Advice Needed Expert help needed. Totally stumped!

[zorbua]

I was there in 1981. Would have to be the hottest summer the Maltese folk have ever known. Too bloody hot

You can say that again...Summers in Malta are killers....in their 35/40C...On the other hand winters are mild 13/18C. Can't say I remember any snow at all...or IF any (and a big IF at that) very briefly and a smallish amount.

 

[David Rudden]

i have a samsung tv myself with my own equipment connected up to it and i sort of have the same problem so i tryed doing everything moving the dish trying all these settings reprogramming the box and seems to work better put if the weather is really bad some stations might not work. It kinda all depends on what equiptment your using to be honest

 

[SatSap]

Was on the verge of a total solution, but bam! Fix snatched away at the last second!

Just had a 'free' visit. The chap who came seemed to be very knowledgeable and was a breath of fresh air quite honestly. After connecting the cables to his black box and writing stuff down and walking around outside he used my PC to get a sat coverage map up and showed me where we were and the gradational coloured bands for satellite coverage. He said we needed a 60cm dish where we are for Eutelsat 28A to get the missing channels and then said that our neighbour also had a 60cm dish on the other side of their house as well, which I did not know...never ever noticed it. He also advised replacing the shotgun cable with twin WF100 cable. He said he was 100% confident that after he'd replaced the cable and dish the problem would be resolved completely, and no charge until sorted. I then asked him about cost and he said he had to get the 60cm dish from the depot as he didn't have one on the van and so needed to ring his boss first. Went out to the van and made the call, came back and said 'sorry, the boss said no. He doesn't want to know about zone 2 dishes'. WT*? I asked him why on earth not and he said he wasn't entirely sure and was very surprised. Said he thinks it's because his boss only wants to deal with Astra 28.2 zone 1 setups. He said he was really very sorry and was surprised that his boss had told him to 'get out of there'. He was really apologetic and asked me for some paper and said he'd write down all the information I needed to give to another company to get it sorted. He said his equipment had been calibrated less than two months ago so was very accurate. This is the info - don't know what the cln c is whether it's a 1 or an L or a |:

Eutelsat 28A
Super Beam 28.5 degrees E
SR 27500 FEC 2/3
Zone 2 Sky dish 60cm
WF100 cable 1mm

H Lo S 72db q 100% cln c 15.8db
V Lo S 72db q 100% cln c 15.3db
H Hi S 72db q 51% cln c 10.7db
V Hi S 74db q 79% cln c 12.5db

Does the above make sense?

So, still no fix. But no charge. I'm going to forget it now till after Xmas and then maybe approach it again. To late now to faff about and I'm too busy to give any more time to it.

 

[Captain Jack]

To be honest, that's not a bad signal. H Hi is a little low but it's not bad. Eutelsat 28A is still up there but is not used for many channels. I can't recall which frequency range it now occupies...

 

[Tony1A]

HA! The boss did not want to know about Zone 2 dishes. Jesus H Christ! This just gets better. You could always use a conventional round dish with a standard dual or quad output LNB with excellent results. I got shot of my minidish 5 years ago and not looked back. But a Zone 2 is much better than a Zone 1.

 

[PaulR]

Where in Wales are you? A zone 1 dish should be good for just about everywhere. If the TV has a deaf tuner, which seems to be the case judging by all that has been said, then you might need a stronger signal if you're, say, at the end of the Pembroke peninsula but otherwise I would have thought not.

I really think that the cable is the problem at the moment. We don't know how long the run is and $ly will only allow a run of 30m max because of the signal loss. With all the faffing around it might be too long. In which case replacement by WF100 should show an improvement.

Once that's been done then you could look at dish or LNB replacement.

Did you happen to get the latest chap's contact details? He might be willing to do a 'foreigner' and put the cable in for cash. Not that I'm encouraging the black economy, of course. Harumph!.

 

[smoggy07]

Sounds like a blag to me, going to the van to ring the boss, and why would the boss want to stay away from zone 2 installs yet have zone 2 dishes at base?

TBH he might have told his boss the back story and about the other installers who have been out and the boss has thought the job is going to have comebacks and its not worth the headache

I'd have asked the installer if he wanted an after hours job as PaulR says above, if he thinks it would work I'd have thought he'd have offered to come back

The last sky tech that visited here left his number in case I needed any work doing

 

[Tony1A]

Yeah! Something fishy here.

 

[rolfw]

Don't think it's anything to do with Zone 2 installs, but more to do with four days before Christmas, a full work sheet and the boss not wanting to have his man spend any time on what could end up as a non-earner.

 

[smoggy07]

Don't think it's anything to do with Zone 2 installs, but more to do with four days before Christmas, a full work sheet and the boss not wanting to have his man spend any time on what could end up as a non-earner.

That's what I was thinking, he's heard they're the 3rd firm to visit and thought its not worth the hassle of having to go back out again and again (not that they'd have to if the jobs done right third first time round), I didn't think about it being so close to Christmas but it makes sense