Advice Needed Freesat, No signal, losing channels daily

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younglad

Member
My Satellite Setup
freesat
My Location
Scotland
Freest signal has been degrading for weeks, with channels falling off the system. Today, 28/09/23, many channels have NO signal at all! However, a few, like ch4 are working as usual with 100% signal strength/quality. So, what is going on? Is freest no longer available? Are we being forced to pay for extortionate sat tv? There is NO information anywhere on the net? Complete farce! There is very little worth watching these days anyway, so will probably just stop watching altogether. Certainly NOT worth paying for!
 
The channels are still there, it's a problem at your end, could be water ingress into the cable, corroded connectors, failing LNB, failing receiver, dish going out of alignment or a combination of any of those issues.

A list of which channels you can and can't receive may help determine the cause.
 
The best channel still receiving is ch4, 100%. a few others are still there but poor %. Have several different receivers all the same, different cabling same LNB. New dish in the last year, so clean. 10+ year-old LNB, not sky.
 
Went with six output, 4 hd and 2 4k. should see me allright for future upgrade. If I upgrade, watching less tv, just nothing worth watching, not to mention the total woke agenda being rammed down everyones throat!

Will only/might upgrade at the moment if current tv fails. TV is just not worth the expense for me anymore.
 
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younglad said:
Went with six output, 4 hd and 2 4k. should see me allright for future upgrade.
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That would be a Hybrid LNB. There's no such thing as a 4K, HD or SD LNB output. The '4K' outputs (wideband is the correct term) will only work with a Sky Q or Freesat 4K receiver and require both wideband outputs to be connected.

The Freesat 4K box will work with the 'HD' outputs (AKA universal) but with reduced recording functionality. There are many 4K receivers that work with universal 'HD' LNB outputs with the caveat there isn't any free-to-air 4K channels aimed at the UK market on satellite at the moment.
 
younglad said:
Freest signal has been degrading for weeks, with channels falling off the system. Today, 28/09/23, many channels have NO signal at all! However, a few, like ch4 are working as usual with 100% signal strength/quality. So, what is going on? Is freest no longer available? Are we being forced to pay for extortionate sat tv? There is NO information anywhere on the net? Complete farce! There is very little worth watching these days anyway, so will probably just stop watching altogether. Certainly NOT worth paying for!
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Do you have something in the way of the dish?

Not just in your garden, neighbouring trees, laundry on a line, or a new house/roof extension.
 
No building work, clear view, nothing has changed. Just seems odd that a few channels are fine and most others have disappeared completely, BBC1 HD is just not there anymore, while CH4 HD is 100%. Just very odd?
 
younglad said:
No building work, clear view, nothing has changed. Just seems odd that a few channels are fine and most others have disappeared completely, BBC1 HD is just not there anymore, while CH4 HD is 100%. Just very odd?
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You may have lost the Vertical OR the Hozontal channels on one or more LNBs within the Octo - that's been known to happen with many different types/brands of LNB.
 
jeallen01 said:
You may have lost the Vertical OR the Hozontal channels on one or more LNBs within the Octo - that's been known to happen with many different types/brands of LNB.
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New LNB has been dispatched, so hopefully will arrive in the next few days. I think it must be the LNB, as it is the only common feeder to different receivers with the same problem.
 
I've had a situation whereby the LNB was suffering from Crosstalk between the outputs, so csome channels were fine, but other had no signal. A new LNB is a relatively cheap option to test.:)
 
Here we go again! Channels disappearing again, only to return hours later? I have 3 Freesat receivers, all are doing the same. Like I said new dish in the last year, new LNB last week. So, what is going on with Freesat? I am not going to pay a monthly fee. Getting to the point of just not bothering with TV anymore. In a Freeview black hole, so that is not an option.
 
younglad said:
Here we go again! Channels disappearing again, only to return hours later? I have 3 Freesat receivers, all are doing the same. Like I said new dish in the last year, new LNB last week. So, what is going on with Freesat? I am not going to pay a monthly fee. Getting to the point of just not bothering with TV anymore. In a Freeview black hole, so that is not an option.
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Nothing to do with Freesat per se - if there was an issue with their transmissions, it would be affecting everyone relying on them across the UK & beyond including Sky customers. You would definitely be reading about it here & also in news reports elsewhere.

It's likely that something in your receiving setup has gone awry - saying that all the receivers you have are being similarly affected would generally point to your receiving setup not being optimised. If I were to guess, your dish may have become misaligned (all it takes is for it to go off-focus one or two degrees in any direction, and with some signals from the same satellite position being stronger than others at a given location, this can give the effect of losing some channels while retaining others, for now), or there might be a case of local interference causing certain channels to drop out at certain times, or if you're using a multiswitch to feed your Freesat receivers, it either may have gone faulty or one or more of the coax cables between it and the LNB may have gone faulty, etc. There could be many different reasons, and it could end up being more than one.

I'd be initially tempted to think that either the dish has slightly gone off alignment or that some interference locally is temporarily knocking out some channels, but without knowing the setup, what channels are affected, local geography etc. then it's a case that if you're not confident of your own capabilities of solving the problem at hand, even with suggestions made by the forum regulars here, then it is better to get someone in who very likely can solve it for you.
 
May be worth making a note of which channels are dropping signal, then looking on Astra 2E/2F/2G at 28.3°E - LyngSat to find out whether they are High or low band and H or V polarisation. Also check your connections on the LNB, one single bad connection could cause crosstalk. You can also try switching one of the boxes off when it happens (at the mains) to see if the channels come back on the others, do it one at a time.
 
younglad said:
Here we go again! Channels disappearing again, only to return hours later? I have 3 Freesat receivers, all are doing the same. Like I said new dish in the last year, new LNB last week. So, what is going on with Freesat? I am not going to pay a monthly fee. Getting to the point of just not bothering with TV anymore. In a Freeview black hole, so that is not an option.
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sounds like your dish isnt aligned 100%, if channels are coming and going depending on time of day\night. how big is the dish?
have you peaked your dish, including skew of lnb?

i just moved my 60cm from roof to lower down, and went through same thing, was surprised how much signal gain i got by slowly turning the lnb.

lucky i have a sat meter with a spectrum analyser which helped the bulk of work, then i peaked on TALKING PICTURES TP
 
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