PING Bill

[The Medway Handyman]

Hi

On a Sky dish there is a thingy that looks like a stubby microphone that points at the dish.

Wossit called?

[PJK]

LNB

[John Williamson]

The LNB. (Low Noise Buffer?)

It's the preamp/ downconverter for the satellite signal, matching it in impedance, level and frequency to the input of the box in the house.

[The Medway Handyman]

low-noise block downconverter?

[Bill Wright]

In common parlance, the LNB*. In the trade we call it the wotsit or sometimes the doodah.

The first one I bought cost £400. Far better ones now cost £4.

*Low noise block down-converter

Bill

[spuorgelgoog]

And if you broke it and need to buy a new one, there are a variety of fittings and they don't all fit all the brackets.

Owain

[Peter Crosland]

No no they are thingamajigs!

[Bill Wright]

It's cheaper and easier to change the whole caboodle if it's a mini-dish.

Bill

[Brian Gaff]

Well that is what it does. I often find it fascinating that back when I were young, we were told that the frequencies now used for these transmissions would need a liquid nitrogen cooled device to get enough signal to noise to make tv from space viable. Now we have cheapo dishes with mass produced lnbs that can sit out in all weathers and just work. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I thought they were, shit i dropped the bugger. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

And for some odd reason some need to be slightly twisted to work right. Brian

[The Medway Handyman]

It works fine. A stray football from next door knocked mine off the bracket, so I clicked it back in & the telly works fine. Just wondered what it was called.

[fred]

Unless you're a dodgy Sky outfit in which case a pair of cutters and a few cable ties means one size fits all.

[Bill Wright]

Dunno who did this:

Bill

[Graham.]