Why it rains heavy like it is now my sky TV stops working and says no satellite signal is being received?

Question

Surely in this day and age this can sorted out

Answer 1

Satellite will stop working if there are very dense or electrically active clouds in the way of the signal. There's no way around it. Even cable TV where they take their feeds from satellite are affected and they have bigger dishes than you do.

Answer 2

At least with analogue TV / SKY the picture would only go slightly snowy...welcome to the digital age!

It's a problem with digital signals, it either works or it doesn't. The digital signal is split up into 'Words' or sections, say 16-bit, (Groups of 16 1's and 0's) that contain signal information as well as information for your picture. As the signal is thrown through the air it looses power and the signal becomes smaller (Attenuation) and picks up loads of noise. The rain simply adds to the interference and may diffract the signal slightly, as well as the water on your dish. Anyway, when your box receives the signal, it amplifies it then cleans it up back into a clean square wave the best it can.

With cleaning the signal it may not clean it 100% accurately and so the wrong bits of information are fed into the processing system creating problems. Here, an interpolation circuit monitors the data and can correct and modify the signal so the system can carry on working. It does this based on the information it's seen before and some really complicated algorithms. Hence why sometimes the picture and sound can become 'blocky' and stutter.

As soon as too much information is incorrectly cleaned or lost through the transmission process or the signal becomes too weak the system has to stop. So your dish may be receiving a weak and noisy signal but the box cannot process it. So where an analogue system would simply amplify the inaccuracies and noise, a digital system has to stop and resume when it can. - This is the same for all digital systems, DVD, CD's, DAB radio, PC's, the lot!

This is a very basic explanation but hopefully it's enough to explain why the box displays the 'No signal is being received' message.

Answer 3

Under very extreme weather conditions (e.g. thunderstorms) your satellite reception can be affected. But even heavy rain should not qualify as 'extreme'. I suspect that your SKY dish is not aligned properly or there is some obstruction, or there may even be some problems with the LNB or cable (water seepage, perhaps). I would start with the alignment because this is the most common cause. If your dish is not optimally lined up with the satellite, you can still get a signal, but it would be weak and of poor quality. Then during heavy rain, this weak signal gets weakened (attenuated) even more, resulting in loss of picture (stops working). When the disk is optimally aligned, heavy rain will weaken it but it should still be strong enough to provide you with a picture.
This kind of thing has happened to me from time to time and realignment with a sat meter usually cures it. Dishes get blown out of alignment by strong wind if they are not mounted properly. Get some one to check it out for you - almost impossible with SKY, I believe.

Answer 4

The tv signal from the satellite is transmitted in a frequency band (microwaves) that is absorbed and scattered by water. During very heavy rain there is so much water that the absorption is sufficient to cause drop outs in the picture or even total loss of the signal.

There is a simple soloution, get a bigger dish.

Answer 5

Look at the signal strength and signal quality on a good day (in the Settings/Setup menu). The signal strength should be at least 70 percent and the quality at least 60 per cent. If not, your dish may be slightly misaligned. It pays to look at this under different weather conditions. If it is torrenting down, that's a lot of water the signal has to pass through. Usually it only happens a few times a year.

Answer 6

It's called rainfade, and ALL digital satellite systems using the small dish are effected by this. The dish might need to be tweaked a bit to squeeze off a better signal quality during normal conditions. This would help reduce the rainfade, but it will never be completely eliminated.

Answer 7

I have been meaning to move away from that food processing plant, but it's all I can afford right now. I like the blueberries better than Cauliflower day. Just saying.

Answer 8

We have this trouble aswell and when it happens we watch the tv through our aerial(not sky tho obviously!!) We are going to be snookered in October as we live in the region what is going digital first!!! BAhhhhhhhhh

Answer 9

Ask for a refund, and threaten to sue them for selling a service 'Not fit for purpose' if they don't pay up.

Answer 10

it's big brother man, he's everywhere.