Humax freesat conundrum

[digweed112]

Hi all,
Purchased a Humax foxsat hdr about a month ago and have yet to get it working properly. I’m no mug (at least not yet) and usually persevere till things work, but this one has got me stumped. On reading the installation I noticed that to get the best out of the unit you had to have a second cable from the dish. So I called in my local digital TV/Arial installer who fitted a new quad lnb and ran a second cable into the house. We connected everything up and went through setup. All the 153 channels came up and everything was fine until we exited setup. A “no or bad signal” came up on bbc1. What! We thought. Most of the channels worked but after several attempts at getting bbc1 and the other channels (including bbc1 HD) which were affected by the “no or bad signal” we gave up and called Humax customer services who then instructed us to try a few things which failed to get the channels, so finally Humax decided they would send another box.

The second box arrived and I went through the same setup process again. Guess what? “No or bad signal” on bbc1 again. I again called in the TV man who checked the signal strength from both leads from the dish with a meter – they both read 85% strength. We checked on the diagnostic page and noticed that one of the tuners had 0% signal and 0% quality. So, on the phone to Humax again, this time they concluded one of the tuners wasn’t working so they decided to send another box.

The third box arrived. As you can imagine I was getting quite good at setting up these boxes. Through the setup again. Got all 153 channels. Exited and - --- “no or bad signal” on bbc1 again. Oh heck I said whilst tearing my hair out................ What now?

My TV/ Arial people tell me it’s the box. But I wonder..... Is it possible that a brand new quad lnb giving out 85% signal is faulty? Humax blame the dish and leads....... However,
Humax, the seller of my box has offered me a refund and will get back this third box today so I am unable to conduct any more tests so I am looking for another freesat box. One that works. And has a hard drive with twin tuner.

Q, Has anybody any ideas what might be my problem?
Q, can anyone recommend an alternative freesat box?

I’m lost.......................

I know a couple of people with this box and I've never heard of there being any trouble with it. Around t'internet some people talk about doing a factory reset to solve various issues - can you find how to do that in your manual?

If you want to explore alternative receivers, I think you will find guides to pretty much everything that's available by browsing http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/.

[digweed112]

Thanks Chris,

we did try a factory reset...this didn't fix the problem. my thoughts are now blaming the dish and quad lnb. i have always wondered whether it might need re-aligning, however, the aerial man went up there and did just that.... could the lnb be faulty?

would a different set of arial people make any difference? the box was supposed to have been collected today but Humax sent them to the wrong address so I still have the box.

I really don't know - I'm not a satellite aficionado. There are a couple of real enthusiasts on here though, so stick around a while, I'm sure you'll get a very technical answer before long.

[digweed112]

Chris and everybody out there...

just got it sorted. Called in a different Aerial guy who checked out my new Quad Lnb and found it to be faulty.............
He fitted an new lnb and bingo.... everything works fine. My previous aerial engineer has agreed a refund on my faulty unit.

So my advice to you all is be vary wary of these quad lnb's as they can be faulty.....

I think my advice would be, be very wary of an aerial installer who isn't capable of diagnosing a faulty LNB!

[alferret]

Originally Posted by Chris

I think my advice would be, be very wary of an aerial installer who isn't capable of diagnosing a faulty LNB!

LOL very true