Hi

This might get longwinded but stay with me!

A couple of weeks ago we started getting pixelation and squeals on some
channels. At the beginning of last week it started getting worse and now on
most channels. Checked out the signal quality and strength. The strength was
at about 80% (I think this is where it's always been), quality down to
around 30% (I'm sure it was over 50% before).

There are large trees on a road about 100 yards away, but as they have been
in full leaf for more weeks then I've had the problem I don't think it's
them. So I thought it was a problem with the signal strength. Cable hadn't
moved and looked fine and dry.

So I got myself a Satellite signal meter from EBay and had a play.
Horizontal alignment was fine, vertical alignment was a bit out and this
brought the signal strength up to 50% - but no improvement in actual picture
quality!

Got myself a new 60CM dish and LNB. Luckily the dish is wall mounted at
shoulder height so there was no problem - All seemed well. Checked out the
signal quality and now up to around 70-80%, but there was only a marginal
improvement in picture quality.

Had a quick look at some past newsgroup items and it seems that a signal
quality of 50% should be ok anyway. Very strange that some channels are
perfect and others are not. There doesn't seem to be a correlation between
them either, some are encrypted some are free to view.

And now it's got worse!! Got a permanent 'Searching for listings'. Signal
quality is mostly constant but occasionally drops to 0 and not locked.

I had a couple of channels in the 'other channels' section - Going to that I
had ITV Wales, switched to that and it's a perfect picture!

At the time of writing we can't get any other channels as it's mostly
'searching for channels' or 'No satellite signal being received.'

So to summarise (at last)...

LNB is new
Dish is new and perfectly aligned
Cable appears to be perfect - no kinks and all dry.
Cable connections are fine

Sort of leaves the box doesn't it? It's an old Amstrad (1 of the first,
around 5 years old. It's given no trouble before and always left on). I'm a
bit loath to do a forced update as most of the Sky channels are ropey and I
believe that it uses one of them to get the data and I don't think it would
really help anyway as I don't think it's a software issue - unless someone
knows better!

I am hoping that someone will not say that it's the box that's going, but I
think that's where this is heading!

The channels we could get perfectly - no pixelation whatsoever are...

101, 102, 103, 115, 116, 145, 146, 190, 196, 226, 413, 469, 471, 473, 507,
508, 613, 614, 615, 616, 621 and 622 (possibly more after this but there's
enough here to be going on with.
The rest of them have varying degrees of pixelation from occasional to
totally screwed!

Any ideas of what to do next would be greatly appreciated!

Mike

(remove 'spamnothanks' from the address)

snip

The channels we could get perfectly - no pixelation whatsoever are...

101, 102, 103, 115, 116, 145, 146, 190, 196, 226, 413, 469, 471, 473,
507,
508, 613, 614, 615, 616, 621 and 622 (possibly more after this but
there's
enough here to be going on with.
The rest of them have varying degrees of pixelation from occasional to
totally screwed!

Any ideas of what to do next would be greatly appreciated!

Mike

(remove 'spamnothanks' from the address)

The early Amstrad receivers did suffer from tuner problems, I believe that
there's a kit available which consists of a couple of surface mounted
components, but if you're not qualified in the servicing of electronic
equipment then it's probably a job best left for the experts. Consequently
it may then be cheaper to dump it and purchase a later used receiver from
somewhere like EBay, and I suspect that now with the loss of FTA there may
soon be plenty of very cheap ones available on the market.



HI

Thanks.

I think I've come to the same conclusion! Just needed someone to say it out
loud I suppose!
I'll have a look for the kit (I could probably do it) but a 'new' one from
EBay seems to be the best option as suggested.

Mike