3 Newby Questions

[hotlips69]

I'm a total novice when it comes to satellites hence my (possibly stupid) questions:

I've currently got a 1m dish (mesh if that makes a difference) Sky HD setup with an Octo-LNB to service the whole house with Sky and was installed by a professional engineer several years ago.

1) Only in the spring/summer and only when the sun is strong (currently happens late morning), I get picture/sound dropouts on many channels (particularly ITV1) on all the Sky boxes in the house, yet it's 100% perfect the rest of the time....there are no obvious obstructions to the line of sight.

2) If I wanted to install a 2nd 1m fixed/motorized dish system next to or near to the current dish, would there be any issues with the signals getting conflicted/overlapped?

3) Is a supposed 0.1db LNB better than a supposed 0.4db LNB, i.e. is the lower number the better all things being equal?

 

[PaulR]

That was probably solar outage. If tou put those words into the search function you'll find plenty of posts such as this one on the subject http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/transponders-channels/145743-sky-news-astra-19-a.html although none seem to have been made for a couple of years. It also happens in October so I'm surprised you haven't noticed it then.

Providing the dishes aren't physically overlapping there will be no signal loss.

It used to be the case but there's now no technical way that anything less than 0.3dB - 0.4dB can be measured.

 

[Channel Hopper]

That was probably solar outage. If tou put those words into the search function you'll find plenty of posts such as this one on the subject http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/transponders-channels/145743-sky-news-astra-19-a.html although none seem to have been made for a couple of years. It also happens in October so I'm surprised you haven't noticed it then.
.

Some dish designs (usually the ones with the horizontal wallplate ) will twist slightly when they get warm. Unless the dish is installed on a temperate day there will be one extreme when the alignment goes off. In this case I would guess the system was fitted in the dead of winter.

 

[PaulR]

Certainly 1m is overkill for Astra 2 in the southern UK - a 50cm dish is sufficient. One of the seemingly strange things about satellite dishes is that the larger they are the narrower the acceptance angle becomes (tecnically the lobe narrows) and therefore the more difficult it is to align them. If, as CH says, it was set up in winter then the slight twist that 50cm dish wouldn't notice might become problematical for a 1m dish.

I still think it's more likely to be solar outage though - check the dates accurately here
_http://www.satellite-calculations.com/SUNcalc/SUNcalc.htm

 

[hotlips69]

The larger dish was sold to me as less likely to have issues when the weather is really bad with the signal etc...

Does it make a difference being a grey mesh-type as opposed to the standard white solid type?

 

[mariust5]

Technically the larger the dish the better the signal . But as explained earlier , slight missalignement / failing components can occur .
Mesh or solid will make no difference , in your case anyway .

 

[hotlips69]

Technically the larger the dish the better the signal . But as explained earlier , slight missalignement / failing components can occur .
Mesh or solid will make no difference , in your case anyway .

When WOULD it make a difference between mesh & solid?
Also, as I've already got a 1m Sky dish, am I allowed to put a 2nd 1m dish on my property (on or off the record as both would be at the rear and not in anyone's way) ?

 

[hotlips69]

Can anyone assist?

 

[Mickha]

Why would you have a 1 Metre dish for Sky? You are listed as being in Sussex where you should get all the Sky channels on a smaller dish.
Why not replace that dish with a new, smaller dish, and install a new motorized 1 Metre dish for your other viewing needs.

Seeing as you have an octo LNB, 8 separate outputs, and all receivers are suffering the same problem, it is very unlikely to be due to cabling, or the receivers, so the problem is either with the dish moving, not being aligned correctly, or the LNB.
Are all the cables, from the LNB, fed separately into the house, or is there some kind of distribution system?

The difference between a mesh dish, and a solid dish, is not important, in this case, as a 1 Metre dish is overkill for Sky.

 

[satelliteman]

The larger dish was sold to me as less likely to have issues when the weather is really bad with the signal etc...

Certainly an overkill for Astra2 where you are. At the most, a zone 2 would be fine.

 

[PaulR]

We still don't know for sure what dates the losses occured on. If solar outage can be ruled out then we have to look at other things.

Overkill: a word used before. Is it possible that the LNB is suffering from signal blocking perhaps?

 

[hotlips69]

The latest "stuttering" pictures happened at approx 3pm today.

All 5 cables from the LNB are seperate to the individual receivers around the house.

As I've already got a 1m Sky dish (I was clearly mis-sold this, but am happy to leave it where it is), am I allowed to put a 2nd 1m dish on my property (on or off the record as both would be at the rear and not in anyone's way) ?

 

[Lazarus]

If you aren't in a Conservation Area, a National Park, bound by Tenancy Agreements etc. then you are permitted "on the record" to have two "Antennae".

If those are both Dishes, then one can be 1m and the other is limited to 60cm.

Many of us acknowledge these constraints yet probably do not comply ............................

 

[PaulR]

The latest "stuttering" pictures happened at approx 3pm today.

Definitely not solar outage then! That only takes place for a few minutes over three to five days twice a year in spring and autumn.

 

[Topper]

Perhaps it actually is the lnb being overheated by the sun and it is only because of the larger diameter dish refelcting the heat back onto the lnb and heating it up, not normally apparent because at other times of the year when it is higher or lower in the sky. Certainly as the quad lnb's are cheap as chips that is the first thing I would swap out