Weird sky satellite / prime TV issue

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Weird sky satellite / prime TV issue

ofx210p

24 posts

Geek

#21640 2-May-2008 22:39

Hi all...

just a quick question - we have Sky TV and have a good signal strength / quality however the Prime channel has a seriously degraded signal.

Out of all the channels the family watch, ONLY prime seems to suffer from this issue and it is so bad that some days (not all) the program is so degraded it is quite simply unwatchable with picture breakup every second or half second even and audio breakup too.

What i find really strange is that its this one channel only and working on the premise its all coming from the same transponders (I aplogise for any vagueness but i've only been here just over a year and I am not entirely clued up on what transponders/satelites it all is on yet unlike the uk) and therefore the signal strength / quality should be equal.

I cant find this problem reported anywhere googling - so just bemused by what it could be.

Thanks in advance.

Chris

CYaBro

4708 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1182

ID Verified

Trusted

#128087 3-May-2008 00:08

You could try the standard "Sky support call fix" and pull the power cord from the decoder for a minute or two and try it again.

I had a similar problem last year where about 2-3 channels would break up as you describe while the rest were perfect.
Turned out to be faulty decoder.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

ofx210p

24 posts

Geek

#128119 3-May-2008 10:04

I suppose that is a good start, probably looking for a bigger problem than just a faulty decoder,
stupidly i didnt consider that because of it only being one channel

I'll ring them and see what they have to say .

ofx210p

24 posts

Geek

#130056 11-May-2008 19:27

Well - thats a weird thing that I wasn't expecting.

Spoke to Sky who actually asked me to try the other channels on the same stream - MTV for example
(and some other one - Channel 91 i think.). Obviously not being an MTV watcher I never noticed it breaking up as well.

To which - once he had this information he informed me quite catagoriecally it was localised interference.

Wifi - DECT phone or other RF interference.

Turned off items (Wii - XBOX - Wifi Access Point - 5.8ghz TV Transponder 2.4gnz DECT walkabout )

Turns out walkabout phone is the culptrit.

Turned off the base unit, plugged in a standard phone into the socket and all is good with SKY now.

Just gotta work out if i can re-site the phone base unit to cut the interference... by my (very very ) limited understanding of RF - positioning is going to be quite cructial to strength of interfernece - as it is conversely with reception ? or is it at 2.4ghz the frequencey spacing so small (1cm ?) that this is potentially impractical ?

Anyhow - at least for the time being - we have Prime TV - my wife is happy (ergo i am too)

CYaBro

4708 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1182

ID Verified

Trusted

#130092 11-May-2008 22:08

Ah yes forgot about the DECT phone inteferance problem.
Our cordless phones are 5.8GHz Unidens and don't have this problem. - When the tech came he did move the base unit around to see if it fixed the problem but it didn't.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.