Rain Fade on Sky Digital but MySkyHDi is working normally

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Dingbatt

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#76665 4-Feb-2011 13:31

There is light drizzle here at the moment and I am getting a Rain Fade message on my Sky Digital STB (small silver one) but the MySkyHDi is operating perfectly well. Both STBs operate from the same dish.
When I check the signal it shows 0 strength and quality and the banner along the bottom shows:

Signal level <30 Signal: unlocked BER: 0.0E-00

My question is, is the MySkyHDi more tolerant of signal strength than the digital STB or do I need to investigate the cabling? It worked perfectly only 3 hours previously. I know just because it is only drizzling here doesn't mean there isn't major attenuation in the signal path somewhere, but I thought it would affect both...

Sky are not answering their 0800 number!

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Jaxson

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#435320 4-Feb-2011 13:53

Any chance you can switch the locations?
(I know that's probably a real pain!)

Could be:
One tuner more sensitive than the other. (Swap would tell).
Cabling or ocnnector issues on one leg.
Issue with the splitter (assume this is how you feed both).

All rather obvious generic stuff there sorry.

Dingbatt

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#435556 5-Feb-2011 01:29

Jaxson: Any chance you can switch the locations?
(I know that's probably a real pain!)

Could be:
One tuner more sensitive than the other. (Swap would tell).
Cabling or ocnnector issues on one leg.
Issue with the splitter (assume this is how you feed both).

All rather obvious generic stuff there sorry.

Thanks for the suggestion, but swapping boxes is a major.
However I am just home from work and all are working properly again.
Just be interested to know if the standard box is less sensitive than the MySkyHDi.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Niel

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#435587 5-Feb-2011 08:44

Older technology will be somewhat less sensitive, but should not be that bad. Most likely wiring. I assume they are running off the same dish?

EMC compliance requirements increase every few years and there is a good chance the MySky box had to pass more strict requirements than the small silver box, which in theory is why MySky should be (somewhat) better. But I seldom get rain fade, and only in heavy rain with black clouds.

When all is well, what is the signal strength like? The last installer that visited me commented on how many issues they have with the small silver box. Still the best one for SD due to processor speed and output features, but not reliable.

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Dingbatt

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#435697 5-Feb-2011 17:17

I have my suspicions that the problem was not rain fade because I checked a recording being made at a similar time by my crappy old freeview stb. It was perfect, not a sign of interference let alone signal loss. The indications on the sky stb were all zeros, ie total signal loss, I haven't seen it that low with rain fade, ever. So either the stb had an internal failure which corrected itself within the 13 hours I was at work, or there were 'external' forces at work. Since I couldn't even get into the phone queue on the 0800 number, let alone holding, or god forbid actually speak to someone, that perhaps I wasn't the only one experiencing the fault at the time.

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Ramjet007

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#436104 7-Feb-2011 06:20

I had this problem on a std sky digital. Sometimes if i turned it of for 30 min it would come right, then it gave the rain fade message all the time.
I rang CS and they talked me through chaning a couple of settings in a setup menu.
Some sort of Freq change and since then its been 100%.

I did get passed anround to about 50 (well 4) different depts before i got someone who knew the problem. Didnt even ask me any questions. I described the problem and she fixed it.

Dingbatt

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#468650 13-May-2011 10:35

Just an update on this.
Got fed up and connected the digital box directly to the dish cable (no splitters long leads etc) and the rain fade result was still there (but not on MySkyHDi when reconnected).
So rang Sky and got a technician out. He brought up the signal strength page on the settings of the decoder, flipped through a few other settings pages, went out and climbed up on to the roof, changed the lnb for a new one, and viola! all good now.
He said lnbs only last about 5 years, and ours was older than that.

Incidently, he didn't install a second cable like I thought they were doing for MySkyHDi installations. Apparently no longer required as Sky are using better compression algorithms on the current transponder.

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l43a2

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#468670 13-May-2011 11:19

Just had my LNB and Dish Replaced because my Standard boxes where having issues, the tech said hes replaced around 50+ LNB's already this yr in my area.