Sky keeps freezing and glitching !

harveybham

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hi guys just recently my sky has decided to go funny on me. At present the weather outside is dry and not windy at all but channel 4 keeps frezzing and stopping and this is not the only one. Channel 5 is the worst !

is anyone else getting this or is it my dish

cheers
 
its never happened to me, i think its ur dish, have you tired contacting the sky people?
 
Channel 4 and Five OK here.

It could be one of:-
1. Dish alignment.
2. LNB faulty
3. Water in cable.
4. Loose connector.
5. Faulty digibox.
6. Obscuration of signal.

Try a process of elimintion/swopping known good components to find the fault.

I suggest you try this yourself before paying for a Sky callout.
 
yeh iv checked on the system status on the menu and the signal quality and signal strength seem to be dropping and increasing every so often.

i did think to ring sky but then they are only gona charge some stupid money for a simple job
 
The Signal strength/quality indicators on the box aren't really a very good indicator as they tend to show the situation on the default frequency which is very often also the strongest signal. Not only do the individual transponders have different characteristics but also you have contend with multiple satellites which aren't necessarily set up to transmit to the same footprint areas.

If the indicator is falling, even on what may be the strongest signal, then its a sure bet that some of the weaker signals are getting corrupted so your problem is almost certainly one of those mentioned by 007.4. Dish alignment is always the first thing to check due to its susceptibility to wind and other environmental factors.
 
It sounds a bit like the dish alignment to me. Where I used to work fit Sky and we had a lot of people come back to us with pretty much the same problem saying some channels worked but not others. Turns out the fitter we were using was using the wrong alignment setting on his Sat meter so they were slightly off.

You can get cheap meters from electrical shops for about £10. They're no where near as sophisticated as a fitters meter but they will tell you how strong the sat signal is to the satallite you're currently aligned to so you can adjust your dish. Maybe something worth trying before forking out for an engineer.
 
if its perfectly dry and no wind then even if its off slightly it should be ok. is channel 5 ok throughout the day (i see you posted at nearly 5pm) ive seen this loads of times as i specialise in problems that sky cant/wont sort out.

channels fine all day then around tea time they start playing up, sometimes theyll go off friday pm and theyre back monday morning, with channel 5showing it the worse.

if this is the case then someone local to you has a radar detector in their car that theyre leaving turned on when theyre home. have a look in the windscreens of cars around you to find it and ask the owner to turn it off.

youd be surprised how common this is, sky know about it but wont tell you, theyll charge a call out and send an engineer, but they havent told their engineers about this.

hope it helps

dd
 
thanks for all the repiles watching my skybox since 3pm has been a nightmare all the way to now. channels keep stopping and makes watching sky a nightmare !! Does anybody have a link for a shop where they sell these meters ??

But thinking about it my box was ok last night about 8pm ( i think) i will check it again today but if anyone could post me a link that would be great but i will post back after 8
 
can you try your box in a friends house, if its fine there then its your dish/cable or outside interference, if its still bad then its your box
 
yeh i'll try it next door or i will ask them and see what there picture quality is like. I asked them a few days ago they said there's was fine but i'll try it at the same time that mine fails at
 
m8 if your out of warranty just phone them and they will try to charge you 65 quid tell them no then they will offer you half price again say no your going to ntl and they will give you another number and they will do the service call for nothing .its been about 6 months since i did a service call that had to be paid for .in fact they are handing out brand new boxes like there's no tomorrow in our area.
 
really !! ill try that ! well i was meant to post back yesterday sorri that i didnt. well sky after 8 is sometimes ok but still freezes it aint as bad as it as at 5 but still it is bad also dont know if it makes a difference but my mobile signal has been funny to and it alwayz used to be full !! is someone blocking my signals !
 
if there is a kink in the cable between the dish and the reciever then orange or t-mobile (these 2 are the worse) phones and the sky systems interfere with each others signals, replacing the cable normally solves this
 
I had similar problem and got sorted out as below

1 Depower the box from Mains.

2 Hold down Back up Button on the box (not remote)

3 Wait till all LED's light up and then release the button and wait for updates to take place. Hope this sorts your problem out without spending any dough
 
where i live, there are trees in the direction of where my Sky dish is facing. It sometimes stops the signal from coming through. That might cause some glitching and interferance while viewing channel.
 
hi!!!!

Somtimes As Above A Software Update Works A Treat ...ref Rad Det Also Consider Anyone With Sat Tracker In Car Or Van...sounds To Me Like Tuner Is On Way Out Or Switcher In Lnb On Way Out...i Stay In N.lanarkshire If Near I Would Fix Orlook At It For U ..how Far Is Grey Bar Up Towards The Ok On Quality And What Make Is Box As All Tuners R Diff Cheers Rab......
 
iv done a software upgrade it worked for a few minutes and then BANG stopped again ! the signal level increases and then drops out and quality is less than half but sometimes that drops out , i was thinking the tuner gone to.

The box is a Amstrand and its about 5 years old. I am going to use my neighbours box at my house tommorw and see if that changes anything.

cheers

PS im in Birmingham
 
box

sounds defo like tuner on road out as most of them give u a warning but all charachters of box.....
 
if i was to buy a box from Ebay and then put my Sky viewing card into it would it work straight away ??or do i have to ring them and give them the box's serial number??
 
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