A couple of months ago I lost a handful of Skysat Channels, mainly Sky news and 158 and 159, receiving the message that no signal was available or signal not strong enough. Last evening however they began to come back though often broken up. Could there be a weather cause for this? All other channels are working normally.
Be grateful for your answers, svp.
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That’s a bit strange. Normally, in summer, you may lose some hd channels. 158 and 159 are hgtv and pick and are on different, standard definition transponders.
Thank you hb. Could the heat affect the dish etc?
I would be interested in options, as a while back we lost ITV 4 which we like for cycling coverage. And although French coverage is there for le Tour, it’s not the same.
There’s a lot that can go wrong really. If you’re in the North of France, you shouldn’t have many issues with signal quality, especially with a 80cm dish. The old oval 60cm sky dishes don’t work as well. How many channels have you actually tried to view ? If you’ve tried all channels and it’s just those few that are problematic, I’ve no idea why that may be. Heat can affect the dish physically as any lump of metal can expand and deform. The LNB could theoretically overheat and cable could be affected but not likely.
60cm should be fine for Northern France - the UK spotbeam footprint change about 10 years ago actually *improved* reception. Indeed for Normandy, the northern half of Brittany and all the way around to the pas de Calais you could use a 45cm dish.
As to the loss of channels: @hairbear I think randomadness might mean Freesat channel 158 and 159 as they are both carried on 12129V, Sky news is on 12012V so not far off in frequency terms. Might want o check Sky Arts and Pick as that’s the next satellite transponder up - the following three are Sky encrypted stuff and then there’s 12129V, so all the affected channels are close together.
Otherwise, yes everything which has been mentioned could affect satellite performance.
The present UK spotbeam coverage is:
He did say Skysat channels, but it may be freesat. 12129MHz is closeish to the top of the band, so that may be the issue. Could then be a failing LNB. Good idea to try higher frequencies.
The old style 60cm oval dish is pretty shit outside UK and far northern France. I inherited one in Deux Sevres and in the summer you couldn’t get anything much. Replaced with a cheap 80cm round dish same LNB and it was rock steady all year round.
Sounds about right - you’re at the lower southern limit of reception for a 60cm dish, so that having issues in varying weather and an 80cm dish being fine fits pretty well.
Sky uses Atra 2E at 28.2°E - same cluster as Freesat, If we are talking Sky channel numbers then 158 - HGTV, as you say - is on 11038V along with DMAX (and some encrypted stuff) and 159 - pick is on 12070H; in fact looking again there is an unencrypted SD Sky News on that transponder since Jan 2020, perhaps that is the one @randomadness looses along with pick.
Sky News actually seems to crop up in more than one place - 2 each for SD and HD encrypted according to the list of transponders/channels that I’m using.
A 40cm circular dish gets excellent reception, even in bad weather, near Carentan.
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I think Freesat and Channel 4 fell out and so Freesat only carry C4 as a live broadcast.
CH4 has always been available on Freesat. It was CH4 HD which was removed from the programme guide. But it is now back (channel 126). There are also Film4, E4 and More4
I saw a headline in Daily Express online (I read the DE because it’s very funny) that Freeview channels were being reorganised and some would disappear for a while. Not sure if that’s relevant. I didn’t pay much attention to the article, but the header was along the lines of ‘viewers erupt in fury at planet ending Freeview outages. Remoaner plot’.
The odd thing is that 156/7/8/9 come back for a short time in the early evening with the picture often broken up but never last long.
I think it might have been The Daily Vomit online
Thank you, graham, that might be one explanation as the pressure has been pretty high for a while now.
Didnt know you were a Mail man!
In no way… The Daily Vomit would not even be my choice of alternate toilet paper 
I definitely wouldn’t recommend any online newspaper as alternative loo paper 
Imagine having the Daily Mail printed on your posterior, better than a tattoo!
I so need to unsee that image 
Oh, a Daily Mail science and technology article that isn’t utter bobbins.
Colour me shocked.