Dish off-line by strong winds?

SakisP

My 5-year-old 80cm dish, looking at Astra 1 + Hotbird via a typical 2-LNB setup on a Digenius decoder, may have gone out of alignment after Thursday's strong winds. Some time ago similar conditions left it unperturbed, but I'm worried this time I'll have to call its installer out for a checkup.

Is there anything I can do myself before paying someone else to do it for me? Could such strong winds like Thursday's really loosen up such a long-time strong setup?

In case it helps, the QPSK light is green most of the time when looking at the Signal Strength properties of almost all transponders - does that matter, though?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

watty

What sort of receiver?
Is there a quality bar?

If you can position the TV so it can be seen from Dish or an assistant with mobile or walkie talkie you can bame VERY gentle slow adjustment east/west and Up/down (separately) to peak the signal & Quality backup.

Cal

quite often wind only throws the dish off on one axis. This can make the job of realigining it quite easy. Before you move it too much see if just one axis is out and you may be able to pull/push it back to it's original position.

It worked for me this morning.:D

Cal.

SakisP

Yep, there's a quality bar with no bars now, instead of the usual 80% bars before. C/N is also 0.0 right now.

UPDATE: For a couple of minutes, the signal came back without any lack of quality or jerkiness. Then, NO SIGNAL came back in earnest... Does this feedback make any sense? I bet my alignment isn't out, but I can't think what else could be wrong here...

Johnny Storm

Just a guess - could it be damaged cable?

Tony

SakisP wrote:

I bet my alignment isn't out, but I can't think what else could be wrong here...

I bet it is

byte

Just for the sake of it, have you tried unplugging the Digenius, and plugging it back in again? I have noticed one or two kinds of FTA boxes just stop locking, and need a reboot to rectify. Worth a shot anyway!

SakisP

Wow, it's been over a year since that post! I eventually called out the installer and he cable-tidied everything more solidly, which was the problem after all.

Unfortunately, a week ago I lost both Hotbird AND Astra channels And I can see that all cables are connected as they should... I disconnected and reconnected the Digenius but still nothing...

Is it time for another call out or should I just hire a two-floor ladder and investigate myself? Any suggestions?

Papad

One of the Lidl dishes that I installed for a friend recently "bubbled out". I haven't seen it yet, but apparently the wind made a bulge by pushing it out (like a pregnant dish). Never heard that happening before.

Darth Maul

Papad wrote: »

One of the Lidl dishes that I installed for a friend recently "bubbled out". I haven't seen it yet, but apparently the wind made a bulge by pushing it out (like a pregnant dish). Never heard that happening before.

Same thing happened to a customer of mine this week, I put the dish up for him about 3 months ago under protest, as I argued that a cheap solid dish would not survive the high winds we get in NW donegal, and the same thing happened to him the centre popped out. had actually returned to normal when I got there but the dish is all dinged up, replaced it with a mesh Sky dish.

byte

I put up one for a guy a few years ago, it lasted about 2 months. Storm came and broke the parabola clean off the bracketry and into a nearby field!

It's actually quite lucky that the damn thing didn't smash anything else or even someone!

Jaysus, I hate those bloody things. Using plastic to retain an 80cm parabola is just wrong.