No satellite signal being received

jpmoore40 · Sep 2, 2003

Hi,

A friend has a Sky digibox and dish though no longer subscribes to Sky, so just receives the free to air channels. This has been fine until recently - now she regularly finds channels cut out mid program and the message "No satellite signal being received" is displayed. This seems to be pretty random and is not on all channels - for instance if BBC2 cuts out she can still receive BBC1 and channel 4, but not ITV1 or BBC3 (or some other variation). Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Thanks for any help.

Jon

zansi · Sep 2, 2003

What Make is the errant box?

The Pace 2500 ZIF tuner has given symptoms as you describe along with the early Amstrad 100.

jpmoore40 · Sep 2, 2003

Thanks for the reply - not sure what model the box is. I'll check.

Old Fred · Sep 3, 2003

jpmoore40 said:
Thanks for the reply - not sure what model the box is. I'll check.

If it's a Grundig the power supply will need to be upgraded.

Apart from that, it could be dish misalignment, trees growing in the signal path, faulty cable, faulty LNB, a "Snooper" type radar thingy in a car...

Fred

Rabbit · Sep 3, 2003

Or it could be the location...depending on where you live you might be on the edge of the footprint for that particular size dish....so more info please...

andyb · Sep 6, 2003

I'm just testing a Panasonic DSB30 in Birmingham UK and I'm getting the same problem.....I bought the box off ebay and connected it up to my existing dish (plus a "pouted" FTV card) nad can get BBC1 but not 2 or ITV1, but C4 and C5 are fine......what's going on?

andyb · Sep 7, 2003

Alsp, on a couple of the FTA msuic channels, I can get them ok, but if I scroll past them and back again they disappear.....but if I go a couple of channels back BEFORE them...then forward onto them, they reappear!!! Is this a dodgy digibox? Help!

rolfw · Sep 7, 2003

When you select ITV, disconnect the LNB cable and then re-connect, see if ITV appears.

andyb · Sep 7, 2003

Thanks....just tried that but still no good.....I left it on ITV through the night and when i switched the TV on this morning ITV was there!! BUT..as soon as I switched away from it and back again,.......GONE..... 'O'-red

arraknid · Sep 7, 2003

Strange considering BBC1 and 2 are coming off the same transponder! Are all the 10773H channels behaving in the same way? Last time I had this problem it was down to dish size and accurate alignment, but then I'm not slap bang in the middle of the footprint as you are. Worth checking though.

rolfw · Sep 7, 2003

There is a fault on the Panasonic receivers, whereby the receiver generates a spurious 22Khz tone, this causes some LNBs to stay in high band. The inconcistency here is that you can receive some of the BBC channels. Which LNB does your dish have?

arraknid · Sep 7, 2003

Try this sat cure http://www.*******.co.uk/panasonic.htm

Admin edit, see clue preceding link. ;)

rolfw · Sep 7, 2003

@ Arraknid, it has to be established that this is the problem first, it appears only to be a problem with certain makes of LNB, there is a list in another thread.

It may be worthwhile trying on a friend's dish to see if the problem occurs there.

dogsknob · Sep 9, 2003

The spurious 22khz that these Panasonics generate (if that is the problem), is probably caused by the PSU. The problem starts with the 5volt reservoir capacitor C819 drying out, this prevents the 5v regulator from maintaining its 5volts (this device sometimes collapses under the strain), which in turn makes the 3.3v rail start to climb. If it is not attended to, there will be other casualties. The main symptoms are severe blocking, loss of channels, then stuck in standby.

Good Luck.

Old Fred · Sep 11, 2003

dogsknob said:
The spurious 22khz that these Panasonics generate (if that is the problem), is probably caused by the PSU.

But the "Panafix filter" thing supplied by a certain mail-order company connects next to the tuner and as far as I can tell it has no effect on the DC supplies. Against my better judgement, I volunteered to fit one for a neighbour who can't solder. I checked with my ancient oscilloscope and it seemed to be damping down an oscillation in the LNB cable, which was displayed as pulses around 1kHz in frequency! The power supply outputs were "clean" in this one.

Anyway, it's easy to tell if it's the classic Panasonic fault. When the "no satellite signal.." appears, carefully disconnect the LNB connection at the back of the receiver for just a moment then reconnect it. If the picture appears (takes about 15 seconds so give it time) then this filter thing should fix the fault.

If you prefer to climb ladders, rather than solder 3 wires, then a different LNB might cure the symptom, if not the cause.

Fred

dogsknob · Sep 11, 2003

I have heard about this device but, as yet, I havent come across one. I would be very interested to know exactly what it does, in a technical sense, if anyone out there could oblige.

Old Fred · Sep 12, 2003

dogsknob said:
I have heard about this device but, as yet, I havent come across one. I would be very interested to know exactly what it does, in a technical sense, if anyone out there could oblige.

See my previous post where I wrote:

I checked with my ancient oscilloscope and it seemed to be damping down an oscillation in the LNB cable, which was displayed as pulses around 1kHz in frequency!

I'm not sure how to make it more technical than that. If it helps, I discovered what may be a circuit diagram for it here http://www.the-plumber.net/secret/ but I confess it's beyond my comprehension. I only dabble with electronics as a hobby.

Fred

barney · Sep 12, 2003

Old Fred said:
See my previous post where I wrote:

I'm not sure how to make it more technical than that. If it helps, I discovered what may be a circuit diagram for it here http://www.the-plumber.net/secret/ but I confess it's beyond my comprehension. I only dabble with electronics as a hobby.

Fred

Hi Fred,
I have a Panasonic 30 and 150 mt cable run from my 300cm dish.
If i have only 10/50/100 mt of cable i have no signal on the trasponder of 2a north beam. Can the cable reduce the spurius of 22KHZ????
Ciao, Barney

dogsknob · Sep 15, 2003

Cheers Fred, thats exactly what I wanted. I believe that this problem is repairable so I'll be making some effort to find out whats causing it when I get the chance, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers

Bob

rolfw · Sep 15, 2003

barney said:
Hi Fred,
I have a Panasonic 30 and 150 mt cable run from my 300cm dish.
If i have only 10/50/100 mt of cable i have no signal on the trasponder of 2a north beam. Can the cable reduce the spurius of 22KHZ????
Ciao, Barney

That's an interesting question Barney and I would guess a distinct possibility.

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