R D S wrote:
"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
...

"R D S" wrote in message
...

My current digibox is going down the same road as the old one.
Screen freeze, pops, clicks etc.
Do these things only have an 18 month life span or am I unlucky.
It gets switched off every night, has been repeatedly unplugged and is
getting progressively worse daily.

One more reason (were it needed) to sack em off.

Rick


In general, switching electronics off and on definitely shortens their

life.

Quite possibly the reason. Or maybe you are just unlucky.

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com



The signal sterngth and qualitu meters are sitting at about 75%.
But if you watch the quality meter it drops to zero occasionally, might my
dish be misaligned or lnb faulty?

When I say 'switch off' the Sky box is left in standby except when it
displays problems.


I don't think that the in-built meters are very helpful. Both of mine
bounce around a bit. When I mentioned this to the installer (a
professional, not a $ky monkey) he told me that they were useful as a
very rough guide only. He wouldn't trust them for any serious dish
alignment and would only use a meter. To prove it he lashed-up a test
meter and box and the same time (no, I can't remember how). Sure enough,
whilst the box's meters were doing an occasional dance, the physical
meter stayed rock solid.

As for your problem, well it could be other factors. For instance, is
the box in an enclosed area? These things run hot - put the box in a
confined area and it will slowly bake. Mains electricity quality is
another problem - repeated brown-outs will take their toll on the kit.



Clem

My current digibox is going down the same road as the old one.
Screen freeze, pops, clicks etc.

Have you tried changing the LNB. I recently had the same problem and was
convinced it was a tree getting in the way of the dish with the wind. It
also only seemed to happen when the wind was blowing a certain direction. I
have a 80cm dish with LNBs pointing at Hot Bird and Astra 2. The installer
pointed out to me that the signal was coming from a direction where the tree
did not make any impact.

He changed my old LNB for one of the new Humax 0.3 db ones - problem solved.

Bob

"Jomtien" wrote in message
...
R D S wrote:

Its Sky who are unlucky, the only thing stopping me going freeview is
that I
need an aerial.

You don't need to subscribe to Sky to get the main free channels so
your argument doesn't make much sense.

My arguments rarely do.

But, I am paying Sky £20 per month, my girlfriend watches a lot of TV and
the current package keeps her happy.

However I have no intention of ponying up for my 4th digibox in 4 years, so
I need an alternative and freeview is it. I may have gone down this route
earlier if i'd an aerial.

That may be slightly clearer but even i'm not convinced.

Rick

"Jomtien" wrote in message
...
R D S wrote:

My current digibox is going down the same road as the old one.
Screen freeze, pops, clicks etc.
Do these things only have an 18 month life span or am I unlucky.

Test your box on a dish that is known to be working and vice-versa.


I had the foresight ('er indoors thought I was mad, she is eating her words
now she can watch Lost tonight) to buy a spare digibox I saw going cheap
some time ago. It seems to work OK.
I have had an engineer up to test the setup in general, he is local and OK,
only charged us a tenner, said the tuner had burned out.
He reckons the signal is OK but said if the LNB is slightly off it reduces
the tuner life due to overheating , frankly im not convinced.
I will let this box last as long as it takes then go freeview. Who knows my
run of bad luck may be over, I will protect myself further and buy one of
those spike protector thingies.

Rick

R D S wrote:

You don't need to subscribe to Sky to get the main free channels so
your argument doesn't make much sense.

My arguments rarely do.

But, I am paying Sky £20 per month, my girlfriend watches a lot of TV and
the current package keeps her happy.

However I have no intention of ponying up for my 4th digibox in 4 years, so
I need an alternative and freeview is it. I may have gone down this route
earlier if i'd an aerial.

So why not cancel your sub and use the first month saved to buy a used
digibox at a car boot sale? The other £220 you will save every year
can be used for something else (like a Freeview box to run in parallel
with your FTV satellite kit).

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/7rm2m
UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
BBC reception questions? ; http://www.astra2d.com/
Fed up with on-screen logos? : http://logofreetv.org/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

R D S wrote:

I have had an engineer up to test the setup in general, he is local and OK,
only charged us a tenner, said the tuner had burned out.

It happens.


He reckons the signal is OK but said if the LNB is slightly off it reduces
the tuner life due to overheating , frankly im not convinced.

Neither am I.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/7rm2m
UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
BBC reception questions? ; http://www.astra2d.com/
Fed up with on-screen logos? : http://logofreetv.org/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

Many digibox problems are software related, due to slowly failing power
supply.

However, this doesn't affect the tuner/demod section. If you suddenly
lose "signal quality", it's worth checking the antenna connection to
digibox (is the f plug screwed onto cable properly?), and especially at
the lnb end, if you can access that!

Alan Pemberton wrote:
spiney wrote:

Many digibox problems are software related, due to slowly failing power
supply.

However, this doesn't affect the tuner/demod section......

A faulty power supply can affect signal quality. For example, noise on
the tuning voltage can cause sufficient phasiness at the demodulator
that the 1s and 0s cannot be distinguished with certainly.


Fair enough, but I think the microprocessor would crash first, before
the signal demod did!