northend

For the last couple of days I lose BBC1, 2 and ITV at about 7.00pm. Is it due to the position of the satellite? Its OK during the daytime and has been OK for the last 8 months. Is it a winter thing? Any advice would be appreciated.

The Guy

if it has only just started to happen then it means that your dish is out of alignment....probably as a result of the small breezes of wind we had a few days ago...in many cases i have been to the so called "concrete" bases have failed - as a result of the original installers using dry concrete mix and trying to do the installation quickly...big mistake..the winds just ripped the dishes out of the "concrete bases". other dishes are freely moving in the "concret base" and thus not aligned.

others i have been to have been a slight readjustment of the dish, with the wind just knocking the dish about. and on another i found all but 3 bolts on the dish loose (my bet is that the bolts were never tightened at all - i have heard stories about the company that did that installation!) and the dish and stand and bracket all wobbling in the wind...

call your installer and get on the waiting list....

but be patient as we are all very busy doing realignments...

the early loss of chanenls can also be down to which bbc and itv regions you are using...for bbc1 the stongest are bbc Channel Islands (988) and BBC1 East (W). BBC2,3,4 and BBC1 London are very weak.ITV Granada / london (993) and ITV Channels Islands (10905v) are strong, as are the itvs on frequency 12403v (sky card required).

trentino

We always lose ITV when its raining?

CBANDY

All our channels are still there.

digdug

we've lost our 'paid for' channels, although the freebies (sky news, ch5 etc) are still there. re-alignment needed, or something wrong with our sky card?

The Guy

if you have lost your pay tv channels (like Sky One...with the message like "Sky One leading the way in top entertainment...to upgrade call..."), then it an issue with your card and subscription...not the dish...it will only be the dish if you get the "no signal being received" message or for example you can not longer get bbc (if you have a big dish!)

you may find that you have been downgraded to one "mix" - like the music channels only....this is probably because you are using a uk address provided by your card supplier and they want a yearly maintenance fee for the use of this address, instead of using your "own" uk address. and to make you pay it they have downgraded your subscription so that you cal your installer who provided you with the card so that they can tell you to pay 100 - 150 euros a year for the use of this address.

it is happening to a lot of people and have not been told about this yearly fee...your installer should have mentioned that you may have to pay a yearly fee for using their card suppliers address when you got the card from them...i try ro get my clients to use a uk address they "own", but on the rare occasion this is not possible, then yes they pay a yearly fee for a "borrowed" one. this is not a new process, as it has been around since i have been doing sky cards etc, but it may be new that they have not told you about it!!

so to get your pay tv channel back wither pay the yearly fee, or cancel the dd, and get a new sky card registered at a uk address you control.

jdr

I lost most of Sky for a while in the storms, but it was great, gave me a chance to re watch The Fifth Element and The Blues Brothers, two brilliant films.

prosaic

The storm damaged the Swiss Cable repeater near us, they can't repair it, so they have recommended that we switch to their partner Cabo TV - I know it is big in Portugal - but does anyone know what it it is like in Spain? We are in two minds about whether just to forget uk TV and go with "Spanish/American" channels - because we still get bbc1 on freeview - but I would miss some of the programmes - any ideas or recommendations? There is a limit to how many times I can watch Fifth Element and Blues Brothers
Gaile

CBANDY

We get loads of channels on free to air. Even the regional BBC & ITV so i can keep up with a bit of local news. Best investment i have made and would never touch another rebroadcaster.

prosaic

I am so jealous - we have two dishes and loads of channels - but they are mostly encoded or scrambled - we get BBC1, reality, horror etc - but not a lot - we used to get bbc2, itv 1 and 3 - but they seem to have gone - they were always on the edge - Our satellite reception here is not brilliant - we seem to be struggling even though we have a 2m dish and a little one.... the line of sight with cable used to be good... until all the trees started to grow in neighbours' gardens... Two houses away, they get perfect reception - we have had patchy reception for a year, waiting for Swiss cable to correct it - or the trees to fall down - they even stoppped charging us - but now... after the storms... even that has gone... so ideally we need a line of sight transmitter from someone legal over at Monte Pedreguer as the Benitachell Transmitters are just too obscured. If we go with Cabo TV, about whom I know little or nothing, we have to pay a new contract/installation - even though it is Swiss Cable transferring us - hence this is the time to shop around and see what else is about... but I have always found it better to ask who uses what - rather than just trust the adverising blurb!

CBANDY

Speak to the sat and pc guy on here. He works up your area and has helped me a lot with advice. I cannot believe you have a 2 mtr dish and still having problems.

prosaic

Thanks - I will see what he says - and yes - I know what you mean about a 2m dish - still giving problems, being amazing - we feel the same way!!

CBANDY

Could be a dodgy install. There are a few rougues about.

Beachcomber

It may seem anomalous but the larger the dish the more accurately it needs to be aligned. Large dishes, especially cheaper ones are also liable to lose their parabolic properties in high winds.

Another problem is that many installers use (if they use anything) insulation tape rather than self-amalgamating tape to seal the joint where the cable plugs into the LNB. Insulation tape becomes brittle in the sun or dries out and unwinds itself allowing water to enter when it rains.

I would get a recommended installer to check your system over but, watch out, as Cbandy says, there are a great many cowboys operating in this trade.

The Guy

hi,
even on a 1.8m dish you should get bbc2 (and itv1,2,3,4) for some of the day..maybe until about 5pm ish for bbc2 and much later for itvs
so maybe there is a problems with your dish, be it alignment of LNB.

AFAIK cabo TV is another rebroadcaster..and nothing to do with the TV Cabo satellite package from portugal..