Sky - Rain fade at around 10.30pm

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keriboi

277 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

#317442 15-Oct-2024 17:31

Hi team,

We have a housing development which has various sky boxes on a fiber network(lazer thingy) running off one dish. That system is running at 20.7dBM

For some reason at night usually around 10.30 lots of channels drop out to rain fade while some still work. If someone tries to record programs at night it fails. Sky cant find any fault and neither can IT running the system.

During day time, diagnostics state 63dBuV Strength and 13.7 Quality.

Anyone got any tips?

boosacnoodle

1271 posts

Uber Geek
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#3297810 15-Oct-2024 17:45

Contact your body corp chair?

tweake

2641 posts

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#3297811 15-Oct-2024 17:59

next time ask the tech for the signal to noise ratio off the dish. quality of 13 sounds low. odds are its a dish problem. could be lnb or lnb power problem.

what aera are you in and what size dish?

Apsattv

2452 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 724

#3297904 15-Oct-2024 20:20

What size dish?? The Satellite Sky uses is slightly inclined which means the signal will be lower at certain times of the day. Usually only an issue on larger dishes as they are more precisly focussed vs the wider beamwidth of a lower sized dish.

keriboi

277 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

#3297909 15-Oct-2024 21:05

Hi all, Would say its a medium sized dish. Bigger than a domestic one. We are in Bay of Islands and tech support/IT is in Auckland and they say it a Sky issue where Sky says it is property infrastructure problem

I have just been in to check and the figures on one of the decoders and they are worse than this afternoon with quality down at 8.9-9.5db at 8.30pm but picture is working. Two tuners are now up at 80dBuv and one at 65dBuV

I have had a look in the comms room and the system is running through a 1550nm Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifirer and Avant X pro sat.

Input on Amplifer is +6.2dBm

Output is 20.7dBm

Bias 330mA

Tech1 0.01A

Unit temp 35 Deg c

Edit this has only started happening so has been working fine. Dish is in secured area and does not look to be moved.

tweake

2641 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1137

#3297910 15-Oct-2024 21:20

post some pics of the dish and mount. odds are its out of alignment or its moving due to mounting issue. if its bigger than normal size dish (which it should be) then signal quality (sig/noise) should be a lot better. i have seen some weird things over the years like dish arm mounted incorrectly resulting in the lnb in the wrong place, bent dish (flattened) and about a gazillion badly installed dish's.

also check whats near it, especially in front. there is always a possibility of a noise issue.

Apsattv

2452 posts

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+1 received by user: 724

#3297929 16-Oct-2024 02:19

Is this a headend with multiple sky decoders in the one room feeding various SKY channels back out using the AvantX?

Or each household has their own decoder?

There are some complaints about sky dropping out in the evening on the Sky Complaints facebook page.

Dyson

Shop now for Dyson appliances (affiliate link).

keriboi

277 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

#3298524 17-Oct-2024 14:42

Right, LMB has been replaced. Didnt work. We now have an email from Sky saying the commercial dishes are having issues due to orbital change of the sat in the sky. We may need to run a two dish setup. Anyway are going to try a realignment and go from there.

Apsattv

2452 posts

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#3298686 17-Oct-2024 19:12

Just go to a smaller dish with less beamwidth, the advantx sat pro should easily be able to handle things since Its not a shortage of signal. its the larger dish has less beamwidth so is more disrupted by the satellite wobbling off its orbital slot at 160E

trami

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3301757 26-Oct-2024 12:33

Yes!! I'm having the same problem. Every night about 10.00pm. I have a friend in a suburb a long way from me who is also having the same issue.It started about 2 to 3 weeks ago. Interestingly she lives in a very large retirement village and I live in an apartment block. I followed all the instructions - reset, removing aerial and re-entering etc. Phoned CS. They sent a technician. He went through the same process. I told him I'd already done all that so he said they would send the aerial technicians. He did mention that it must be a particular brand of dish but I don't remember the name - started with an H. Strangely enough last night I had no rain fade!! Maybe he did a better job of reinserting the aerial cable. This doesn't make sense. How can it be our aerials if we live in different areas? Or even the connection? If I have no further problem though, before I hear from the aerial contractors, I will cancel their visit. No-one else in my block sharing the same dish seems to have SKY and the management don't have it so I can't check with them.

Interesting about the previous comment regarding the size of the dish. Makes sense that they would be larger if servicing multiple residences.

tweake

2641 posts

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#3301769 26-Oct-2024 13:29

trami:

Interesting about the previous comment regarding the size of the dish. Makes sense that they would be larger if servicing multiple residences.

sky always required larger dishes on commercial premises to avoid problems with rain fade due to weather. part of that is pubs etc pay huge amounts for the service and lack of service will empty out a bar in minutes. with apartments etc, sky doesn't pay for the gear, it just doesn't want complaints because of some cheap undersized dish goes out.

so a bit of irony that a wandering sat is making it worse on those ones.

i actually wonder is putting the dish out of focus would help with that a bit. less signal but wider zone.

keriboi

277 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

#3301776 26-Oct-2024 14:42

What retirement village is it.
We sorted it by realigning the dish and switching the lmb.

Mighty Ape

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RunningMan

9185 posts

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#3301778 26-Oct-2024 14:51

keriboi: lmb.

LNB. Low-noise block downconverter.

trami

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3302089 27-Oct-2024 16:12

Thanks for the comments. The village is Somerset in Mt Wellington but I don’t think Management there have notified anyone because my friend and other residents are still having the problem.
I haven’t had an issue since the technician visited me on Friday so it’s possible his tweaking the connections solved mine.

trami

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3309522 16-Nov-2024 09:26

My sky issue has been solved. Body Corp arranged for the Dish to be replaced and I've not had the problem since. Apparently it was very rusty. I had the T100 every night for about 8 weeks until this was done.