28.2 Eutelsat transponders won't lock Astra Transponders OK

[groveruu]

Hi Guys,

I'm a noob who has been stumped for the last few days.

I have a DM800HD Se clone that I want to use as a FTA box for Astra/Eutelsat 28.2. First couple of weeks went fine. Flashed a few images to play around with and all channels (950 or so) tuned ok. Downloaded a few satellites.xml files and again all up to date and all FTA working.

A few nights ago half or so of the available FTA channels disappeared and despite several image changes and reloads of satellites.xml, I see from the manual scans that transponders for Eutelsat won't lock to a signal. The SNR on these transponders varies from 0% (mostly) to very occasional spikes to 95%+. All the channels from the Astra transponders lock successfully with SNR values of a steady 95%+.

In reading further about this I learned of the slight skew differential between Eutelsat and Astra. I thought perhaps the first winds of the winter experienced in the last few days may have moved the dish slightly causing the loss of signal. However, my dish is a quad LNB and I have a Sky HD plus box already running from the same LNB and this is tuning all transponders from both Astra and Eutelsat successfully with a strong signal. I tried the 800HDSE with these feeds but still the same problem just on that box.

The 'bad' transponder sectors are all the Eutelsat transponders found between 11222000 - 11720000 and 12051000 - 12740000.

I'm in Cork southern Ireland. I've tried flashing a few different images so I doubt its a software issue.

Might this be a tuner issue? Or is perhaps the Dreambox more sensitive than a Sky box to any possible tweak in the dishes orientation?

I'd appreciate any advice on this as I cant find anyone in forums who has had a similar issue.

Regards,

Grover

[digicon]

The first step to try is to open up the DM800 and reseat the tuner card by taking completely out and replacing making sure of a good firm contact with the main board

[groveruu]

Hi digicon,
Thanks for prompt response.
I've tried that m8. More than once in fact. Looked for scorching on the board etc. Seems ok. Its sitting well on the motherboard.

[digicon]

Ok then at least you can eliminate that alos the LNB seems to be working fine as you stated you tried the other feeds from your other box and these give the same result.

Without a Pro meter to try on the actual feed themselves its a little hard to tell if the problem lies with maybe a slight misalignment of your dish.

What i will say is that normally you peak the signal on a Eutelsat 28A TP such as the CBS action one or even one on the Superbeam as the rest of the 28.2 satellites in the Astra family are way stronger than the Eutelsat Bird.

Have you tried the official HD box on the DM800 feed to see if you get these transponders/Channels OK

[groveruu]

Yes I tried that also without success. Don't have a meter reader unfortunately... But the 60cm dish I'm using has worked very well since installed about 3 years ago with my Sky system. I'm now inclined to think it's a hardware / software issue with the 800Hd SE unit itself. I'm using a TSImage1.1 ssl84b image at the moment... The original bootloader was 76 but I've flashed second stage up to 84b prior to loading that image and all transponders were receiving ok with that image ... Is it possible the tuner driver may since have been corrupted in some way? Is it possible to manually install a new driver for a Broadcom 4505 tuner? I can't find any tuner drivers to download... BTW I never backed up the original All Russian image. Would you have any suspicions as to why the Eutelsat transponders only won't lock the signal??

[groveruu]

Still stuck. Anyone able to help me on this? Astra transponders ok .... Eutelsat nothing?

Thanks...

[piggy12]

Still stuck. Anyone able to help me on this? Astra transponders ok .... Eutelsat nothing?

Thanks...

Got any mates near you with larger dish ? If you have then take your box round and try it on their's. Bigger the dish the better, and will rule out your dish and Lnb, if it works.

[groveruu]

Thanks Piggy .... I don't know anyone with a dish bigger than 60cm but I'm fairly certain its not a dish/lnb problem as I'm getting a strong signal from the same setup on my existing Sky plus HD box. Also the DM800SE box originally worked ok on the same setup ... It just stopped working for the Eutelsat transponders ...

[groveruu]

People, Just to advise I gave up on this issue and bought a Skybox F5. Worked a treat receiving all channels straight from the box so as suspected this was most likely a hardware issue with the dreambox clone.