Its not happened for a while now, but I have often lost reception in the Midlands, especially between approximately Coventry and Banbury.
This has been with both 295 and III Pilot recievers.
I've suspected either saturation due to radio transmissions (Rugby?) or some other kind of jamming.
During these drop-outs all sattelite signal strength levels seem to drop off. If it was a satellite/ariel position problem, I would still expect to get a good signal from some satellites.