Losing signal and other issues

[aod]

My HDR-FOX T2 has had various issues over the last year or so. Some seem to have been resolved, others are getting worse:

1. This is now the main issue - it's constantly losing signal
2. Not booting properly / no picture
3. Freezing

Issue 1 – This has been happening on and off for the past 10 months or so, but it seems to be getting worse.

What happens is, some days I won’t get a signal on some channels, or it will be very blocky and break up. I found if I move / wiggle the Ariel cable a bit, or re-position the ‘slack’ of the cable, sometimes the channel would come back.

Other times I have to re-tune the whole unit. This usually fixed it for about a few weeks, but it seemed to happen more frequently. So I replaced the Ariel cable with a new one, and new connectors. It didn’t seem to make much difference.

Now I’m finding that almost daily channel signals deteriorate, it becomes blocky and scrambled, freezes and cuts out, then goes to ‘There is no signal being received’. Once again if I move the cable or unplug it and put back in, sometimes it comes back, other times it won’t.

If it does come back, it might be for a few minutes, or might be ok for a few days. Other times I re-tune the unit again. This issue used to only affect a few channels but it now seems to affect almost all of them. The other night I lost the signal on one channel i was watching, and all the channels had no signal.

To test if the issue was the Ariel cable, I plugged it directly into my TV, and it was all fine. Other TV’s in the house are also ok.

Therefore I suspect the issue could be the Humax box, maybe a bad internal connection on the RF port? Although it does seem very solid – it doesn’t wobble as if the connector is loose on the board?

This is eternally frustrating as most nights now I can’t watch a full TV program without it breaking up or loosing completely.

Issue 2 – Shortly before the above started getting worse, I had problems with the Humax not booting properly.

From memory it would often loose signal or get a HDMI error or something similar, which would mean I needed to turn it off and on again. However when doing this, it would often get stuck at the ‘Humax’ loading screen. If it did this, and I turned it off then on again, it wouldn’t start up properly. The Display on the front would show the channel it should be displaying, but the TV would just be blank / no signal.

I think this might have been a faulty HDMI cable as I’ve since replaced it and not had it for a while.

Issue 3 – Occasionally the picture would freeze then the system would reboot. Sometimes issue 2 would then happen. It’s not happened for a while, but I think it tended to only do it when I had a LAN cable connected.

Hope you can throw some ideas at me.

 

[Black Hole]

Regarding your aerial signal: if we conclude that the tuner module in the HDR-FOX is at fault (and if you have the ability to repair), you could consider appealing for a second-hand spare on this forum as I am aware of a few U/S HDR-FOXes that have failed for other reasons. However, before we go so far as to conclude that, there are a few things you can try:

1. Check all connections. That doesn't mean simply unplugging and plugging to ensure the contacts are tight and correctly seated, but also inspecting inside the plugs to make sure the core and screen of the aerial cable are in proper contact with the pin and case of the plug, and nothing is shorting between them (eg the little grub screw that seems to be fashionable to hold the centre pin onto the cable core - it's not needed unless you need a good DC path for phantom power, and gets its thread stripped so it falls out and shorts the plug; or strands of screen are caught up to short to the core). It is also not unknown for the aerial lead to become detached from behind the wall plate.

Yes, these things can happen of their own accord, particularly if something disturbs the wiring. It is also possible, contrary to common expectation, for poor connections to affect one broadcast channel but not another. (What do you mean you can't get inside the plugs? Replace that cheap moulded-on crap with all-metal plugs and decent thick cable immediately!)

2. Interference from the HDMI lead can black out or reduce the UHF feed, particularly in poor signal areas and if the video output is set to the higher resolutions - eg 1080p. Ensure the HDMI lead is kept well away from the UHF lead, and do not use "cheap" thin UHF patch leads (which have very poor screening) - stick with the decent stuff that's about 7mm diameter (satellite downlead is the best of all), and only use all-metal UHF plugs. Try downgrading the output resolution temporarily: multiple presses of the V-Format button cycle through the options (576i - 576p - 720p - 1080i - 1080p). You could even substitute SCART to eliminate HDMI interference as the cause.

3. Go to Menu >> Settings >> System >> Signal Detection, then press cursor right to bring up a list of tuned UHF channels. Select each one in turn and monitor the Strength and Quality bars / percentages for a few minutes each. Quality should not drop below 100% at any time. Strength should be steady and between about 30% and 99% max (if it is at 100% that could indicate input saturation unless quality is steady at 100%), but even less than 30% is not a problem if quality is OK. If strengths are not similar for all your UHF channels (except perhaps the local mux), check that you are tuned to the correct set of channels for your area - see Tuning Advice (click).

NB: You can find the broadcast channel number (not the service LCN) for any particular service by pressing OK within the live broadcast (to bring up the service list) then press the Info button "i". The Channel Information pop-up gives you the LCN, service identification, channel number, broadcast frequency, and channel bandwidth.

4. Make sure phantom power for an aerial amplifier is turned off (unless you are sure you need it turned on). See Things Every... (click) section 8.

5. A full system restore-to-factory-default might cure some problems. Restoring factory default will mean setting up your tuning again, and your recording schedule, but it won't erase your existing recordings (unless you let it reformat the HDD). Menu >> Settings >> Installation >> Factory Default (the pin code is "0000" unless you've changed it).

6. Can you relocate the HDR-FOX to another aerial point for a period to test it? It is not possible to totally rule out the aerial signal as the cause of a poor picture just by plugging in a TV - the TV might have a different level of sensitivity (to high strength signals as well as low strength ones). The results of item 2 above will be pretty conclusive in that respect, but poor results could indicate something wrong internally just as well as externally.

Regrading your issues 2 and 3, see Steps for Resolving HDR-FOX Crash/Reboot Issues (click).