I Have A Very Slightly Damaged Dish...Will This Adversely Affect My Signal Quality??

IT Loser

Hi, the dish has been banged about a bit, I can provide fotos but basically the edges are folded in a little bit on themselves from the dish being dropped over the years. It still has the same basic shape.

Also, can I safely paint my dish white?? Or would that reflect the signal too much??

Thanks.

IT Loser.:cool:

Greenman

IT Loser wrote: »

Hi, the dish has been banged about a bit, I can provide fotos but basically the edges are folded in a little bit on themselves from the dish being dropped over the years. It still has the same basic shape.

Also, can I safely paint my dish white?? Or would that reflect the signal too much??

Thanks.

IT Loser.:cool:

Try it and let us know, a pic or two in situ would be nice too.

TheDriver

Must be matt paint and only one way to try if the dish will work!

Bozacke

Try it out and see. It sounds like it should still work, but probably not as good as a newer or undamaged dish. I had an old rusty and bent dish for almost a year and I had to finally retire it not because of the shape, but because the point where the bracket mounted to the dish finally rusted through and was no longer secured and strong winds would move it out of position. I made an attempt at making a new bracket but the dish was so rusty nothing would secure it properly. For a while after it would get moved about from the wind I'd have to readjust the dish using a broom stick, but eventually I had to retire it.:):)

I remember the dish on my parents' house when we moved there first. It was pointing at 19.2°E, over the years it started to deteriorate and we reused it at 19.2 for satellite "broadband" after getting Sky Digital in. Holes eventually appeared through it as it rusted away - we eventually got rid of it due to aesthetics but it still worked at the time, probably not as well as it should have but I don't know for certain.

wil

If the dish is battered around the edges as easily happens when dropping them:eek: then it probably wont affect the signal. If the shape of the dish is affected, ie dents or bends in the dish face or dish distorted itself then the focus of the dish will not be exactly on the lnb and the dish much less effective.
I have heard of small distortions in dishes affecting some channels but not others.

If you had another similar dish plate you could place it on top and get an idea of how distorted it was.
Some dents may be pressed out by hand if the metal thin enough.

The only real way to tell if it is useable is to try it and check all the channels you should normally receive.

watty

Shiny / bright paint has a couple of disadvantages:
1) Twice a year the LNB gets heat reflected to it
2) It makes it more visible.

Eggshell / matt finish is fine. Or even very fine wet & dry sandpaper to take shine off.

What Wil says. Try the dish and then you will know if it's any good. Don't try fixing it as that could bend it and make it worse.

IT Loser

wil wrote: »

If the dish is battered around the edges as easily happens when dropping them:eek: then it probably wont affect the signal. If the shape of the dish is affected, ie dents or bends in the dish face or dish distorted itself then the focus of the dish will not be exactly on the lnb and the dish much less effective.
I have heard of small distortions in dishes affecting some channels but not others.

If you had another similar dish plate you could place it on top and get an idea of how distorted it was.
Some dents may be pressed out by hand if the metal thin enough.

The only real way to tell if it is useable is to try it and check all the channels you should normally receive.

Having purchased a BRAND new Thompson QUAD LNB and a new stretch of Coaxial Cable I am still having difficulty pulling in anything more than 2 bars of "signal quality" despite the fact that "signal strength" is well over the 50% mark.

I may have to call a man out, but if its just a case that the dish is contorted etc then I will simply buy a new dish...but as the dish does not have, or appears not to have, any of the critical errors to which you refer, I am at a loss as to what to do next.

I understand that one can only hope to achieve a certain degree of success using a cheapo sat finder but I am viewing a lot of channels very well down here at the moment but my "signal quality" remains low, and Setanta 1/2 and Setanta news are no-no's

So........

Just to get it out of the way, is it a minidish? If so, is the Thomson LNB designed for one? Basically, the LNB has to be designed to match the shape of the dish it will be attached to.