Something strange has happened with my satellite connection.
I have had a Humax Foxsat HDR for nearly a year now with a twin tuner connection. I’ve never had any issue with it. Since the other night, however, I’ve noticed that it’s dropped one of the cables so it’s only working on a ‘one cable’ set-up, so I can’t record one channel and watch another.
I’ve tried resetting the unit dozens of times, and I’ve checked the connections of the cables, and everything seems as it was – but it just won’t pick up both cables. Nothing has been recently disturbed or damaged, it’s as though it’s just happened at random. The satellite signal is still picked up.

Is it possible for one of the LNB cables to just ‘go’, and require replacing?
Obviously if so this might mean quite a lot of disruption and I rent a flat – the wires are sealed in the skirting boards, going out the building up to the dish, so I need to be sure it’s that before getting someone in to do it.

Check menu/system/diagnostics. Do you get signal strength and quality for both tuner 1 and tuner 2. If no tuner 2 power off and swap the inputs. Repeat, if still no signal on tuner 2 the hdr itself may have a duff tuner. If you get no signal on tuner 1 you know it's the cable, it's connectors or the lnb that's faulty.

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I'm at work so I'll have to try this later, which i certainly will do.
I tried swapping the cables last night (i.e. - putting the cable from LNB 1 in into LNB2 in, and vice versa) and it wouldn't even pick up the satellite signal, but i don't think this is the same thing you're talking about.

You'll have to forgive me for not being clued up, but what specifically are connectors? What i should also point out is that with regards to the LNB 2 in cable, the end of this is exposed (the scew applicator that fits on the end is not on it) and the gold wire stuffed inside the sheathing was exposed. Having said this, it's worked fine all this time being like that, with the spike/needle being exposed.

That would indicate a problem with the 2nd lnb connection,. As a temporary work around connect tuner 1 with the good cable, connect tuner 1 out to tuner 2 in and reset the box to get into single cable mode. This will check the hdr is working OK and restore two channel recording and third channel viewing with some restrictions.

http://myhumax.org/forum/topic/what-...-1-or-2-cables

If i have the good cable plugged into LNB 1, how can i connect it to LNB2 in as well at the same time?
And if it's in single cable mode how can it enable twin-tuner capabilities?

You need a short piece of cable to attach the LNB out from the Foxsat to LNB2. This will give you limited functionality on the second tuner. (It will be able to receive channels on the same band and with the same polarisation as that in use on the first tuner.)

However as you say: "You'll have to forgive me for not being clued up, but what specifically are connectors? ", it doesn't seem as if that is a straightforward option as you would need to get a piece of cable and a couple of connectors and make a loop through.

That's your problem then.

http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/fconn.htm

You don't need the grease

The hdr is designed to allow both tuners to be connected to a single lnb that's why it has a third connector (in the middle on the back) to pass on the lnb connection to the second tuner. (look at Page 16 of the manual option 2)

A satellite tuner switches the lnb into one of four operating conditions, normally this would mean about 25% of all the channels will be available for the second tuner. However there are very few freesat tv channels using the two high frequency band options so in practice near to 50% of the available channels are available to the second tuner. The hdr knows what these are so it will only let you set recordings for channels that it can actually record.

In fiddling with the exposed cable last night and trying to force on a plug, I may have snipped away at some of the exposed braided wire - oh dear, could this have been a stupid move?

No it does not matter if the braid sticks out of the f connector. What does matter if a stray piece of screen is touching the centre core.

Well it looks like i've got some reading to do. Without exaggerating, you could probably unleash a monkey on this and it come up with more promising results. Still, I'd rather try and fix the problem myself within reason, if it's not too big a job, rather than have bandits charging me £40 just to have a look.
From looking at the stuff you've posted in links i could probably figure my way through - is it equally possible though that the wire is just completely redundant now and its connection is irrelevant? It just seems odd it was fine for son long and then just stopped working.

I appreciate you're only able to make suggestions, i don't expect you to diagnose the problem.

No, it isn't redundant.

You cannot get full functionality from the PVR with only one LNB.

As to possible problems, it could be water ingress into the cable, it could be an LNB failure, or it could just be a poor connection.

If you can get to your dish safely, the first thing to try would be to swap the cables over. If this makes no difference to the effects at the PVR then it is the cable that is at fault. If you now find that the 'other' cable works, then it is the LNB.

If it is the LNB and assuming you have a quad LNB then you can just try disconnecting from the faulty one and using one of the other connections. (You may need to disconnect one cable at a time to see which is connected to the faulty LNB.)

So, i had a look last night.
I checked what the signal/tuner strength was through the diagnostics option on the menu and it showing Signal 2 as being 0, nothing , nada, but tuner 1 with full strength,
I then swapped the cables round and it showed tuner 2 as being full/fine, and 1 being dead.

Does this determine what the problem is?

It tells you that the hdr is OK. This leaves two possibilities, either the coax giving no signal is faulty (water ingress, faulty f connector fitting) or the lnb segment it's connected to is faulty. The cable is the most likely. To eliminate the lnb swap the connections at the lnb, if the same coax at the hdr end that had no signal still has none it's the cable and/or it's terminations.

See post 13

Ok, thanks.

with regards to the LNB 2 in cable, the end of this is exposed (the scew applicator that fits on the end is not on it)

So, where IS the F connector.......still screwed on the receiver?

in fiddling with the exposed cable last night and trying to force on a plug,

Or, has it been found and refitted correctly?