Loss of Prime Reception regularly

Anyone got any ideas on this one:

We lose Prime / Choice TV Reception reasonably regularly. Just No Signal on the channel but we can view all other channels fine. To get it back I go into the Comms Cupboard and power cycle the ALCAD AI-100 Amp and it normally comes back... Any ideas what might be happening should I replace the ALCAD AI-100? or like me does it seem odd that Prime is the only thing I lose. Signal Strength is always around 90 on all channels when it's working and same when Prime is not.

When it happens I get this, Bit Error Level: 2000

When it is working or after power cycling the Amp I get this:

Thanks,

Matt

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Permalink Reply by forumuser on March 7, 2018 at 16:06

Hey Matt,

Thanks for getting in touch, has there been any environmental events around your area that may cause interference? Other members on this forum may help better with the amp side of things too.

Kindest Regards,
Josh

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Permalink Reply by willis on March 8, 2018 at 1:24

Hows your reception on maori/ te reo on frq 38/39
Prime and choice being on frq 36/37

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Permalink Reply by Matto on June 16, 2018 at 10:37

Hi All

So this morning it was back in the same state. I have taken a whole bunch of pictures of lots of channels when it was in the error / loss of signal state & then again after powercycling the Amp.

Attachments:

Webp.net-gifmaker (1).gif, 6.6 MB

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Permalink Reply by Matto on June 16, 2018 at 10:38

Incase the GIF doesn't work, here's Prime after (left) and before (right) power cycling the Amp

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on June 16, 2018 at 15:46

Is the Amp necessary? What happens if you remove it and just use a decent UHF splitter?

If you have to use an amp it should ideally be at the masthead, not in the cupboard.

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Permalink Reply by Matto on June 17, 2018 at 20:09

Assumed I had a masthead amp, as per the pic...

I took the UHF/VHF Aerial cable and connected it directly the the 4-way splitter and got no Signal at all. I took the VHF/UHF & Sky Dish combiner out and connected the VHF/UHF cable directly to the Alcad amp instead that works, will see how it goes. Don't use the Sky Dish at all. As per the picture, we probably have 10-16 aerial jacks throughout the house (not my doing) only use 2... Nor is the VHF aerial or cabling of much use anymore...

Got Vision Dunedin to look at it all some years back and they couldn't give me a price just said $800+ and wouldn't commit to anything more concrete...

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Permalink Reply by Biggles on June 17, 2018 at 21:40

Wow. Bit of a rat's nest! If you had a masthead amp there would be a power plugpack somewhere feeding power for it up the co-ax. What you have at the top is more likely a diplexer connecting the VHF and UHF antennae together. Ideally you need to dump the VHF antenna and Diplexer, then run co-ax from the UHF antenna direct to the TV or if you use more than one TV then to a decent splitter. Looks to me like you really need to pull everything out and start from scratch. If you have that many outlet jacks round the house then a decent distribution amp woud help. Something like this as a minimum https://www.matchmaster.co.nz/amplifiers-and-modulators/10mm-dda24/

If you only need two outlets then a simple 2 way splitter should work and disconnect all the outlets you don't use. Have fun sorting out all those cables.

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Permalink Reply by John Baird on June 18, 2018 at 17:30

As Biggles says Uhf to the Tv you use, only thing is if you have 16 outlets then there must be some more hardware, ie Splitters or taps that you’ll have to find and bypass