Builders Moved Sky Dish, Whats the best way of getting my signal Back

cyberspider

The house next-door is being renovated and the Builders repointed our shared Chimney. While they did this the messed up my sky digital signal. I have checked and I am now receiving no signal at all. When confronted the Builder admitted "the Lads" had moved the dish around so they could do the work. Apart from my anoyance at them working on my property without my permissions, I am pissed they never told me they move the dish.

I have contacted Sky and they said it will take a week and a half before they can get an engineer our to fix it and it will cost €100. The builders have said they will cover the cost but they now want to get on the roof and reposition the dish themselves, with me checking the signal strength on screen.

What is the best way of doing this, is there a cheap bit of kit for checking the signal strength from the dish? Do any of you know some "professional" who might be able to reposition this dish, as I am getting no signal at all I suspect they may have actually damaged the dish, power supply or cables. Any thoughts or comments greatly appreciated.

sgarvan

http://www.lidl.ie/ie/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20060831.p.SatFinder

maybe something like this might be a cheaper alternative than getting sky out.

cyberspider

sgarvan thank that is exactly what I was looking for, however Sky will be able to call out the day before I can purchase this and considering the Builders will pay the call out fee I would perfer to let the sky engineer to fix it that day.

I woudl like to get something like this in teh next day or so and let teh builders fix it. If it was on sale this thursday then that would be a different story. I looked at maplins.co.uk and they have something similar in stock but it is nearly £40 plus postage. Perhaps someone has another cheaper source?

ixtlan

Just a warning about manually repointing the dish. I've never done it myself, but I am reliably informed that with the digital transmissions this would be extremely difficult without a satellite finder.

I'm just picturing the builders thinking how hard can this be and them shouting down to you trying different positions. They would probably have to give up after an hour or so.

Ix.

zing

ixtlan wrote:

Just a warning about manually repointing the dish. I've never done it myself, but I am reliably informed that with the digital transmissions this would be extremely difficult without a satellite finder.

It is possible to do this without a satfinder but you just need some patience. I mounted a new dish a few weeks back and aligned it without using a sat finder. Just setup Sky box & portable TV inside a window beside where the dish was, roughly alligned it by eye with other dishes in the area and then did small adjustments until I got a signal, then fine tuned it to get max SS & SQ.
Just remember that adjustments need to be slight and be patient - although somehow I can't see builders being particularly patient to try and maximise SS & SQ for you. Pulling a tv & receiver up onto the roof might not be an option either but it should be possible to coordinate adjustments via phone (or just shouting )

Here's a useful guide courtesy of google:
http://www.planet-interkom.de/home/astrosat/FAQs/How_to_Align_Dish/how_to_align_dish.html

As already mentioned Maplins should stock satfinders - so if the op is anywhere near a maplins store... Or any sat store would stock them (take a look in the golden pages). Also satellite.ie have one for 15 EUR + p&p.

St Senan

cyberspider wrote:

The house next-door is being renovated and the Builders repointed our shared Chimney. While they did this the messed up my sky digital signal. I have checked and I am now receiving no signal at all. When confronted the Builder admitted "the Lads" had moved the dish around so they could do the work. Apart from my anoyance at them working on my property without my permissions, I am pissed they never told me they move the dish.

I have contacted Sky and they said it will take a week and a half before they can get an engineer our to fix it and it will cost €100. The builders have said they will cover the cost but they now want to get on the roof and reposition the dish themselves, with me checking the signal strength on screen.

What is the best way of doing this, is there a cheap bit of kit for checking the signal strength from the dish? Do any of you know some "professional" who might be able to reposition this dish, as I am getting no signal at all I suspect they may have actually damaged the dish, power supply or cables. Any thoughts or comments greatly appreciated.

Seeing as the builders are willing to pay for their mistake call in to your local tv shop, They should have a phone number for an independant Aerial and Satellite installer in your area.

byte

scaller wrote:

Seeing as the builders are willing to pay for their mistake call in to your local tv shop, They should have a phone number for an independant Aerial and Satellite installer in your area.

Yup, as scaller says. Plus the local guy may be cheaper.