Lazy Sky Engineers

slumped

Hi,

Just thought I would let off some steam and inform you about the lazy Sky 'Engineers' that came out to me on Saturday.

Problem was the signal strength and quality were not great after the initial install and the second visit did nothing so I was hoping third time lucky.

They laughed at the suggestion that the dish need to be realigned saying that the people in Sky don't know what they are talking about and insisted that the cable going from the wall to the box needed to be replaced.

No joy - but a black shadow bar now moves across the screen from left to right. 'Engineer' said he didn't know what caused it or how to fix it. It wasn't there before he started! Apparently now I need a new box.

Anyways, still not happy I asked them to check the dish. On to the roof and 10 minutes later they are back down, saying that they realigned it a bit. Quality and signal strength still fluctuating between 33% and 50%

The 'Engineers' say that this is normal and you rarely get signal strength better than 50%. Told him that it should be closer to 75% and he laughed saying that Sky would 'tell you anything'.

He wanted to leave it 'to see how it turns out'. I asked him if moving the dish would make any difference and wait for this..........................he said that moving the dish would have no effect on the signal.

WHAT?

I told him I wanted it moved and low and behold 20 minutes later the signal is now 75% and wuality greatly inmproved.

WHY do Sky send these so called 'engineers' out if they are totally incapable of doing the job??

Slumped!

Hagar

Wasters. I put up my own dish, no choice, I'm in the South of France. I took my time and I have signal strength of 100 all the time. Signal quality normally 90 but can vary to 80. I use a 1m transparent dish with a .3 LNB.

Linoge

I think its luck of the draw with some of them. One of my neighbours even got abusive with them one time because they wouldn't put the dish on his mast instead of the side of the house. He got blacklisted by Sky! He was too right though TBH.

The engineers that came out to us were ok. When we were upgrading to Digital, they had no problem giving me 20 meters of spare cable. Then when we upgraded to Sky+, they let us keep the old LNB that they're meant to keep.

But overall I'd totally agree with you. They'd tell you anything to make their life a bit easier.

watty

Black shadow moving is usally a poor SCART cable (Gold is irrelevent) using all the wires in one screen. It may be the TV tuner video or the VHS video breaking through.

There should be 4 screened coax for L&R audio in and out
3 Screened coax for RGB
2 Screened coax for composite video / RGB combined sync in and out.

All the other pins can be ordinary wires in an overall screen.

Even many of the very expensive Gold connector scarts may not have this while some cheaper ones with Nickle / Tin may have.

In this application Gold adds NOTHING to quality and may cause damage to tinned connections on a Digibox, TV or VCR which usually are NOT Gold.

If the "Quality" in Services | Setup | Signal test is better than 1/2 way it is possibly not coax to LNB or Dish alignment.

Foggy43

I think you have to be a bit careful before you make accusations. I would like to see the contracts between Sky and the installers. To have a dish placed on a mast require seperate installers and must be requested when ordering your package. Technical reps siting at the other end of the telephone line are just quoting from the manual. In the real world things can be completley different.
I don't know much about law in Ireland but the biggest headache here in London is someone building right in the line of sight between your dish and the satellite. There is nothing you can do about it. You will just have to move the dish at your own expense. In Ireland I am not sure how high above the horizon the Astra Satellite is but where I used to live there isn't much clearance above the Galtee Mountains. Ireland does have it fair share of mountain. Your obstruction may not be in your immeadiate surroundings!

Of course the biggest problem of all is money. I would love to know how much an installer is paid by Sky. I bet the installers must stay within a very tight budget particularly when most installations (depending on height of the dish positioning) are free. I bet there is pressure on the installers to keep cost as low as possible. Sky will want them and probably the installers would prefer to be working on new installations. More money! Who does cover a visit to a previously installed installation. Do Sky? Is it the installer? I wonder?

No matter what country you are in there will always be the cowboy. He or she will slap it up and move on to the next. The more you install the more commision you get! Doesn't even have to be Sky installations. Could be anything!

It looks as though the day of the skillled worker is going. In my line of work is used to be 4 years of training. Now it is 6 months! Everyone wants everything as cheap as possible. The consumer ends up paying the price.

watty

About 23 degrees elevation in Limerick. More further south, less further north.

I wouldn't do installs for what Sky pays.

toonarmy

my dish was aligned so bad from the start by these prats that every time it rained i'd lose my reception on most channels!!

realigned it myself a few weeks back, now it could be pissing buckets out there
but i'm sorted.

telecinesk

I think the term "engineer" is somewhat amusing.Anyone with a degree in electronics is hardly going to want to do this for a living. Consumer electronics are bad to start with. However thats my rant only!

Its the luck of the draw, with who comes out to you. Back home, my mate was well looked after by Sky engineer/installer. Dish nicely mounted, coax descrete and his missus v happy. ie theyre not all bad!

Over to you Tony!

slumped

Who's Tony?

Freddie59

telecinesk wrote:

I think the term "engineer" is somewhat amusing.Anyone with a degree in electronics is hardly going to want to do this for a living. Consumer electronics are bad to start with. However thats my rant only!

IMO the word 'engineer' is also quite abused when describing people with degrees (not all of them of course). You'd be amazed to see how many of these people who are 'qualified' in their field are actually very inept when applying themselves on a daily basis.

Many people without so-called 'qualifications' are sometimes self-taught and operate with a far greater committment and common sense than their 'qualified' counterparts.

Just 'cause you can't put it down on paper is not an indicator. remember that before you castigate all and sundry without 'qualifications'! :rolleyes:

Sparky

tbh, i you feel you want to do the job a bit better, you can get one of those sat meters that go in series with your digibox and the dish
I got one in lidl last year and re aligned my dish by putting the sensitivity down low on the meter and now after the signal is two blocks away from full and on strength and one away from quality, the signal used to be bad beforehand that if a channel came on with a lot of white in the picture it would break up.
The slightest mm of movement can make a difference.

Tony

slumped wrote:

Who's Tony?

Yeah who is Tony

egal

And which is the REAL Tony?
And how will you know him when/if you see him?