Rain and my signal

[Reddkryten]

Hello.

Right now I'm really angry. 90% of the time Sky works but it really knows how to pick that 10%

Last month there was a storm and I couldn't get a signal for an hour, but it was a really bad storm and I would have been more surprised if I did get one. In that case the box was justified, but today it has no excuse.

Right now I'm recording something on the performance channel and the signal keeps dropping out. There is a slight drizzle of rain!!! I could easily walk outside without a coat, but could the box get a signal, Noooo!

For some reason BBC and Sky One are fine but not Performance, does that channel use a weaker signal or something?

Is there any way to fix this? I'm mostly happy with Sky, so I don't want to get into bigger dishes, gold cables or tracking satellites using laser beams. Would an umbrella over the dish work?

Failing that, is there any way to hide the fact that I'm recording, because I swear that box noticed that I was recording and decided to lose the signal just to annoy me.

Thanks in advance for any help or tips on how to make the box feel pain.

[greyrider]

You need to get your dish alignment checked if rain knocks the signal out as well as you're experiencing drop outs.
One thing to look at yourself, I was losing a few channels, gradually getting worse, on tuner 1, sorted by disconnecting the coax and refitting the f connector.

[Reddkryten]

So do you think it is the dish alignment or the coaxial cable?

It usually has no problem working in the rain,I think it is either that channel or my box is a sadist.

[pootsey]

I don't know about sky+ and its GUI but with a normal sky box you can check signal strength in the services part of the guide, press the services button to check.

Its worth a look as an early indication if your dish needs realigned

[sajid78]

I can sympathise with the original poster, the same thing happens to me, so I got an engineer coming around to realign the dish.

[Reddkryten]

So the general consensus is that I need to get the dish realigned.

Is there any way for me to realign the dish myself, long story but I can't get a sky technician out.

[greyrider]

Try reading here, How to use the SatCure Satellite Finder Signal Meter

And there's some samples here, Maplin> SATELLITE ALIGNMENT METER

[Proppinupthebar]

Bear in mind that the sat signal travels two ways. Up to the sat and back down. Although the uplink dishes are bigger, they do also suffer from rain fade in very bad weather. If you lose channels consistently everytime it rains then yes, your dish alignment may be out and a signal level check should confirm this (though the signal level check only checks one particular transponder). But if its only intermittent it could be a provider issue.

[terrorvis]

Performance is on Eurobird, rather than Astra. If my memory serves, eurobird is slightly off alignment to the rest of the satellites. (28.5 degrees rather than 28.2) It may only be 0.3 degrees from ground level, but thats a few hundred (thousand?) miles difference in space.

As a result eurobird can be weaker in general. However if everything on Astra is working fine, then I wouldn't move the dish and centre it on eurobird as this would mean more channels would be effected by the same issue, as most channels are on Astra.

To be honest, if you want a more reliable signal, then you'll need a bigger dish.

[tdadyslexia]

Like Reddkryten 90% of the time Sky works but it really knows how to pick that 10%

I have had 3 new transponders on the dish. I have 2 Sky+ Boxs and both of them go off at the same time. I am 5 flors up.