Digistar Tuning Issues

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Digistar Tuning Issues

doublek

13 posts

Geek

#70143 19-Oct-2010 09:16

Hi,
We've got a Digistar 811U (one of the TradeMe specials!) and have had a good run with it so far. Around a month ago, my wife reported that trying to switch from another channel back to 1 (TV One) resulted in bad signal (no picture/sound at all). I tried other TVNZ channels and none are available. Other channels are available (TV3, C4, Prime). Problem seems to resolve itself later in the morning. Power off /on on the unit does not resolve. If we leave the unit on 1 when we got bed, it displays the channel fine. So it appears to have issues acquiring the signal earlier in the morning. Can anyone suggest steps to resolve or let me know if there is specific data they need to know about our settings to troubleshoot?

many thanks in advance

r0bbie

239 posts

Master Geek

#395065 23-Oct-2010 18:13

Weird - ive been using one and I highly recommend it

Check sat cable connection is screwed in - whats your signal strength?

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

richms

27912 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#395357 24-Oct-2010 22:37

LNB is failing would be my first guess, once they get water in them they have strange temperature related issues like that, or more commonly they die when they get really hot during the middle of the day.

Richard rich.ms

doublek

13 posts

Geek

#395679 26-Oct-2010 07:59

Thanks for this help guys. If it is a case of water in the LNB, is there a repair possible or is it replace? We do have a couple of patches of lichen on it, but was advised that this will not be enough to affect signal.
Signal strength in the morning comes back with no bars in the morning, hence the bad signal message.
We do have a continual issue of some channels having misaligned audio to voice (what actors are saying, doesn't line up with how their mouths are moving... I thought that just happened with politicians... ). This is resolved by scrolling up a channel and back down.
Is there a recommended firmware upgrade and does anyone know where to source it?
Many thanks

richms

27912 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#395826 26-Oct-2010 15:11

The sync going out is a symptom of a cheap reciver IME, they dont recover from glitches properly. Never had it happen on my DSE branded zinwell, but a trademe cheapie would do it all the time if the signal was interupted (changing channels on one box would glitch the other because of my splitter not being all ports power pass) I gave that box away and it still does it occasionally at its new owners place even with no interuption to signal.

Replace the LNB is the only option, they are not user serviceable. Good thing is they are dirt cheap, but replacing it you really need to watch the distance to the dish, there is a few mm of in and out adjustment and that will have an affect on signal quality.

If you have done a blind scan and not tuned in properly, you may have done it when the LNB was at one temperature extreme - the LO will drift slightly over temperature so if you dont tune it properly then it can be a couple of MHz off what it should be, and then when the LNB goes to the other extreme it is too far off to lock.

Richard rich.ms