[paul cotter (OP)]

I am not a fan of the gogglebox but I occasionally watch a documentary or news channels. For the sake of the boss and our two daughters when they visit I do have a satellite system. Recently some channels have disappeared and when this happens I do a re-scan but it did not work this time and I ended up with only ~90 of the ~300 free to view channels. I am looking at the astra 28.2e, 2e, 2f, 2g with a bargain basement receiver, 4ife 410. I tried every possible setting open to adjustment including several lnb local oscillator settings, each time producing slightly different but inadequate results. I was beginning to think the dish had slipped alignment and was preparing to visit the roof when I noticed a scan setting that I had never used, namely "blind scan". On selecting blind scan I saw a process I had never seen before which consisted of a preliminary scan of all the transponders before the channel scan and bingo! all my missing channels returned. Previously I have selected a scan of "all channels" or "fta"(free to air). I'm confused.

[evan_au]

Perhaps your satellite receiver had been preconfigured to use certain transponders?
- If a channel was shuffled to a different transponder, it would no longer be found.
- The blind scan checks all the transponders it can find.

[paul cotter (OP)]

Thanks, what you say makes perfect sense but I am still confused how this scenario came about. I bought the receiver about 10 years ago and the only setting I entered was the name of the required satellite. A scan of "all channels" would show ~800 channels and a scan of "fta" would show ~350 and these are the only two types of scan I have ever done. When I was having this difficulty I noticed my scan was only looking at one transponder out of a total 96 and it would randomly select which one to look at. I tried manually selecting all transponders prior to scanning, as the menu gave me that option, but the channel scan would only look at one transponder. I like to find an explanation as to why things have changed but the bottom line is that I now have full control and all is good.

[vhfpmr]

I don't have satellite, but my Humax Freeview box has a repertoire of software bugs that bite at random, for no obvious reason.

[jasonlava]

I've faced similar issues in the past with channel scanning. It sounds like the 'blind scan' option did the trick for you. This mode often scans for all available frequencies and transponders, which is probably why it managed to pick up the channels that the standard 'all channels' or 'FTA' scans couldn't. It's a more thorough scan, so it takes a bit longer but can be really effective, especially if there have been changes in channel frequencies or new channels added.