Recent degradation in SKY Reception....

R

Raihani

Member
Hi, I live in Italy about 100km south of Pisa. I have a 2m dish with an INVACOM LNB etc. I bought the dish about a year ago and it took a long time before we really manged to point it PERFECTLY. When we finally did, we managed to get ALL channels almost until midnight! However, since about 2-3 weeks ago the reception started to deteriorate slowly at first and finally I lost all BBC, ITV and a bundle of other channels that were very easy to receive before and available on a 24 hour basis. We did have some very heavy rains about 2 weeks ago but I did check the dish and the LNB and could not find any sings of damage. The only thing I found was a wasp tha had managed to enter into the feed horn and built a nest (like a fine white furry cotton wad..) I thought to myself great, that must be the problem and removed the nest, cleaned the feed horn, had a good look inside the LNB and did not find any obvious signs of "contamination". I put everthing back together convinced that I had solved the problem: NO DIFFERENCE!! Checked the cable and put another new cable : NO DIFFERENCE. Now I heard that there has recently been some pretty fierce solar activity that may have affected satellites in space. I would like to know, before I plunge for a new INVACOM, if anyone in Italy has recently experienced any such problems?? Thanks guys! Simon
 
I don't know if this is any help but I live in Cyprus & we hare getting a lot of break up between 7pm & 10pm daily on BBC & ITV. I have spoken with a lot of people over here who all seem to be getting the same problem

regards
 
My reception here in Florence has been dodgy recently,vertical transponders
drop off at about 19-00 hrs,return about 05-00 hrs,horiz transponders last
till about 21-00 hrs.
 
Here in Spain reception has improved since the beginning of the month- perhaps the footprint has shifted westwards at your expense?
Things you could look at:
If the dish is in the garden, has the earth around it moved slightly?
Was it at all windy?
Even tiny movement of mountings can wreck Astra 2D reception.
Has some rain got in to the LNB ? Did you remember to fit the '0' ring between the LNB and feedhorn?
Perhaps the wasp did more damage that you thought, or cleaning it has affected the very sensitive antenna inside the LNB, which shouldn't be touched. Cover the open end of the feedhorn with some transparent plastic or clingfilm.
You may have to try another LNB. Consider having a spare for mission-critical components as you may be some distance from a supplier.
 
I think is a good advise to get yourself a spare invacom (possibly a 0.3 dual monoblock, about 30 euro, or even better a C120 with separate flange and waveguide, about 50 euro) and give it a try. It is quite possible that the bloody wasp
icon8.gif
has damaged the waveguide. It is very delicate and a small scratch on the inside surface can produce a loss of even 0.5-1.00 Db which can make the difference between seeing BBC or not in Tuscany with a 2mt dish.
It is also very likely that the most hated bird (2D, most hated in fringe reception areas) has been slightly turned, just like it allegedly happened on 2A a couple of years ago, in order to make it catch more light because of one faulty solar array motor. They may turn the whole satellite instead of just the solar wings without even thinking of the service outage for the poor sods living in the fringe reception areas. On the top of that, it is also very likely that they would prefer improving the service in spain, were the british community is huge, with respect to italy.
What can I say, try the new invacom and hope for the best since 2mt is a fairly big dish and it might still work.
 
Yeah,BBC has been breaking up for about a week or so,Itv (central etc) worse but Anglia better.But then I went up on my roof and realigned the dish at about 8.30 pm on tuesday.Now bbc and itv okay all night.
 
Hi Zorba

What size dish & where on island

Cheers

Nick
zorba said:
Yeah,BBC has been breaking up for about a week or so,Itv (central etc) worse but Anglia better.But then I went up on my roof and realigned the dish at about 8.30 pm on tuesday.Now bbc and itv okay all night.
Click to expand...
 
rikksow said:
I don't know if this is any help but I live in Cyprus & we hare getting a lot of break up between 7pm & 10pm daily on BBC & ITV. I have spoken with a lot of people over here who all seem to be getting the same problem

regards
Click to expand...

That would explain the poor results we got last week when we put up a 2.4 offset dish in your area.we tried all combinations of lnb/feedhorns but still could not get BBC over borderline.What size dish have you got?
 
I have found the Sharp ( White ) 0.3 lnb performs far better than the Invacom 0.3 lnb at about half the price.

I noted that our local Sat Dealer in Spain uses them at his shop.

They are 15 Euros + IVa in Spain, may be worth a try.
 
Intresting........Can you quantify 'far better' please? e.g. differences in drop out times etc and is this compared to invacom singles, universals, C120s, quads etc

Cheers

Nick
silvernet said:
I have found the Sharp ( White ) 0.3 lnb performs far better than the Invacom 0.3 lnb at about half the price.

I noted that our local Sat Dealer in Spain uses them at his shop.

They are 15 Euros + IVa in Spain, may be worth a try.
Click to expand...
 
silvernet said:
I have found the Sharp ( White ) 0.3 lnb performs far better than the Invacom 0.3 lnb at about half the price.

I noted that our local Sat Dealer in Spain uses them at his shop.

They are 15 Euros + IVa in Spain, may be worth a try.
Click to expand...

Could you say on which dishes and where in Europe you have compared these LNB's?

Many installers in Spain use the Sharp LNB's, mainly because they are cheap. In a fringe area on a large dish their performance is abysmal compared to Invacom.
 
bignick said:
Hi Zorba

What size dish & where on island

Cheers

Nick
Click to expand...
Its a DH 3m prime focus(not the "cheap" version).Location Ay Phyla :)
 
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