Channel Loss

LINDOREZ

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Sorry to bother you guys, I recieved a dreambox from dvb yesterday. I have flashed it with DigitalWorldz UK 1.6.1 and the majority of channels are working. However certain channels, such as E4, Paramount, all the MTV's arent working. I get either a "Service could not be found error" or they start to crack up.

The signal is as follows for one of the bad channels:
SNR 61%
AGC 45%
BER 1658880

The signal for a good channel is:
SNR 95%
AGC 47%
BER 0

I assume that i either need a booster or an attenuator. But to be honest i dont know a lot about this.

Which type of booster should i get?

How does it connect?

Also if i get a booster will it not effect my good channels which have a high snr?

I am happy my movies and sports work, but its these few channels which are failing and typically the ones with gf watches the most.

I would appreciate any advice on what to do and or what to buy.

I am quite baffled as my friend bought one from exact same shop a week ago and his box works perfect on my tv, could i have a bad tuner?

Thank you for your time and any advice.
 
If his box works perfect on your feed then we're definitely looks at a the box. Make sure all your connections are tight. On the connector at the back of the box, squeeze the two metal bits together to give a tighter fit, not too much though or you might snap them, then you're really fooked ;). Try another F to Coax adapter if you can or turn your cable round and use the other end.
 
If his box works perfect on your feed then we're definitely looks at a the box. Make sure all your connections are tight. On the connector at the back of the box, squeeze the two metal bits together to give a tighter fit, not too much though or you might snap them, then you're really fooked ;). Try another F to Coax adapter if you can or turn your cable round and use the other end.

I actually bought another adaptor today from maplin, it still has the same effect. However if the box was bad why would sum of the channels be ok? I just dont understand that.

Unfortunetly I cant turn the cable it runs up through the house through my loft and down. I guess one option would be to take the box to my friends house and see if it works on his cable. However I wont have a chance to go for week so i'm looking for alternatives.

Thanks for the help, any other suggestions?
 
Do you have a cable feed downstairs that you could try it on. The dreambox is stubborn when it comes to signal strength. The long cable feed may be bringing it down.

You could get a booster from Argos, if it doesn't make any difference, take it back and say you bought the wrong thing ;)
 
Ok thanks, i'll try it downstairs, need to try kick my room mates out the way. If that doesnt work i'll go for the booster tomorrow and worst case i might have a dodgy box. However if thats the case i'm not sure they will let me return it for a few channels not working. Thank you for your help Devilfish.
 
Ok guys more help needed, I tested my dreambox downstairs and all the channels work perfectly. Thus i assume the distance of the cable are making a few frequencies weaker.

With my luck i get out of work and argos is closed, so instead of waiting, i get over excited and go to Maplin and spend £20 on a booster and £5 on the cable.

So i attach my booster and what happens? All the good channels get worse as well as the one thats were already failing.

So what should I do? I know my dreambox is fine, it works downstairs.

I would assume i need an attenuator, but why would the signal be stronger up the stairs? Surly it would be weaker and require a booster. So do you think buying one would help?

Finally where would i get an attenuator? What kind should I get? Also I'd rather get it locally than online as i'm never in during the day to get parcels.
 
It might be worth trying an attenuator but I wouldn't spend too much just in case. I couldn't get E4 and ITV2 (at least not watchable anyway) I bought the cheap booster from Argos and it stopped every channel working. I had an attenuator on the back of the subbed box that the engineer put on so I have put that on my dream box and the channels are marginally better but to be honest still not really watchable, I 've tried other images as well and still no luck. One saving grace was that Argos just refund the money back for the booster.:(
 
A stong signal will cause just as much problems as a weak signal. The one from argos has a variable 20db gain so you can adjust the amount of gain easily. Your booster has obviously helped the weaker channels but made the normal channels too strong. You will need to find the happy medium by using attenuator after the booster.
 
Ok guys i've now totally messed up my dreambox. I decided to be smart and try a differet image, so i installed "The Gemini Project 3.40 UK Modified" however this was even worse than my "DigitalWorldz UK 1.6.1" image.

The picture quality was a lot lighter and blurred.

Anyway so i installed me gemini project by telnetting in and running the command posted in the guide. It installed fine but i had even less chanels.

So i then decide to reinstall 1.6.1 using flash wizard pro, all was going well until it go too writing and verifying cramfs memory partition. It got to 88% then froze. I left it came back 30 min later and still on 88%, so i know somethign went badly wrong. Not much i could do but disconnect it.

Now i have nothing appear, just the black screen of death.

I'm going to go to maplin after work to buy a null modem cable and pray i can bring my box back to life.

Is there anything special i need to do or can i just use dreamup and overwrite it?

I really hope i've not ruined my box.

Any help again would be grealy appreciated.
 
Dont worrie don't think you killed it

Hi

I can't imagine its dead. I only have my dreambox 4 days and had the exact same problem. Got the black screen of death. If you use a null modem cable to reflash the original image it should come back to life.

The null modem cable was a life saver for me. Now everything is as it should be.

Good look
 
Yeh, the NULL will bring it back to life.

Just takes longer to flash through NULL than x-over. Just means an extra brew while its doing its thing ;)
 
I had similar problem! my cable runs up into the attic, then back down the other side of the house, and I was losing all the Discovery Channels!
I took the box down stairs and like you all channels worked,
Then connected a booster
and the all good channels went bad!
so I took the booster down stairs nearer the source and connected it just after where it comes in the house,
and hay presto all was well!

I am using the neutrino dream plus ultra 0.9b Image
 
Well a week on and after all my problems i am back to square one. I got my null modem cable and i finally got my box back and running. I installed neutrino dream plus ultra 0.9b, which actually is quite good for watching my BER moving up and down.

My SLX1P isnt worth the plastic its made of, it does nothing but put the BER up on all channels. My new attenuator at least works, but it has the opposite effect.

I worked out the problem is my splitter which give allows the tv and broadband to be on the one line. When i take it out the tv works fine, but of course i loose my broadband. I noticed it gives a loss of 4dB.

The SLX1P gives a gain of 10-20 dB so i tried to use my attenuator to take off maybe 5dB and i hoped it would even out, but i just drove myself mad.

So i decided to just stuff it, I will just need to live without a few channels as its driving me mad trying to sort it. But thanks to everybody that helped me.
 
before you give up mate try DW1.61 image, whenever i have had a stubborn box these images have been great
 
before you give up mate try DW1.61 image, whenever i have had a stubborn box these images have been great

Thanks, yeah i've already tried 1.6.1, 1.6, The Gemini Project 3.40 UK Modified and neutrino. They all work but same channel loss. Tried changing it to evocam and back and forth, but it did nothing.

Its just a signal problem, if i take out my broadband its fine. Maybe i could try a new splitter, i just dont want to spend more money to be honest.

The strange thing is, when i use my booster the signal level goes up but the BER goes very high, no matter how i adjust it the BER doesnt lower, so i'm totally at a loss as what to do.
 
Ok, two weeks later and i finally got every channel working. I bought one of those mini CATV amplifiers from china on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/House-Hold-Cabl...100033749QQcategoryZ39803QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The guy sells them constantly, I think i paid £2 + £5 delivery from china, recieved it in about 9 days.

Anyway, I tried hooking this up instead of using my splitter, however it doesnt have talkback, useless for my modem. So i set it up just after the splitter and hey presto finally have all the channels. This is far better than the Argos booster and the same price if you add it up. You just need a little patience to wait for it.

Also for some reason it doesnt scan when it is in, I'm not sure why. I took it out scanned all of the channels then put it in to stop channel break ups. It also has a gain control but i didnt spend too long messing with it.

You need to buy a adaptor for it to use the Chinese plug, I got one from maplin for £3 also works with my electric razor so no loss.

It has one slight problem of the sockets being a little larger than the UK coax sockets, so you cant get the tread to go in. Mine is currently hanging on by a thread but its working fine at least, just no sudden bumps. It came with a few adaptors, If anybody has bought this and knows what the connect into feel free to let me know as I am clueless.

Anyway I am very happy with the inexpensive purchase, just wish i got it sooner.
 
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