suddenly no signal

[mbahundra]

I have a AN1000 receiver which was picking up French analogue signals from Atlantic Bird 3 until about a week ago. Now nothing whatsover.

Working backwards (from me) the TV's fine, the cable's fine and the box is fine. I switched boxes and plugged in a Fortec Star Beta, scanned the satellite, and although there were a couple of flickers on the signal strength bar I ended up with no channels - radio or tv. So it's not that the analogue signals have been switched off or anything like that, there's no digital either.

The problem is therefore between the satellite and the receivers. The cable running through the garden is fine and the dish doesn't appear to have moved (pretty solidly bolted, even though we had a bit of wind a while ago), so it would (by process of elimination) be either the LNB or AB3. I've heard no reports of AB3 falling from the sky, so I guess the LNB. Any way I can test it? Do LNBs fail?

Thanks!

 

[Lazarus]

LNBs do fail, but although you say the cable is fine, have you considered capillary ingress of water? This is not at all uncommon and can start either at the LNB F connector or at a small area of damage (often hard to find).

Also, I would not assume that the dish has not moved in some way. If it has, it probably won't be very far at all and you may find that gentle pressure applied to the LNB arm will provide the evidence (but don't block the signal with your hand in the process!

 

[Analoguesat]

AB3 is operating fine - we normally have a post up within a few minutes of any major problems/failures with the European satellites as someone will be monitoring channels on any particular bird somewhere across the continent.

 

[mbahundra]

Thanks both. Had a wiggle of the dish and LNB and that doesn't seem to make much difference. Wet - possibly, I have a (well-wrapped) joint in the cable, but water could get in. I'll unwrap it and have a look.

 

[Lazarus]

A joint, eh?

That's favourite, then.

 

[Analoguesat]

If water has got into the joint you will be replacing the full length of cable affected.....

 

[Channel Hopper]

Only if it's air cored (even then I've been known to 'blow out' a few lines where the customer claims hardship).

 

[rolfw]

It can also seep into the braid on foam dielectric and in some cases travel a significant distance down the cable, I had a job where it had travelled 8 metres down WF100 from a masthead and shorted out a PSU.

 

[mbahundra]

Hi All,

Sorry, back on this (I was away for a while), I've had no joy and am thinking of calling in the professionals - in fact I did - and they tell me that there are no longer any analogue broadcasts from AB3. As I understand from Analoguesat, this is not correct - can you confirm? I'm assuming you were referring to analogue, or just broadcasts generally from AB3?

(This doesn't explain why I'm not getting a digital signal either - I think they just didn't want to do the job).

 

[Topper]

Don't have analogue receiver so cannot double check but French analogue channels still showing on lyngsat
-http://www.lyngsat.com/ab3.html
cable or lnb it has to be

 

[Analoguesat]

The analogue channels on 5W will not be turned off until late 2011

 

[Lazarus]

Watch 'em all the time at Tivù Towers. Especially TF1.