Locked or not locked? That is my question

[bashwell]

I have a 1.2 metre dish and Pace 430n box, here in the Canaries.

I have spent hours with a signal meter, tweaking left to right, up and down, and the lnb skew, to get the best possible signal.
I receive Sky news, itv1, channel 5 etc. with my Sky card, no pixellation or dropouts, any time of day or night.
Default transponder is std; ie 11778

NOW, the anomaly;

When I press services, 4, 6 to show signal strength/quality, I get a different result every single time of looking!
From
sig strength NIL
Sig quality NIL
NOT LOCKED
Network ID 0000
Trans stream 0000
to
sig strength NIL
Sig quality NIL
NOT LOCKED
Network ID 0002
Trans stream 07dd
to
sig strength NIL
Sig quality NIL
NOT LOCKED
Network ID 0002
Trans stream 07f5
to
sig strength NIL
Sig quality NIL
NOT LOCKED
Network ID 0002
Trans stream 07f6
etc., etc. ad infinitum

These readings were taken approx 2 minutes apart
Also, I only get approx 8 hours of EPG; I thought I should get about a weeks worth?
Can anyone explain whats going on?
I'm not complaining, 'cos I get all the channels I expect to see with this size dish,
I'm just perplexed regarding why it doesn't just sit there telling me I'm locked onto
0002 07d4 ( which is what I'd expect to see, but never have ! )
Thanks for any replies

 

[woborny]

The 7 day Sky EPG is only available on one frequency 11778.
As this is a north beam Astra 2 frequency, is is highly unlikely you will receive it on your dish in your area.

This is why you have to change your frequency to help the box boot up - it cannot download all the data is needs to function from 11778, but by you changing the default transponder to any other frequency you can receive allows the box to download a small anount of EPG data it needs to function.

As every other of the 90plus frequencies carries a small amount of EPG data - hence the EPG shows data to 12am, 6am, 122pm, 6pm only.

Similarly, most of the time the signal test screen on a sky box shows the reception strength of this 11778 frequency - hence why it can show not locked, but you are still receiving channels.

The transport stream, i beleive, is determined by the frequency / transponder of 11778 is on 07d4 - the others could be the streams of the last channel you were watching...for example sky sports 1 is on 07e5

 

[bashwell]

Excellent reply,woborny; thanks very much for the info.
It all makes sense now.