movies4men reception
After seeing it on the freesat channel lineup (and not previously having heard of it) I gave movies4men a try, but it alternates between "no signal" and lots of breakup on my Sky box. There are no problems with any other channel, so what's different about this one?
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They're normally close enough to be both picked up by dishes pointing at them, but maybe yours is slightly off, pointing more at 28.2E. Are you getting problems with the EPG (which comes from Eurobird 1) or any other channels?
EDIT: Oh, just saw that you're getting it on your Sky box. Umm... could still be the problem, maybe. Most of Sky's stuff comes from the other Astra 2 satellites at 28.2E, but as mentioned, Eurobird 1 is 28.5E.
Your DECT phone .................. ?
He's using a Sky Box,so the EPG comes from Astra 2A North.
Bet it's the DECT phone .............
Handbags at dawn ?
Have I missed this DECT thing or something?
<watches the TV listings with earnest now>
DECT operates at 1880 - 1900MHz, 12.523GHz after down-conversion by the LNB is 1773MHz - pretty close if I've done the maths right.
Any DECT phone, operating at around 1880MHz is liable to cause interference to a couple of Low Band TPs around 11630MHz (LNB Local Oscillator 9750MHz) and ditto in High Band around 12480 MHz (LNB Local Oscillator 10600 MHz).
Although 12523 is a bit higher than this nominal range, it rather depends upon the exact frequency any offending device is actually operating on.
There are other known Interference sources as well, the latest culprit being BT Homehub.
The OP would be advised to turn off all such devices at source in a logical way to find out if the problem really is Interference and, if so, which device is to blame.
Handbag is at the ready...
No, it isn't anything to do with harmonics (generally).
Don't forget that each TP is 20 MHz or so wide and the nominal TP frequency is the centre frequency.
Each TP can carry round about 8 Channels on Frequencies up to about 10MHz higher or lower than TP nominal.
Clearly L Band Interference can affect only one Channel, then, although it does often affect several.
This is a common problem and a well worn path, as is a Dish a few tenths of a degree too far west of the optimum for 28.2/28.5E, as you suggested.
Edit: Of course, as we haven't been told the Make/Model of the Sky Box in question, it might turn out to be an ageing one with incipient Power Supply Smoothing Capacitor failure.
Without actually being there, all we can do is suggest possible causes.
Ok, I'll stuff my Handbag back in the cupboard.
Can you tell us the Make/Model of your Digibox? It isn't an old Grundig, by any chance?
At the end of the day, if this is a misalignment issue (and you might like to check reception on some other Eurobird Channels before accepting this as the likely cause), it isn't terribly difficult to optimise the alignment yourself.
Out of the Past, Fort Apache, Thing From Another World, Django Kill, So weit die Füße tragen, Tunes of Glory, Death Race 2000,... how much money do you have? Nine Deaths of the Ninja. OK, well... not Nine Deaths of the Ninja.
Not that bad for free if that's your type of thing. Bear in mind a lot of known movies are no doubt expensive for the rights and have exclusivity on them. That's likely why Sky's cost extra. Anyway, this is all off topic! ;-P
Its a Pace DS445N
I've checked the following Eurobird channels and their +1 versions where applicable, and they all work
Zone Reality
Zone Reality Extra
Zone Romantica
Zone Horror
Zone Thriller
UCB TV
Jewellery Channel
Tiny Pop
True Movies
Al Jazeera
France 24
Russia Today
Movies4men (and +1 and 2) are the only channels that I'm having reception problems with, so I'm a bit stumped now!
Good mixture of both Horizontally and Vertically Polarised Channels in that list, so it probably isn't an LNB Skew issue.
Stumped myself, now!
Time for someone else to chip in with more ideas.
Ah, good thinking... but it didn't make any difference
No wallplates.
What I'm getting at is does one of them use "noisy" gear?
Its not a Sky+ box, I only have the one cable. I'll check the cable for anything visible, but note that 12,523 V seems OK, which would be hard to explain if its some frequency dependent characteristic of the cable.
I couldn't really comment on what gear the neighbours may be using, but they are a fair distance away, certainly out of DECT range.