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Sky Dishes - The worst ever!

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  • 28-08-2015 9:04pm
    #1
    Stinicker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭


    I had the misfortune to try fit a Raven Sky Dish today for a friend, I myself am (well was) a bit of a hobbyist and bought a Satellite Meter a few years ago as I had a Motorised setup and rather than paying a man to come and realign it all after each storm I bought my own.

    Anyway they bought the Raven Dish on eBay and it is the worst piece of junk excuse for a dish I ever encountered, they might aswell have made it out of solder the metal was so soft and useless, each time you'd try to lock and tighten the bolts the metal would bend and despite having it perfectly aligned the tightening would throw it completely off course weakening the signal, I had to take it off and hammer the soft metal back into shape.

    I have installed about 10 - 15 dishes since 2007 when I got the meter, just helping people out and realigning after storms etc. Last year I broke even covering the €500+ cost of the meter first day.

    I did a few older Sky dishes and they were no problem but these new Dishes are the absolute worst sort of thrash I have ever encountered and I don't know how any Sky installer can make a living as it took me a good hour and a half or more to tweak the signal. Last month I put one up on my sisters new house which I got from a Sky Technician as a part of a new subscription I took out myself, my old dish was perfect so I asked for the new one and he gave it.

    That too was absolute junk so I just put it down to a bad dish but it seems that there is loads of these inferior bendy dishes out there. Even after all the locking I still was not at sufficient signal and eventually I bent and tweaked it into signal range. I told my friend to go away and buy a good quality Technomate Dish instead of these Sky type pieces of Junk and after todays experience I'd say that despite my best efforts he'd be lucky to see Christmas out of it.

    Anyone else encounter this?


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    #2
    steveon
    Registered Users Posts: 3,905 ✭✭✭steveon


    Never have any problems aligning a Raven dish and to be honest find them one of the quickest to put up once you know what your doing, they are cheap and cheerful and like all dishes you get what you pay for.

    Best dishes as always recommended here are a Triax TD- Series dish a few quid more and last yrs and yrs longer and very very rarely move.


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    #3
    monkeysnapper
    Registered Users Posts: 2,575 ✭✭✭monkeysnapper


    I had nothing but problems with my sky dish for over a year .

    I bought a triax dish about 3/4 years ago and never had a days problem since touch wood .


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    #4
    foggy_lad
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,373 ✭✭✭✭foggy_lad


    I had sky installed about 7 years ago and even went as far as bringing the dish with me when I moved and had it installed at the new address, the installer wanted to put up a new dish but seemed happy to install the old one instead as it possibly saved him some money. He commented that they don't make the dish brackets and mountings like they used to as there is a big difference in the older dish wall brackets and the bit of tin that is used now.

    My 7 year old sky dish is going strong and is still in good condition but getting a bit of rust in the last year while the neighbours have had replacement dishes fitted after less than a year!

    As far as the dishes and brackets go imho it's all about the servicing and sky wanting to keep their installation contractors on side by providing lots of repair work for them especially on the out of contract dishes where call out charges and costs for realligning and repair can mount up to hundreds of euro! This is only my opinion!


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    #5
    TAFKAlawhec
    Registered Users Posts: 590 ✭✭✭TAFKAlawhec


    My 2007 mk3 Zone 2 dish is lying in the kitchen ATM ready to be reinstalled and realigned after being repainted. Some of the nuts & bolts show small signs of rust but nothing that didn't require anything else than a spanner to remove the nuts from the u-bolt.

    I have a mk4 zone 1 dish in storage and to be fairness it doesn't seem massively flimsy but maybe the smaller size allows a thinner metal sheet to be got away with compared to a larger mk4 zone 2. The fixing bracket on the new zone 1 dishes are different that my old zone 2, as well as current zone 2s AFAIK. I've seen a few mk4 zone 1 dishes installed locally over the last 12 months, that must be what at least some Sky installers are now carrying. From my own estimations with signal strength I reckon you'd get away with it though the 2G Euro beam channels will be the first to fall with rain fade with spot beam stations the last - there's about a 4db SNR difference between the strongest and weakest from my own crude measurements.

    Many of the first set of Sky dishes are still going strong - my parent's own dish installed over 15 years ago is still going strong with the LNB only replaced when a Sky + receiver was installed.


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    #6
    byte
    Moderators, Regional North West Moderators Posts: 19,099 Mod ✭✭✭✭byte
    byte


    Indeed, the newer Sky Minidish seems to be a very poorly made dish these days.

    Of the existing brands, I believe EL to be by far the worst (their square LNB arm was notorious for just rotting and dropping down), with the Triax one the better of a bad bunch. Raven somewhere in the middle.

    Hard to beat a good Triax TD dish, the Inverto dishes seem not bad either, but don't seem to have quite the same longevity.


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    #7
    snaps
    Registered Users Posts: 7,138 ✭✭✭snaps


    On the note of techno mate dishes, they seem to be the same as triax TD dishes. I've came across a few in Ireland and the uk and they seem to be exactly the same design and style as the triax.

    I've got a 110cm technomate stored in garage for back up when my gilbertini needs replacing.

    The brackets that came with it (including multi lnb bracket) are marked triax.


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    #8
    reboot
    Registered Users Posts: 1,460 ✭✭✭reboot


    TAFKAlawhec wrote: »
    My 2007 mk3 Zone 2 dish is lying in the kitchen ATM ready to be reinstalled and realigned after being repainted. Some of the nuts & bolts show small signs of rust but nothing that didn't require anything else than a spanner to remove the nuts from the u-bolt.

    I have a mk4 zone 1 dish in storage and to be fairness it doesn't seem massively flimsy but maybe the smaller size allows a thinner metal sheet to be got away with compared to a larger mk4 zone 2. The fixing bracket on the new zone 1 dishes are different that my old zone 2, as well as current zone 2s AFAIK. I've seen a few mk4 zone 1 dishes installed locally over the last 12 months, that must be what at least some Sky installers are now carrying. From my own estimations with signal strength I reckon you'd get away with it though the 2G Euro beam channels will be the first to fall with rain fade with spot beam stations the last - there's about a 4db SNR difference between the strongest and weakest from my own crude measurements.

    Many of the first set of Sky dishes are still going strong - my parent's own dish installed over 15 years ago is still going strong with the LNB only replaced when a Sky + receiver was installed.
    Can you remind me of the best colour to paint it re sig/noise, or am I dancing on the head of a pin?


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    #9
    minterno
    Registered Users Posts: 596 ✭✭✭minterno


    Stinicker wrote: »
    I had the misfortune to try fit a Raven Sky Dish today for a friend, I myself am (well was) a bit of a hobbyist and bought a Satellite Meter a few years ago as I had a Motorised setup and rather than paying a man to come and realign it all after each storm I bought my own.

    Anyway they bought the Raven Dish on eBay and it is the worst piece of junk excuse for a dish I ever encountered, they might aswell have made it out of solder the metal was so soft and useless, each time you'd try to lock and tighten the bolts the metal would bend and despite having it perfectly aligned the tightening would throw it completely off course weakening the signal, I had to take it off and hammer the soft metal back into shape.

    I have installed about 10 - 15 dishes since 2007 when I got the meter, just helping people out and realigning after storms etc. Last year I broke even covering the €500+ cost of the meter first day.

    I did a few older Sky dishes and they were no problem but these new Dishes are the absolute worst sort of thrash I have ever encountered and I don't know how any Sky installer can make a living as it took me a good hour and a half or more to tweak the signal. Last month I put one up on my sisters new house which I got from a Sky Technician as a part of a new subscription I took out myself, my old dish was perfect so I asked for the new one and he gave it.

    That too was absolute junk so I just put it down to a bad dish but it seems that there is loads of these inferior bendy dishes out there. Even after all the locking I still was not at sufficient signal and eventually I bent and tweaked it into signal range. I told my friend to go away and buy a good quality Technomate Dish instead of these Sky type pieces of Junk and after todays experience I'd say that despite my best efforts he'd be lucky to see Christmas out of it.

    Anyone else encounter this?
    hi, Yes I have has a similar experience with the last two sky dishs I installed, one was for a friend and the metal was very soft, I stuck one out the back about 18 months ago and its completely destroyed in rust, the bracket and pole was very soft, I think the quality was never the best but lately some of the dish's are not worth putting up, I have a triax 1.1 up for about 6 years I think and a gilbertini maybe 8 or 10 years or more and both are spotless, no rust whatsoever, as they say, you get what you pay for


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    #10
    vienne86
    Registered Users Posts: 17,075 ✭✭✭✭vienne86


    It's a pity these dishes are no good, because the old ones were mighty - mine has been sat on my roof for years, without a day of trouble, and we have one in a mobile home which never fails......and it is attached to a.....TREE!


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    #11
    Stinicker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭Stinicker


    The thing is I think a Sky dish looks better on a house than a generic Triax or Technomate, it just a pity they are made to such low quality now. Every second house practically has a Sky dish nowadays so they look almost acceptable, I recently drove into a large housing estate and some of the houses looked terrible with big generic dishes and one with a 1.2 metre dish. These dishes just scream immigrant rental house to me. Personally I could never tolerate any dish on the front of a house if it were me, wheras you can sneak a Sky dish on a gable and it just blends in.


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    #12
    TAFKAlawhec
    Registered Users Posts: 590 ✭✭✭TAFKAlawhec


    reboot wrote: »
    Can you remind me of the best colour to paint it re sig/noise, or am I dancing on the head of a pin?
    Never really heard of the colour on the front of the dish influencing SNR levels directly, more about the type of paint being used. Matt paint is often used, but it does hold rain water longer than a 'bare' dish which could affect signal levels. Gloss holds the risk at a certain time period of the day of reflecting sunlight on to the LNB, increasing SNR levels, shortening the LNB life span through heat and in some scenarios could burn through the front cap of the LNB though I've never heard of this happen to anyone in Ireland, much more likely in Mediterranean areas. Using a very thin layer of gloss or a slightly thicker semi-gloss seems to be a good compromise. For the sides and the back of the dish, you can get away a lot more with the type of paint if needed - just don't use emulsion!

    My dish on a Diseqc motor has had a thin coat of yellow gloss paint done by spray painting for a couple of months now and it's not presented any problems that I can see at the moment.


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    #13
    reboot
    Registered Users Posts: 1,460 ✭✭✭reboot


    TAFKAlawhec wrote: »
    Never really heard of the colour on the front of the dish influencing SNR levels directly, more about the type of paint being used. Matt paint is often used, but it does hold rain water longer than a 'bare' dish which could affect signal levels. Gloss holds the risk at a certain time period of the day of reflecting sunlight on to the LNB, increasing SNR levels, shortening the LNB life span through heat and in some scenarios could burn through the front cap of the LNB though I've never heard of this happen to anyone in Ireland, much more likely in Mediterranean areas. Using a very thin layer of gloss or a slightly thicker semi-gloss seems to be a good compromise. For the sides and the back of the dish, you can get away a lot more with the type of paint if needed - just don't use emulsion!

    My dish on a Diseqc motor has had a thin coat of yellow gloss paint done by spray painting for a couple of months now and it's not presented any problems that I can see at the moment.
    Thanks for that, I may be going back as far as pre sky and prime focus, when I believe black was thought to mean more heat and therefore worse SIG/noise.


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    #14
    TAFKAlawhec
    Registered Users Posts: 590 ✭✭✭TAFKAlawhec


    reboot wrote: »
    Thanks for that, I may be going back as far as pre sky and prime focus, when I believe black was thought to mean more heat and therefore worse SIG/noise.
    I have heard with authority that LNBs with a white or light colour for their housing are better for SNR receiving ratios compared to black as sunlight would reflect off the LNB housing rather than being absorbed & generating heat and affecting the SNR of the signal being processed through the oscillator etc. I'd assume painting an LNB white would do something similar but as I mentioned earlier, this is likely much more important in places like Spain and Italy where the summer sun can be strong as opposed to the likes of Ireland where such conditions occur significantly less, for better or worse. :pac:


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    #15
    Zardoz
    Registered Users Posts: 5,576 ✭✭✭Zardoz


    Stinicker wrote: »
    The thing is I think a Sky dish looks better on a house than a generic Triax or Technomate, it just a pity they are made to such low quality now. Every second house practically has a Sky dish nowadays so they look almost acceptable, I recently drove into a large housing estate and some of the houses looked terrible with big generic dishes and one with a 1.2 metre dish. These dishes just scream immigrant rental house to me.

    I think a generic dish is much more discreet.
    You can get a grey ,white or red dish to match the colour of your house so it blends in.

    A good 60cm dish will blend in better as opposed to a black dish and will last much longer especially an aluminium one.
    Personally I could never tolerate any dish on the front of a house if it were me, wheras you can sneak a Sky dish on a gable and it just blends in.
    Agreed ,a dish on the front of a house is a major no no .
    I always thought that you needed planning permission to put a dish on the front of a house,it certainly was the case years ago.
    http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/sky-satellite-dishes-face-planning-permission-hitch-26081144.html


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