Advice please - sky dish hit by football!

jan80

Hi,

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere...a neighbours child hit our sky dish with his football :mad: and now we're only able to get the 'free' channels. Every other channel has the message saying no signal is being received. We've moved the dish around a bit ourselves but don't really have a clue what we're doing. Haven't rung Sky yet but I'm guessing we'd have to pay for someone to come out and realign the dish?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks

syboit

Hi Jan,

There is a signal test menu on the sky boxes, turn to that menu and if you can have some-one else outside moving the dish (ever so slightly) till you get a lock and signal/strenght are at a good rate aswell (say 70% or higher).

On remote, press services, 4 for system setup and then signal test is where you can check the quality.

You can get sky out but the would charge you.

jan80

The signal quality is only about 30-40% on both inputs so I'll send the other half out after work. Thanks for your reply.

montgolfiere

the Signal quality level is more important than the signal strength reading.
there is a time lag between the movement of the dish and it registering on the digibox inbuilt meter. you should be aiming for 80% Quality
Check that the dish is 'TRUE'.... ie either put a spirit level on the 'LNB Arm and check the bubble is in the middle or if one is fitted to your dish check that the bubble is central.
dont forget to check that the 'skew' of the LNB is correctly set as the LNB could have been hit by the footie ball.
The main thing is ... slowly slowly with very small adjustments. also watch that you dont lose some signal when tightening all the bolts... tighten each one a little in turn.
Hope this helps
the Skyman

Ozzie

If you have to get someone out to realign it, don't ring sky, just get someone reputable but local for half the cost prob.

steveon

Sky will cost you approx €100 to service dish.
Most independant installers like myself would charge €40-50 depending on time to get to you etc...

Post where ur from plenty of installers chat here liike myself...

zagmund

That tightening the bolts thing has got me a few times, but I'm wise to it now.

I used to align it all, check the signal, make sure everything was good, etc . . . and then as a final step tighten everything. Then I would go indoor and wonder why the signal had degraded again. I guess tightening stuff changes the alignment/shape a little because you have to apply pressure. Lesson learned.

z

jan80

Thanks for all the replies, the LNB seems a bit loose (although I don't really know what it looked like before!) and we get a good signal on the imput screen, and all our channels back, if we push it in slightly towards the dish. Not sure how to tighten this permanently though...

steveon

If the bracket is broken then it might be better off replacing it. or use a heavy waterproof tape might hold it in position...would look ugly though

montgolfiere

jan80 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies, the LNB seems a bit loose (although I don't really know what it looked like before!) and we get a good signal on the imput screen, and all our channels back, if we push it in slightly towards the dish. Not sure how to tighten this permanently though...

If it is a sky mini dish, there should be a little plastic 'peg' that goes thru the hole to hold the LNB in the arm... maybe that has been broken by the footie ball? if you dont have one you can always use a (v.Short) self tapping screw etc. to do the job
The Skyman

steveon

Use a tie wrap to hold the lnb in..works perfectly fine and is easy to cut when trying to replace lnb due to upgrading to a quad etc, screws will rust over time in that position and can be a nitemare to get off