The Lemon Fool

I have a so called smart TV and a Freesat box. It works fine until it doesn’t, which is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Has anyone got any bright ideas for what I can do about it? I have switched everything off at the wall and so on. It is very temperamental and at least it had the good taste to fail just as the awful Apprentice programme was coming on last night.

It is still not working today.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:I have a so called smart TV and a Freesat box. It works fine until it doesn’t, which is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Has anyone got any bright ideas for what I can do about it? I have switched everything off at the wall and so on. It is very temperamental and at least it had the good taste to fail just as the awful Apprentice programme was coming on last night.

It is still not working today.

Dod

You have obviously tried the Big Red Switch treatment. I occasionally find that repeating it does the trick.

TJH

Dod101 wrote:I have a so called smart TV and a Freesat box. It works fine until it doesn’t, which is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Has anyone got any bright ideas for what I can do about it? I have switched everything off at the wall and so on. It is very temperamental and at least it had the good taste to fail just as the awful Apprentice programme was coming on last night.

It is still not working today.

Dod

In what way does it not work, Dod? Plays recordings but not live TV? The opposite? Some channels OK but not others? Or.....
doolally

doolally wrote:

Dod101 wrote:I have a so called smart TV and a Freesat box. It works fine until it doesn’t, which is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Has anyone got any bright ideas for what I can do about it? I have switched everything off at the wall and so on. It is very temperamental and at least it had the good taste to fail just as the awful Apprentice programme was coming on last night.

It is still not working today.

Dod

In what way does it not work, Dod? Plays recordings but not live TV? The opposite? Some channels OK but not others? Or.....
doolally

It is just missing live TV as far as I can see. All channels.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:

doolally wrote:In what way does it not work, Dod? Plays recordings but not live TV? The opposite? Some channels OK but not others? Or.....
doolally

It is just missing live TV as far as I can see. All channels.

Dod

In that case it sounds like the Smart TV is working, and your problem is with the Freesat box, or the satellite dish, or the cables from the dish to the Freesat box. Or maybe something has appeared in the line-of-sight from the dish to the satellite. Or the recent strong winds have moved your dish so it is not pointing at the satellite.
Have you tried retuning the box? Does it show the signal strength? I have a Humax Freesat box (Foxsat-HDR) so can offer some help if you also have one.

--kiloran

Dod101 wrote:

doolally wrote:In what way does it not work, Dod? Plays recordings but not live TV? The opposite? Some channels OK but not others? Or.....
doolally

It is just missing live TV as far as I can see. All channels.

Dod

That's live TV from the Freesat box then? Or do you also have an antenna attached to it and it's missing over-the-air live TV?

If no antenna, then does non-TV stuff from the Freesat box show, e.g. the Freesat box's settings menu?

You need to check out various possibilities to try and narrow down where the issue is. Is it the TV? Is it the Freesat box? Is it the connection between the two? Is it the dish? The connection to/from the dish? etc....

Try the ariel into the tv to bypass the freesat box. Does the tv do freesat if so try the coax into that.

It's possible the tv is fine. Turn it all on and off again, allow 30 seconds off. Retune both. Do the neighbours have the same issue.

Dod101 wrote:I have a so called smart TV and a Freesat box. It works fine until it doesn’t, which is becoming a more frequent occurrence. ...
Dod

To be blunt, how old?

Ok, a bit of me. I trained in electronics, but regard myself a software engineer.

DESPITE that, I KNOW that Sky boxes last less than 10 years. Then you could replace all the electrolytic capacitors (or pay someone to do so), and they would work for another 10 years.

Of course that entire idea is based upon people employed to do the job, or DIY people willing to do so.

Basically, some components age and die. Since about 1980 we have been replacing boards, rather than the components upon them. We now replace the entire unit....

Every so often my mum calls to say she has no TV on her TV. Invariably it has been because she has inadvertently changed the "input source" on and I have to try and talk her through the process of changing it.
If that's your issue you'll need to Google something like "how to change the input source on my xxxxxxxx tv" as it will vary from TV to TV but the recognised symbol for it on the TV remote is a rectangle with an arrow pointing into it, or on my Panasonic it's a button which says AV.
You have to press it repeatedly until you arrive at the correct input source and the TV picture magically appears.

I lose channels when the storms come. Out comes the ladder to realign the dish. I've put a notch in the bracket so that i can swing the dish back into the exact position it needs to be in. I could tighten the bracket more but would rather have the dish pivot a bit than having the bracket/post bend. We do get strong winds at times.

Urbandreamer wrote:
To be blunt, how old?

Ok, a bit of me. I trained in electronics, but regard myself a software engineer.

DESPITE that, I KNOW that Sky boxes last less than 10 years. Then you could replace all the electrolytic capacitors (or pay someone to do so), and they would work for another 10 years.

I had 3 Sky boxes over about 10 years. They were rubbish. Bought the Humax in 2010 (11?) and it's still going great.

--kiloran

My smart TV is maybe 3/4 years old. The Freesat box is called Manhattan and seems to work fine. I am not a fan of TV so it is not the end of the world and the signal goes and so far has always reappeared so I am not that bothered.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:My smart TV is maybe 3/4 years old. The Freesat box is called Manhattan and seems to work fine. I am not a fan of TV so it is not the end of the world and the signal goes and so far has always reappeared so I am not that bothered.

Dod

That sounds like a signal loss. Is there something blocking the dishes view. Tree or the like. I know of someone whose sheep stood on a shed and blocked the line of sight for the microwave link.

It could be the dish is out of alightment or water in the cable.

Dod101 wrote:My smart TV is maybe 3/4 years old. The Freesat box is called Manhattan and seems to work fine. I am not a fan of TV so it is not the end of the world and the signal goes and so far has always reappeared so I am not that bothered.

Dod

It might be weather-related, Dod. If your dish is badly aligned or has a line-of-sight obstruction, or the cables are poor, heavy cloud or rain can reduce the signal strength to the point where you don't get a picture. This might explain why the picture comes and goes, as the weather changes.

You're not a fan of TV? There's Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Eastenders..... oh, I see what you mean

--kiloran

Gerry557 wrote:

Dod101 wrote:My smart TV is maybe 3/4 years old. The Freesat box is called Manhattan and seems to work fine. I am not a fan of TV so it is not the end of the world and the signal goes and so far has always reappeared so I am not that bothered.

Dod

That sounds like a signal loss. Is there something blocking the dishes view. Tree or the like. I know of someone whose sheep stood on a shed and blocked the line of sight for the microwave link.

It could be the dish is out of alightment or water in the cable.

Also, it depends where you are. The size of the dish for getting Freesat from France has increased to about 1 metre.

I guess that in the UK you can get away with an 80cm dish. Or even 60cm?

Satellite dishes can be moved by strong wind. We once had a dish fall off the side of the house and a part of it was bent. The irony is that once put back up, the reception was better than ever!

Before calling in the cavalry, you can just do a few checks yourself to see if it is the fault of the dish, receiver or the TV.

Steve

PS Never forgetting that if you have a Smart TV, it will be watching, listening and relaying everything to its master.

stevensfo wrote:PS Never forgetting that if you have a Smart TV, it will be watching, listening and relaying everything to its master.

Putting a PiHole between a smart TV and the internet can be very revealing about how chatty the TV is, and just how frustrated it gets when its reports don't get through.

kiloran wrote:

Dod101 wrote:My smart TV is maybe 3/4 years old. The Freesat box is called Manhattan and seems to work fine. I am not a fan of TV so it is not the end of the world and the signal goes and so far has always reappeared so I am not that bothered.

Dod

It might be weather-related, Dod. If your dish is badly aligned or has a line-of-sight obstruction, or the cables are poor, heavy cloud or rain can reduce the signal strength to the point where you don't get a picture. This might explain why the picture comes and goes, as the weather changes.

You're not a fan of TV? There's Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Eastenders..... oh, I see what you mean

--kiloran

I suspect that it is weather related. The dish I use is an old Sky dish. I got fed up of paying them a fortune each month so gave up on Sky, went into Curry’s and they sold me the TV and the Freesat box. It works more or less.

Dod

Niksen wrote:

stevensfo wrote:PS Never forgetting that if you have a Smart TV, it will be watching, listening and relaying everything to its master.

Putting a PiHole between a smart TV and the internet can be very revealing about how chatty the TV is, and just how frustrated it gets when its reports don't get through.

Pray tell. Although I would have thought with https you wouldn't be able to see the content of the packets. IT sniffing was much more fun in the days before encryption

Dod101 wrote:I have a so called smart TV and a Freesat box.

Both are dumb - just keep repeating the same thing over and over again

Redmires wrote:

Niksen wrote:
Putting a PiHole between a smart TV and the internet can be very revealing about how chatty the TV is, and just how frustrated it gets when its reports don't get through.

Pray tell. Although I would have thought with https you wouldn't be able to see the content of the packets. IT sniffing was much more fun in the days before encryption

The PiHole doesn't allow you to see the contents, but it does blocks the Samsung TV / Amazon Firestick / Roku / etc. requests to call home - and a lot of calls to home there are.