Sky installers

Our second dish, a small one was for Sky analogue. That was then removed and replaced by a digital one, which he fixed in the same location. Unfortunately it didn't receive very well, because it had to see the sat through the house eaves, so I moved it to the rear of the house, to test it, then (lacking a meter) invited them back to make a proper job of it. This was quite few years ago.

I bought a fancy freesat kit last year, running on the old Sky digi dish and quite soon noticed it was a bit dodgy on some of the channels, but waited for one of those 'roundtuits' moments to check things out.

The roundtuit moment occurred yesterday, when I got out my dish alignment meter. This dish was fitted on an arm to give the horizontal alignment and the arm was back just as far as it would possibly go. My meter indicated it needed to go back a few degrees more, so the only way to get that was to take of the dish and swing the arm to the opposite end of its adjustment (180 degrees) and refit the dish on what had been the rear of the arm. The vertical alignment, wasn't far out.

I now get much more reliable reception of some of the less powerful channels on Astra. The moral being to not assume that they have bothered to do anymore than align the dish to be good enough to get the basic high power Sky channels.

The best time to check it is when there is a good clear blue sky, when it will be much easier to get a steady signal - but Sky installers obviously don't have time to wait for this.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield
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replaced by a digital one, which he fixed in the same

sat through the house eaves, so I moved it to the

make a proper job of it. This was quite few years ago.

quite soon noticed it was a bit dodgy on some of the

meter. This dish was fitted on an arm to give the

My meter indicated it needed to go back a few

the arm to the opposite end of its adjustment (180

alignment, wasn't far out.

on Astra. The moral being to not assume that they

basic high power Sky channels.

be much easier to get a steady signal - but Sky

I agree with what you say about Sky installers. Grey skies don't affect reception as much as you make out, and in any case you are more likely to optimise the az/el/skew on a weak signal than a strong one IMHO.

Heavy thunderclouds are a different story, they can make satellite TV unviewable, quite apart from other reasons why you wouldn't want to be outside up a ladder in a thunderstorm.

Reply to
Graham.

Graham. explained on 05/05/2010 :

I think you missed the point about the weather...

I was suggesting waiting to do the alignment until there was a clear blue sky, because the cloud cover will vary quite a lot in its attenuation of the signal, making it difficult to get a definite peak on the meter. Obviously a Sky installer just has to make the best of it in what ever weather the have at the time, you can be a bit more patient and choose good weather. On a clear day the meter does not move much, in variable cloud the needle moves all over the place.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Given the distance to the satellite is pretty constant, the output power of the satellite, the gain of the dish and gain of the LNB are pretty constant, then they should be aligning not just for a mythical peak when on beam, but for a minimum absolute signal level with a calibrated meter. If they were any good they would also be looking at decoded uncorrected and corrected error rates with a standalone device rather than looking at carrier strength with a five quid meter (although it's dead easy to align a dish correctly in few minutes with one it's not assured that the receiver is going to work in all weather conditions

Reply to
The Other Mike

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