then it returns....and gone again.

LNB was replaced 3 weeks ago....perfect.....for about a day, then back to no signal, or signal to weak, on both boxes. Dish checked, double checked, re aligned at least 4 times. Had a great signal/quality for nearly a day, then at about 1845 gmt.....pixelation, banding and loss of signal.

Engineer is scratching his head on this one, and is re siting the dish and putting in new cable later this morning...it's 0316 hrs cet here...can't sleep so thought I'd ask......
If anyone awake has any tboughts, I'd be pleased to hear them....
Thanks in advance
John
 
I can only think of two others causes, a break in the cable or tree/leaf growth on your line of sight. Resiting the dish and renewing the cable would eliminate both of these, but I'd see if he could replace the cable before moving the dish.
 
Aside from the LNB there are only a few other potential causes, cable or connector issue, dish alignment or placement, but also the possibility of one of the receivers playing up and affecting the switching on all ports of the LNB, easy to check by taking one out of the system at a time to see if signal returns, or external interference from DECT phone etc or new mobile mast nearby.
 
Last edited:
Thank you guys,
No growth in front of dish....The LNB has 2 x ports, to 2 different boxes, on 2 separate cables, one old, one new (2 years).....with the same symptoms on both cables and boxes
Even thought the LNB is new, I suspect that is the culprit......
The dish is on the same pole that carries out leccy supply (3 phase) down into the house, which is why the engineer is considering 're sitting, possible interference from that...
 
Also just tried removing alternate boxes from the system, with no effect....still no signal.
Message on screen says 'The receiver is not receiving a signal, or the signal is too weak'......
So I guess although the LNB is new, this is not uncommon to fail ....manfacturing spread or something I suppose?
 
How old is the box with the problem? Is the box housed somewhere that air can't circulate to cool the innards down?

Both these can mean that the powers supply capacitors are aging A faulty power supply can cause all sorts of weird problems.

I'm assuming that the power supply is integral inside the box. If it's a separate power supply cube then this still applies but look at where it's situated.

EDIT

Just noticed that the problem afflicts both boxes. I misread this as one box. Apologies.
 
Has the loss of signal coincided with rain?
Probably during and just after?
I had same symptoms. Causr was bad cabling, where an exposed bit of cable lay in a small pool every time it rained and some hours after.
(NOT my installation. Builders had "extended" the cable without any thought of water proofing or even what damaging the cable would do to any signal coming through it...)
 
Interference.. 2a....webp Hi John,
This might throw some light on your problem perhaps ...

Suffering also with same bad symptoms on 18GHz Ka reception at the moment and some very slight instances where it has shown on Sky tv, that seems to have only very recently raised it's ugly head and at the moment i'm suspecting it's interference from one of the culprits down the road from me as i can remember seeing engineers working on the antennas a couple of months ago. Iv'e ordered a cheap 4G filter to insert into the sky system. Iv'e eliminated DECT phone, have tried various different receivers, two different Ka band lnb's, test dish in various locations and the problem is still there.
What / where is the nearest Comms mast or engineering buildings to you and how far away ?, is your antenna looking at these ? . Iv'e gone into some depth over the last week to try and pinpoint the source and i'm 95% sure it's some crud coming from down the road.
Here is the physical distances of my problem
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
 

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  • Interference.webp
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John said:
View attachment 106856 Hi John,
This might throw some light on your problem perhaps ...

Suffering also with same bad symptoms on 18GHz Ka reception at the moment and some very slight instances where it has shown on Sky tv, that seems to have only very recently raised it's ugly head and at the moment i'm suspecting it's interference from one of the culprits down the road from me as i can remember seeing engineers working on the antennas a couple of months ago. Iv'e ordered a cheap 4G filter to insert into the sky system. Iv'e eliminated DECT phone, have tried various different receivers, two different Ka band lnb's, test dish in various locations and the problem is still there.
What / where is the nearest Comms mast or engineering buildings to you and how far away ?, is your antenna looking at these ? . Iv'e gone into some depth over the last week to try and pinpoint the source and i'm 95% sure it's some crud coming from down the road.
Here is the physical distances of my problem
.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Click to expand...
 
Hello guys,
Thank you all for your help and suggestions, all duly noted for future reference.
Engineer came this morning, 're sited dish off leccy pole, into stack. New bracket/pole, had to replace new LIB with my old one which it appears was more sensitive (or maybe less...??)... upshot is that because of the low orbit, my neighbours tree......at least 50 mtrs away and not at all huge, may have been blocking signal......new growth this spring was the critical factor.......so lifted the dish on new pole high enough for 95% signal 80% quality......so result.
Thank you all again for your help.
Kind regards to all
John
 
I trust it was a different engineer mentioned in the first post, or you were only charged one callout, refund on LNB etc.
 
Hi guys,
Same engineer I'm afraid.....they are a rare breed out here in the sticks. A refund on the LNB and just the cost of the hardware, so not that bad....I can bear it....and I get Dr Who back!!!!
Thanks again all
John
 
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