magic eye - intermittent problems

[enduroman]

Hi i am having a strange problem with a magic eye i have installed. I have had the eye installed and working for a couple of years. But only recently (say last 6 months) the remote lets works and enables me to select the tv guide, control the sky + play back speed but it does NOT work when trying to make a selection off of the tv guide e.g. one of the 9 categories or planner. When i press the button on the remote the red eye lights up on remote and magic eye but nothing happens. As you can imagine it makes teh sky remote fairy useless.

Then randomly (sometimes days later) it will start to work again.

It is a real pain.

Any ideas or thoughts woudl be greatly appreciated.

[Andy17]

Sometimes my magic eye is intermittent, after I changed the remote batteries it worked again. Other times I wasn't holding the remote at the correct angle at the eye, I find them intermittent in their working and try not to use them as much of the time as possible.

[Smithy99]

Try unplugging the coax connectors and fitting them again, it could be a little corrosion stopping the signal passing through.

I would do this at both ends, spin them and give them a little wiggle to ensure that they are still making a good connection.

[enduroman]

Thanks - the only thing is it works consistently for one or two functions e.g. select but not for selecting specific channels. I don't have the telephone line connected - i was wondering if sky could be doing anything to disrupt the signal because of this?

Any other ideas appreciated.

[Smithy99]

No this won't be anything to do with Sky, it is almost certainly due to a poor connection and one end or another oe maybe in between, check all cables and if needed, remove the coax plugs and remake them ensuring that the inner solid core is making good contact with the little tube inner bit of the plug, if needed crimp it or drop some solder on it.

[Old_nick]

Smithy99 is quite right. The problem is due to the fact that to make a magic eye work, they put a small DC voltage on the cable to power the magic eye. The TV signals are at a very high frequency, and these can jump across a layer of oxide on plugs and sockets, but the DC power can't. For magic eyes to work reliably, all plugs should be soldered, and any plugs and sockets used should be of the highest quality. The fewer connectors used, the better.