Is anybody else having reception problems due to the bad weather? It's not even thundering here, and I've already lost Sky Digital, and my other satellite dish pointing at Hotbird and Astra has also just lost reception. It's pretty heavy rain, but it's not the worst I've seen.
If we still had analogue, then at least it wouldn't have cut out - didn't that used to just get sparklies until it got so bad it was just fuzz? I'm currently getting bad signal messages, with Hotbird on 77% signal and 0% quality, and Sky, strength is at about 70%, with about 10% signal quality!
I have ntl analogue and it's fine though it is raining rather hard. It does occasionally skip during bad weather when the screen cuts up and skews. It's sometimes more entertaining than what we were watching!
I have ntl analogue and it's fine though it is raining rather hard. It does occasionally skip during bad weather when the screen cuts up and skews. It's sometimes more entertaining than what we were watching!
There should never be problems on cable, either digial or analogue. I'm not sure exactly how the channels are distributed to the head-ends, but if it is via satellite I should think the dishes are sufficiently large to withstand all weather conditions.
A few weeks ago we had someone out to sort out our Sky Digital. Whenever it rained it wouldn't work. But she said the dish had not been pointing in the precise direction. So she corrected the alignment and we have had no problems since, except during thunderstorms when it says ' No signal being received '.
If anyone remembers I queried about STV, UTV, Grampian and Channel because I could not get them to work. Well they all work fine now, so that must have been because the dish was not in the right direction.
We had cable in Atlanta a few years ago and it went out everytime we had severe weather, which is daily in the summer. They never could give an explanation.
Sky here in West London has been fine during the rain we've had yesterday and today. It just seems to get rather bad during very heavy rain, and was practically unwatchable for a time last week during the very stormy weather. Interestingly, after the bad weather cleared there was still a bit of pixellation, but it wasn't on all the channels, I presume this is due to the different transponder frequencies and maybe some slight atmospherics or thick cloud blocking the satellite reception.
During today's and yesterday's rain the Signal strength was normal but the quality dropped a bit, but not enough to affect viewing, which in the 19 days we've had Sky, seems fairly normal.
One annoying thing I've discovered is when it was really heavy rain last week, is that as well as the TV channels dropping out, you can't access any of the games either!
Text message from my sister yesterday asking if I knew whether Emily (sic) Moor was down because both terrestrial and sky weren't working. Turns out the relay she uses was listed as scheduled interruptions on BBC Engineering's website.
You shouldn't be losing any Astra satellite channels in anything but absolutely torrential rain (or heavy snow). I've lost reception on mine twice in 5 years, both times during thunderstorms. If you're losing your reception often then your dish needs re-aligned. If you have a repair contract with Sky or your system is still under warranty, get them out. Otherwise get your Yellow Pages out and find a local independent satellite installer (who is a member of the CAI) and get them out to do the job. The chances are they will do a better job than the Sky bods.
You shouldn't be losing any Astra satellite channels in anything but absolutely torrential rain (or heavy snow). I've lost reception on mine twice in 5 years, both times during thunderstorms. If you're losing your reception often then your dish needs re-aligned. If you have a repair contract with Sky or your system is still under warranty, get them out. Otherwise get your Yellow Pages out and find a local independent satellite installer (who is a member of the CAI) and get them out to do the job. The chances are they will do a better job than the Sky bods.
Mine too has only cut out twice since I had it installed four years ago - and both of those were in the last week. The first was during a thuderstorm last Tuesday, and today's torrential rain cut it out for about half an hour. It was so heavy, the grid on my drive wasn't coping and I had to go and get a bucket! That's a first in 12 years!
Turns out the relay she uses was listed as scheduled interruptions on BBC Engineering's website.