Dodgy LNB or what?

p15574

Hi, as a newbie to satellite, I'm hoping I've just done something stupid with something simple! I'll defer to your expertise...

I've just done - well, attempted - a self-install of freesat and dish, but when I search for a signal I get nothing. I might get 10% strength - which I presume is just static or something - but zero quality. I got a Sky zone 2 dish and octo LNB. I have tried 2 different receivers (an LG Freesat tv and a Humax box) and neither can detect a satellite. I have tried 4 different cables in all, 2 that are wired through the house, and 2 that were connected directly to the LNB through an open window - nada. I know the dish won't be pointing correctly yet, but it's in the general direction, similar to neighbours' ones, so I would have expected some sort of signal.

Given the fact I've tried 2 different receivers and 4 different cables, would I be right in thinking that the evidence points to a dodgy LNB? It's brand new - are these often faulty?

I can attach a photo of the dish in place if it helps.

thanks,
Steve.

Tony

Sounds like dish not aligned correctly

kbell

p15574 wrote: »

I know the dish won't be pointing correctly yet, but it's in the general direction, similar to neighbours' ones, so I would have expected some sort of signal.

Needs to be bang on for Satellite reception, pointing in the general direction wont do it.

p15574

But shouldn't I be getting SOME sort of signal, even from other satellites in the general direction?

zagmund

Basically, you have to have a number of things correct in order to get a picture up and it could be any one (or more) of them.

You need the dish pointing in the correct direction, you need it raised at the correct elevation, and you need the LNB aligned correctly.

I'm no expert and so am only basing this on what experience I have had of 'tuning in' manually a few times - if you are confident of the dish alignment, then my suggestion would be to check the LNB skew. Google 'sky lnb skew' or "astra lnb skew' and you should get some pointers. A rough rule of thumb I think is that when looking at your dish from the front (the same direction the satellite looks at your dish) your LNB should not be pointing straight down (6 o'clock) but should be skewed to the left (7 o'clock).

Give that a lash and see if it helps.

z

p.s. the other thing to bear in mind is that a sky dish needs a specific LNB due to the special shape of the dish, so if you have a 'normal' octo LNB and not one for a Sky dish I think you're not going to have any joy without changing one or the other.

p15574

OK, thanks for all the pointers. The LNB is indeed for a Sky dish, and is slightly skewed already to nearly "7 o'clock". I got the appropriate settings for my location from the net and attempted setting the dish to the rough direction. The elevation is approximately the required one, according to the markings on the bracket, although I'm sure that's not accurate. I thought the approximate skew and elevation should be enough for setting the azimuth? I had though that the following was the order of priority of 'tweaking':
1. Azimuth
2. Elevation
3. Skew

I will have another go today. The very low signal was throwing me - I was expecting to get 20-30% in the general direction, and to see it go up and down more obviously when moving the dish. I will be a bit more patient and move it in smaller increments. If that doesn't work, I'll splash out on a finder.

thanks!

Martin_F

I did my own freesat install. I got 0% for about an hour of trying to align the dish (was also wondering if my LNB was a duffer). The key for me was elevation. Once I had that set correctly I quickly located something like a 25% strength - after that a bit of tweaking got it up to 90%.

My standard fta dish had an elevation scale - setting it to 22 degrees got it sorted quickly.

p15574

Sorted now, thanks. I think elevation was key for me too. I re-fixed the bracket as the elevation couldn't seem to get as low as my neighbour's dish. I also invested in a satellite finder - jaysus, what a good investment! Couldn't believe how much easier it was! After changing elevation I found the satellite manually, but only managed to get about 10% of the channels, then with the finder I could tweak it to perfection.

Now to figure out why my other receiver isn't getting a siganl, but that's a job for another day!

Thanks guys!

John mac

p15574 wrote: »

.

Now to figure out why my other receiver isn't getting a siganl, but that's a job for another day!

Thanks guys!

Dodgy cable or connection ?

p15574

John mac wrote: »

Dodgy cable or connection ?

Most probably, but tried using two different cables. A few extra variables though, as the two cables are comprised of several connected runs each, some of which have never been used before and so haven't been proven yet. I just have to figure out how best to verify each portion of the run without having a tv handy, or specialist equipment.

Hmmm...if I had, say, a run comprising 3 joined parts, I suppose I could connect the satellite finder to the end of part 1 and connect the receiver to that, moving on to part 2 and 3, thus verifying the signal getting that far...

Tony

Connecting runs like this is not recommended as you may lose signal along the way, I would suspect also that F connectors are not being used which you will need to correct I'd say before you get a reasonable signal level.

p15574 wrote: »

Most probably, but tried using two different cables. A few extra variables though, as the two cables are comprised of several connected runs each, some of which have never been used before and so haven't been proven yet. I just have to figure out how best to verify each portion of the run without having a tv handy, or specialist equipment.

Hmmm...if I had, say, a run comprising 3 joined parts, I suppose I could connect the satellite finder to the end of part 1 and connect the receiver to that, moving on to part 2 and 3, thus verifying the signal getting that far...

p15574

Tony wrote: »

Connecting runs like this is not recommended as you may lose signal along the way, I would suspect also that F connectors are not being used which you will need to correct I'd say before you get a reasonable signal level.

I know it's not ideal, it's just the way I have it setup. All cables are joined with F-connectors. I have a node zero, with 2 of 3 cables going directly from the dish to node zero, the other one is joined in one place as I needed to use cables already embedded in the walls. From this node zero, one cable goes directly to the room concerned, the other one goes there via one connection in the NTL box, again making use of the existing infrastructure. I was quite pleased my 'plumbing' of the cables, compared to some godawful installations I've seen, with cables trailing over rooftops and down walls etc - pride comes before a fall, eh?. I'll balance out the no. of hops so no one cable has too many. In the above case, with 3 cables going to 2 rooms, I should be able to have 2 cables having 2 joins, and one cable having one join.

Tony

Sounds like a plan, good luck with it.

p15574 wrote: »

I know it's not ideal, it's just the way I have it setup. All cables are joined with F-connectors.

Sam Radford

Simplest test is to run a temporary length of cable for the full length.

p15574

Sam Radford wrote: »

Simplest test is to run a temporary length of cable for the full length.

Yes, been doing that, thanks, got one out of 3 working now, working on the rest!

johnny Bunny

Hi there. I had similar trouble aligning my dish, in the end I rang *******************and I must say this guy got it all sorted for me. He even beamed in my rte aerial for my mpeg4 tuner at the same time at no extra charge. Hope this might help..........

watty

You need to be an established poster to recommend, so we know it's not Advertising.

Mention them again and you are banned.

shanemort

Had the same problem and used http://www.dishpointer.com/ worked a treat.

Just find your house and click what sat you want

Seanh111

Iv got a similar problem so I thought Id post it here. Iv just moved to a friends house in college. There was already a sky satellite on the house with the cable running into the sitting room, and I got a 2nd hand sky box to get the FTA channels. Now i tried the box at home, where we have sky, and it worked perfectly and i manually updated it. When i tried it at my friends house the picture keeps breaking up every few minutes, like at home when the weather gets bad and the picture breaks up. The signal strength and quality is very good so I was wondering why is this happening? And how much would it cost to fix?

Kashkai

Although you have good signal strength and quality, most likely you still have a badly aligned dish. A dish that is off by even a couple of millimetres will give you a poor quality signal that will very rapidly degrade in rain and lead to picture break up. If the dish is aligned correctly, then the hardware (i.e. lnb, cable, receiver) might be dodgy.

However, if you can safely reach it, try realigning the dish by loosening off the bolts that hold it in place (but not too loose - just enough so you can move the dish) and then moving it in small increments (and then waiting a few seconds each time) until the signal strength, and more importantly, the signal quality improves. You'll need either a satellite finder metre or a satellite receiver connected to a tv (or ideally both) to give you an indication of signal strength and quality.

Its not hard to do, it just requires some patience. I've got my signal strength up to 100% and quality also up to 100% by tweaking the dish alignment by small increments.

If this doesn't work, then its a hardware fault and so you'll have to test each of the components to see which one is causing the fault. It could be something as simple as an old f-plug connection that has degraded due to weather etc.

Sam Radford

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

You'll need either a satellite finder metre

Or a satellite finder 39 inches (in imperial measurement).