TV Reception.

Try removing the Smart Card with the Chip on it and giving it a clean and making sure it's fully installed in it's slot again. This sometimes helps as the heat in the decoder sometimes distorts it so it doesn't read properly.

I have the same problem with UK TV, been here 8 yrs without any problem but now any slight change in the weather and we lose the signal. We don't pay for sky and the card is no longer needed as we only get the free channels so would be interested in any answers on this.

No changes as far a I can see on the satellite info. Worth doing as Flip says first and then a full channel re-scan.

I basically know nothing - (having decided all my TV was going to come down the phone line, five years ago) but Hotbird was a satellite we used to use for analog. What are the coordinates for this sat? Currently (but not permanently) there is Astra 1N (fta BBC etc), which I think is somewhere near 28deg E of S (maybe 23 deg). Worth checking if the powers that be have turned Hotbird off.

Well I'm rubbish at anything like this - no idea what 'hotbird' is and probably won't put it in google search! Looks like I will have to get a man in....might ask him to fix my telly as well!

The Wisteria/Vine/ Roses have climbed over the dish.....hence no signal. (thats what happend to us!).

Did any of the suggestions work?

Not for me, but then again tonight theres a choice of football or eurovision sh#te so can live without it.

the suggested cures but the situation is still the same. Will have to re-aline dish methinks but thanks everyone for you help anyway.

at least concerning RAI & MEDIASET transmissions it may well be due to the fact they they have already stopped all analogic transmissions (in the centre north of the country) in favour of digital terrestrial transmissions which require a de coder in order to see them.BTW one of the main producers of digital de coders is owned by the brother of former PM Berlusconi who gave the green light for the conversion well it keeps the money coming in -no?

So are you saying that everyone has to have a decoder? my TV is probably about 4 yrs old. I only watch British channels and until recently had no problems. The dish is huge and it's on the roof it's been there 8 yrs without a problem.

Do not have my dish aligned to the Hotbird satellite, but to Eutelsat @28.5 East. Programs include CBS Action etc, Movies and the BBC sport streams. Just watched the Monaco GP in English!! No BBC news, but Sky news, Euronews etc. so no problem.

I think that with a realignment of your dish (probably to a different Eutelsat, as Badger suggests), you should get the RAI channels back. This page of geek wisdom shows that the RAI 1, 2, 3 channels have now left Hotbird. 13deg. You could find the equivalent page for any of the Eutelsat 'birds' (!) on the same site. Actually, googling Hotbird gets you the satellite - which is nice, because my innocent search on 'donkey' didn't get me the right kind of asses.

did not need to re-align dish so still pointed at Hotbird. Rai 1 etc have been shifted to channels 851 and BBC World News stayed on 352. Further cutting back of a rose also helped (thanks Angie), so all in all everything is ok again. Thank you again for all your help and suggestions.