sky digital installation and setup

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 3:28pm #1

I got this intalled last week with a grundig digibox, and all is mostly well, but I have a few questions.

1/ The installer told me that it was an extra 30 pounds to put the dish on my chimney, rather then on the front of the house. Is this right? Almost everyone seems to have it on the chimney so is "standard install" a bit of a misnomer? I put it on the chimney.

2/ I had the digibox connected to scart 2 on my tv. The picture was excellent, much better then chorus, but there were sort of wavy diagonal black bands on the screen sometimes. This was very subtle, many people wouldn't notice, but I'm fussy. So I was playing with the digibox menus and found the rgb/pal setting. I found that rgb seemed to get rid of the waves (once I moved the cable to scart 1), and maybe make the picture "smoother". There seems to be quite a debate about whether rgb/pal is better...
rgb is smoother/cleaner but does not allow colour adjustment
pal is sharper/more colourful
rgb gives higher resolution?
Any comments? How do you use yours?

3/ I have a really old vcr and need to use the rf out from the digibox. I tuned it in fine and it was working OK, until it started intermittently blanking out with huge amounts of interference, then it would be OK and then not. Is this because I need to move the RF signal to a new channel number? Going to try this tonight...

4/ Does your digibox have much clearance inside whatever cabinet it's in? I have about 5cm, but the manual recommends 10 and that box sure is warm, even in standby mode. Has anyone got a power rating for it. I remember reading that all the digital TV stbs in the UK would need a new power station if they were always on standby!! Maybe an exaggeration?!

5/ The installer was professional enough, but obviously was in a hurry to get away. He told me that my TV would not work with the Sky remote, after 30 seconds of testing, but I got it working pretty quickly. Also he never even asked me about 16:9 mode on my TV. I have a 29" 4:3 Black Diamond TV with a 16:9 mode, as most large 4:3 TVs have. I wonder if there are a lot of people with the 16:9 turned off who should not have.

Looking forward to some techie discussion.

Best regards,
John McD.

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 4:08pm

hi jim
give <a href="http://www.sathelp.co.uk/" OLDREF="">www.sathelp.co.uk/</a> a look it has some tecky stuff also www.lyngsat.com

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 5:02pm

Hi John,

The guy who put up my dish last September said that it would be more sheltered on the wall of the house as opposed to the chimney (makes some sense I suppose). Since then though, most of the dishes that I have seen have been on chimneys. I more or less installed the digibox myself, while the installer was fitting the dish. All he was left to do was connect the cable from the dish to the box. He turned it on checked that I could get a picture and left.

From what I have seen in various forums, my TV (a sony) works on the default TV setting on the remote so there was no need to do anything.

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 5:43pm

i read some where that they wernt alowed to instal the dish on chimneys. Maybe this only aplies to the uk.

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 6:54pm

i have the feeling that this applies to ROI more so than UK, I read the same somewhere

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 10:31pm

<u>Answers</u> (im an installer)

1) It is considerably more convenient to stick dish on wall. Usually to put on chimney, U need to get cable stuck out thru the roof slates, get out the roofing ladder (if ness). Then getting cable from roofspace to where digibox will be. This can be a nightmare! Especially in some dormer-style houses. Usually u will find a cable conduit either full of cables or not going all the way to ground floor (eg in 2storeys). When stuck on wall, if worst came to worst just drill hole straight thru wall for cable. The most we would charge would be about £75. Standard install usually is just dish swapover from analog or to stick in where installer thinks is handy

2) I don't really know much about this altho some customers have told me that RGB worked better for them than PAL and viceversa. I guess it depends on what u/ur TV prefers

3) The interference is almost definitely channels overlapping (digibox on same freq as other terr chann) Most digiboxes come on CH68 by default but can be changed by going into installer menu and changing RF output (21-69)

4) I would imagine 5cm is ok but if it is getting very hot i would recommend giving it more clearence. Is it sitting on top of VCR? If so, maybe the heat from VCR is making things worse

5) Seeing as u had a BlackDiamond TV, I'm surprised that he said that ur TV wouldnt work with sky R/C. Obviosly didn't try hard enuff. Black Diamond usually fall under Mitsubishi codes. Or maybe Goodmans. And why would u want 16:9 turned on if u have a 4:3 TV? When using 4:3 option it zooms out pics to fill screen of ur TV. When using 16:9 on 4:3 TV it gives u black bar @ top/bottom of screen. This would be personal prefernce tho i prefer the 4:3 mode

Hope this has helped u somewhat but if not don't hesitat to reply!! <img src="../www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/pimp.gif" ALT=":hat" OLDREF="http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/pimp.gif">

LegacyUser · 20-03-2001 10:37pm

Shane OC - the dish is usually considerably more sheltered on wall. If on chimney, it is prone more to elements. Also, if u have a sooty chimney, the soot blown onto dish will make it rot far faster. Plus it is also more prone to being struck by ligtning which would usually mean the end of ur digibox if struck. it is also recommended not to permanently connect foneline for same reason

VJWD - A lot of installers are probably not insured to climb the roof. That is something i must sort out myself coz if im not insured i will stop climbing!! <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START

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sky digital installation and setup

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