BBC reception

I have a HD receiver but this week I get a message saying the BBC signal is too weak. ITV is ok. What have they done and is there any solution ?
Many thanks for any help.

Welcome, was the weather bad at the time? We lose BBC when it’s raining heavily whereas ITV is more robust. Nevertheless bad weather can affect transmissions.
We are in the Correze, where are you?

I’m butting in here, just to say that in Charente Maritime 17, I find that rain, heavy clouds full of moisture, and even on some warm sunny blue-sky days, my satellite reception, HD or otherwise, can be awful. But most of the time I have reasonable reception.

A couple of days ago all channels on Freesat were vacant due to heavy widespread dark grey cloud.

Welcome @Eltel , I think what we are all trying to say is that no-one really knows what happens with satellite signals.
I have just connected a brand new Manhattan decoder which works effortlessly with all the channels I have tried so far, except Channel 4 HD TV. But Channel 4+1 works fine. :astonished: :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Have you tried scrolling through some of the regional BBC channels to check if they are any better? On our humax box they are in the 900s.

Interestingly with heavy rain we manage to keep BBCHD but lose ITVHD. Fortunately ITV still has its SD channels.

1 Like

Assuming that this is a conversation about satellite TV reception your problem is most likely to be bad dish alignment, possibly combined with a dish that’s a bit too small for your location.

However, more details would help e.g. rough location, dish size.

1 Like

Many thanks for all your suggestions. I am on the coast not far from Toulon.
It’s true the weather has been a bit dodgy this week but I read somewhere that BBC were making changes on 31st March. Channel 4 has gone too. But all BBC channels are now unavailable including radio. Don’t know if different receivers work better.

1 Like

Toulon is quite a bit South and East of the satellites reception area. You would need at least a 100cm dish and 120cm would be better. Even then, in bad weather you may struggle to get good reception. We need to know the size of dish and which freesat box you are using. For me, also outside the normal reception area, I find BBC1 HD SE to be one of the most reliable BBC1 channels (channel 959 on freesat).

2 Likes

For us BBC West Yorkshire gives the strongest signal of the BBC channels. We too have a Manhattan box and it’s a big improvement on our old box.

You have a HD receiver but have you updated your channel list? With the change to HD we had to do a manual update and search for the channels again. The previous numbers didn’t work.

It’s been ok for a year. Just disappeared this week.Have a big dish, too big for the roof but it may be vegetation disturbing reception.But needed to know if they had changed satellites. Thanks for all the help.

Depending on how old your satellite receiver and LNB are, you might be better selecting the regional channels that use lower frequency transponders if your receiver allows you to choose regional/post code.

Here’s the BBC frequencies and channels:

As noted in another thread BBC recently switched off SD broadcast which might be the reason for a lot of channels “disappearing” en bloc. The HD replacements need a better quality signal so the change might also expose the fact that your location/alignment/LNB/cables were marginal previously.

As @hairbear says that’s well off the intended footprint for the UK spotbeam

image

Do you know exactly how big - 110 or 120cm is in the right ballpark but as noted you are getting pretty far south to pick up the UK spotbeam at all.

The dish is gigantic. I think 130. As I said, it’s been ok up til this week but it may be the alignment or growing vegetation.
It’s great to have so much feedback. Will try chopping down some bushes and then see if re-alignment is possible.

Great news ! After cutting bushes and re-searching on the satellite, have finally got my beoved BBC back. Who’s a happy bunny ? Many thanks for all your help.

5 Likes