Hello all,
We seem to be unable to receive any BBC channels on Freesat. We have two boxes both are acting the same way. All other channels are perfectly fine.
Any ideas??
TIA
There is a fairly long thread somewhere here that I started on this subject. After checking that there is nothing wrong with the dish and its reception, and trying all sorts of other ways of switching on or off in the morning, I have finally , fingers crossed, found the answer. Which is:
Do not switch off at the mains each night
Do not switch the decoder off at night.
But do switch off the tv at night, and then that, and only that, on again in the morning,
After a week or so of using that method, so far no problems at all. 
I did buy a replacement decoder on the very day that I commenced that procedure, and will keep it unused against the day when the current one finally departs this world. 
Have you got your decoder to do a re-scan?
Assuming that you have a proper Freesat receiver then there should be no need to reinstall/rescan things. Also, if the fault is across two boxes then it’s even less likely to be a receiver problem.
A more likely possibility is that your dish is slightly offline. Although nominally in the same location the satellites that make up the 28,2 degrees east cluster are spread out i.e. if your dish is badly aligned it might be missing channels carried on one extremity of the satellite array.
Without delving I can’t confirm if the BBC channels are on such an extremity, but bad dish alignment is usually the problem with partial reception issues.
Broadly I agree with Badger - but there were some changes within the last 12 months switching from SD broadcast to HD. I haven’t paid much attention to our own set up, but sometimes things “linger” longer than planned and just forcing a re-scan is a quick way to make sure there isn’t any change which your box hasn’t picked up.
After that worth letting us know what channel you are missing and I can look up which channels are in the same multiplex - if they have “disappeared” as well it’s much more likely to be a dish/LNB/cable issue.
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If you normally only receive BBC SD channels, then they have been switched off.
Only BBC HD channels are now on Freesat.
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Can you still receive ITV HD and Ch4 HD channels?
It would be good to know the exact models of boxes you have. Some older boxes don’t always pick up changes and some do but require the box to be rebooted to take the changes. Some do require a manual scan. The first thing I would do is a rescan and see where you are. The BBC SD channels were finally removed from Astra 28 satellites on the 8th Jan this year, so if you haven’t used the box since before this, then that could be the reason.
Some very old boxes and/or LNBs can’t receive the higher bitrate transponders (DVB-S2) or process the HD channels and so will be unable to receive many of the newer channels, including the BBC.
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That’s what I thought because in my case the Humax wouldn’t work either, in the end it was just a mystery but as long as what I am doing now works, I won’t be messing any further.
Many thanks for all your comments, much appreciated. Think we’ve sorted it now!
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In fairness to those who gave up their time to post, what turned out to be the problem?
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It was the alignment in the end.
regards
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A win to me!
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