2.4 metre dish and multiswitch

jacko

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my mother shares a 2.4 meter dish with a few friends on her complex.they never had any problems for years until just before christmas when the satellite signal disappeared.the community say they want around 1000 euros to fix it as they say the dish is old.the dish is situated on top of a small building which houses 13 satellite receivers for the other nationalities on the complex and the door is normally locked.so one evening i climbed up onto the building to change the quad lnd to see if that was the problem.just before i was about to swap them over i noticed the original lnb was an inverto quattro with cables marked horizontal high and low and verticle high and low,so i didnt bother. i traced the 4 cables into the building which was unlocked and followed them to what looks like 4 switches and a power unit.this is as far as i have gone,havent got a clue what to check next,am going to attempt to upload these switches.
 

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jacko

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hello,the dish is pointing to 28 degrees east,mainly used to pick up the bbc/itv channels.
the receiver used is a technomate 1500.while flicking through the transponders there is one trannsponder
which is pulling in a signal 11876h 27500, 2/3. could somebody advise me please would it be better if i order a new quattro lnb
or maybe would the fault be with what i presume are multiwitches as posted above. these are 4 separate units,where i thought
a multiswitch was one unit.
thanks for any help
 

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Those are IF amplifiers and will no doubt feed into a multiswitch, or splitter/tap. I would recommend not messing with the system and pay a professional to get it going again.
 

jacko

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thanks,the if amplifiers do these boost the signal from the lnb before it goes into the multiswitch.
will try tonight to find the multiswitch,and are these powered.
thanks.
just checking all the connections just in case someones been messing.
ps. is a if amplifier similar to a rf amplifier.
 
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PaulR

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They are also known as launch amplifiers and do indeed amplify the signal. As Rolf says they may then go to a multiswitch somewhere but they may also go to splitters to feed multiple multiswitches (one per floor perhaps).

As Rolf says it would be far too easy to cause a secondary problem which might take even more time and money to sort out as it might obscure the original fault.

Does every resident on the system experience the same problem? Has every channel been lost?

The one thing I might quibble about is the comment about the dish being old. Dishes do not necessarily degrade significantly with time. If the 2.4m dish is, for instance, an Andrew/Channelmaster/Raven (different names through the years) or Prodelin then these are made from glass fibre with a metallised reflecting layer under the skin. They will last virtually forever and it's the metal brackets (very substantial normally though) or LNB which will fail first.

You need someone with a meter who knows how to use it to trace the signals through the system. Is there not a plan of the system somewhere? A professional would surely have made one when the dish was originally installed.

One quick thought. Did you have any strong winds just prior to the problem? A 2.4m dish would need moving only slightly to lose everything - which is why very strong .mountings are needed
 

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i think the dish is a prodelin,apparently its a polish make.there is nothing wrong with the dish but it is unsightly and i think
the new community want it removed.
the dish is fixed on a rock solid concrete base and has never had to be adjusted.
just before the signal went we had very heavy rain for 2 days.the only things exposed to the rain were
dish,and lnb, everything esle is protected inside the building.
there are only 4 people connected to the dish ,the other 3 have sky boxes and all have lost their signal,even when i try
to put in the default transponder into their boxes.
the only signal coming through is 11876h 27500 2/3 on technomate 1500 ,cant remember signal strength and quality
but it is quite strong.
i have cut back the 4 cables attatched to the lnb just in case water had got in.
 

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Well if there has been water ingress into the cables, they should be completely replaced. Capillary action is pervasive.
 

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cables and connectors were completely dry,they were protected by a pull down piece of plastic on the lnb,only cut them back to see if it would make any difference.
 

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Check further along the cables before they go into the building to see if they've been accidentally cut somehow or abraded to expose the metal shield.

If there are only four users of the dish it seems strange to have the kind of setup that you have. Unless the $ly boxes are the $ly+ or $ly HD, which really need two leads each from the LNB it seems like overkill. Perhaps there are more outputs into different apartments but they're not being used.

There's nothing wrong or unsightly about a 2.4m Prodelin dish. There are many here who would sell their sisters to get hold of one! If it needs cleaning then a Mr Muscle type cleaner which is non-abrasive could be used but it's really only superficial and is unlikely to be the cause of any problems.
 

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managed to check this evening where the cabling is going to.
4 cables coming off the quattro lnb,followed the cables down to 4 holes drilled into wall to connect
on the top side of the 4 if amplifiers.then 1 cable attached to each of the if amplifiers at the bottom,then these 4 cables are fed into the trunking in the wall to go to the relevant apartments,definitely not going through a multiswitch . if the cables arent going through a multiswitch could i try a quad lnb feeding into the 4 if amplifiers feeding out to 4 separate apartments.
 

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There must be a multiswitch, otherwise the system would never have worked due to the quattro LNB.
 

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... i noticed the original lnb was an inverto quattro with cables marked horizontal high and low and verticle high and low,...
Are you sure that it's an Inverto Quattro if it's the cables that are marked up? What is the part number and/or markings on the LNB? Maybe the Quattro was replaced by a Quad at some time? It's unlikely but a possibility.

And here's another thought. Does the LNB look new? Could somebody have recently replaced the LNB with an incorrect type and this is what has caused the problem?
 

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Take some good quality pictures of what is outside, closeup for the LNB connections.
 

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the lnb is a black ultra quattro with the h+,h-,v+,v-,markings on it.think its been there for a while as the bolts holding the lnb are rusted up.i dont know if the original installers were a bunch of cowbows or if somebody has been messing with the connections.
the 8 connectors going onto the if amplifiers werent even finger tight,they were just screwed on by a couple of threads,but are tight now.will try to take some more photos when i am there in a couple of days.
thanks again
 

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I would recommend not messing with the system and pay a professional to get it going again.
I agree. And it probably won't cost anything like 1000€. To me the 1000€ estimate sounds like there's nepotism involved.

Jacko, what equipment does she have in her apartment? Does she have an STB or is it redistribution over the old communal analogue tv aerial system?
 

jacko

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originaly we paid for an installer to run a cable through the trunking from her apartment to the building where all the dishes are fixed,so I put up a 1 meter dish and she was using this for 2 years connected to a technomate 1500.then a neighbour had the 2.4 meter dish installed on the same building as my mothers 1 meter dish, the neighbour then sold 3 connections to his dish ,one of which my mother bought.the connection to my mothers 1 meter dish was then connected to the 2.4 meter dish from inside the building.my mother lives 60/70 meters from the dish and we never had a booster of any kind when she had it connected to the 1 meter dish.
obviously she coudnt pick up bbc/itv with the 1 meter.
 

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If it says Quattro on the LNB there MUST be a multiswitch somewhere. Otherwise you wouldn't get all the channels, just those on whatever polarity and band that output happens to be.

Pity anyone who ended up with either of the High polarities and an FTA or Freesat box there!
 

PaulR

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Are you sure there isn't a multiswitch BEFORE the amplifiers and the amplifiers are simply there to boost the signal for the 60/70m run?
 

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will try and take some more photos tonight if i can get into the building.i followed the 4 cables from the lnb, through 4 holes in the wall ,into some 50 mm plastic trunking,then out of the trunking into the top of the amplifiers,then back out of the bottom of the amplifiers into the trunking in the wall to go to the apartments.will double check everything tonight
 

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a neighbour had the 2.4 meter dish installed [...] the neighbour then sold 3 connections to his dish ,one of which my mother bought.
If it says Quattro on the LNB there MUST be a multiswitch somewhere.

There are other ways to set up a quattro that don't need a multiswitch and they are pretty common in Spain... But by the sounds of it this is just a conventional setup shared between 4 users and someone has put the wrong LNB on the dish (possibly while trying to correct the current fault). Best thing to do is just throw on a quad LNB and test. And don't forget to mark up the cables so you can return them to how they are now if necessary.

Another possibility is this is a quattro/multiswitch setup and the cables have been muddled up.
 
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