Help with evening interference with Sky TV

[chewy666]

Hi all,

I am currently getting an intermittant fault with my Sky TV reception (Standard install, Thomson digibox - not sure of exact one, but it's approx. 5 years old). The picture will sometimes freeze, or a vertical line of noise will appear and sometimes smear the whole picture. Weirdly this happens more in the evenings (from about 7pm onwards). I've had an independent CAI guy round who has checked the alignment which he thinks is fine (he in fact slightly improved the Signal quality - although he reckoned both the quality and strength were OK before he fiddled with the dish).
This has been on-going for a few months now on and off - and I have occasionally completely lost the signal (i.e no signal quality or strength and "unlocked") although recently I haven't seen anything change on the signal test...
Sky reckon that their £65 call-out fee would include a replacement reconditioned box and a new dish/LNB - although I'm dubious that it would (a sales guy said this).
My other option is to forget Sky and move to Freeview...

Does anyone have any explanation as to why I'm getting this problem - and why it happens at night? I'd like a rough idea as to the possible problems (could it be intereference from somewhere) before I go down the route of replacing equipment or moving away from Sky.
Sorry for the long post

[penrhyn]

If you convinced that the dish aligment is correct then you are left with the LNB or the digibox at fault. These can really only be tested by substitution.
Can you get hold of another digibox and try it? LNBs are cheap to buy if you trust youself up a ladder.
There are no obtructions, tall trees or the like that may be blocking the signal? Radio interference increases at night, its to do with the ionosphere, but it shouldn't affect you reception.
Try asking Sky to come out for free tell them you are fed up and want to cancel, but be prepared to do so!

£65 to fix the problem is probably cheap compared with going to Freeview if you need an aerial upgrade.

[chewy666]

Thanks for your help! I've managed to borrow a digibox (was used until early this year) to see what happens; I'll try it tonight! After that I guess it's the LNB/dish to be changed...
Thanks again.

[Sam Radford]

The £65 callout fee covers everything needed to fix the problem (apart from a chainsaw).

Evening interference could be from a neighbour's police radar detector in his car; a DECT cordless phone; street lights at dusk.

[chewy666]

Looks like the issue was the digibox (must admit - I'm a bit suprised!).

Now the next question - what's the best standard digibox to go for? The new Pace ds440n is the obvious - but I've heard good things about the ds430n, and this will be cheaper via ebay...

Essentially, I'd like people's thoughts. I've only ever had a Thomson ds4101, which was fine, but I'm wondering if I can do better now I get to choose?