lost signal on old Sky Dish...

Big Aura

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Oct 13, 2008
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My mother-in-law uses my old Humax Foxsat-HD box for her TV, and recently it's showing zero sat signal strength and quality. She has freesat, but loves the free bollywood movies on UMP....

I've check the humax box at my house, and it works fine so presume it's either (a) the dish has moved; and/or (b) the single LNB has failed. From peering out the window it seems solid as always - it's fixed to a wall at 17feet up, so not wavering on anything "movable". There are no trees in the immediate area to block.

As she lives in an upstairs flat (in London), I need to ask the elderly downstairs neighbour for access to get a ladder up the back of the building to check the dish. As I don't want to impose on the old lady downstairs any more than necessary, I thought I'd pre-buy a single LNB so I can check alignment and replace the lnb in the same visit.

But... eBay has a large variety of LNBs - 0.1dB, 0.2dB etc, and they appear to affix to a dish in different ways.

Re the attachment, I can take another look and double check what it looks like (I recall Sky changed their dish design about 10 years ago). As to the 0.1dB, 0.2dB etc - I'm flummoxed! Are there "decent" makes and brands to avoid also?

Help?!?
 

Big Aura

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nope, don't have a sky box - happy to say I'm not enslaved to Murdoch and never have been! The freesat shows signal strength and quality. At my M-i-L's it's zero % for both. At my house it's 80%/100%.

Does a sky box give some additional info?
 

Xanderzdad

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Maybe take your freesat box around to your m-i-l's just to eliminate her box before clambering around as I don't think my sky box shows any info not available on your freesat box.
 

RobinKidderminster

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I too would be interested in some lnb advice. To replace current x2?? with x4?? for additional cable for freeview upstairs. Skyhd downstairs is fine. Any sat' experts please?
 

daveh75

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Big Aura said:
eBay has a large variety of LNBs - 0.1dB, 0.2dB etc, and they appear to affix to a dish in different ways. Re the attachment, I can take another look and double check what it looks like (I recall Sky changed their dish design about 10 years ago). As to the 0.1dB, 0.2dB etc - I'm flummoxed! Are there "decent" makes and brands to avoid also? Help?!?

Ignore the noise figures, they're largely nonsense. Make is largely unimportant for a Sky dish.

But make sure the LNB is specifically for a Sky dish, as they have oval scaler rings within the feedhorn (to match the dish) whereas LNBs meant for standard round(er) dishes have round scaling rings and using one on a Sky dish will result in sub-optimal signal.

Sky have changed the dish design 4 times over the years, mk1/2/3 dishes had an finger type mount that slid inside the dish arm (which unhelpfully varies in size depending on mk) and is held in place by a pin.

The latest mk4s have inverted u section arms which the LNB bracket straddles. It will almost certainly be a mk2/3 given the age, but mk2/3 LNBs are rare these days, so just get an mk4 and a 'legacy' adapter

See below for lnb and legacy adapter http://www.satcure.co.uk/accs/single_output_sky_lnb.htm
 

Timbot

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We had a similar problem with our LNB last year. First the horizontally polarised channels went, then the vertically. The Minidish and LNB came with the house and the attached LNB was a single Cambridge with the mount which slides inside the metal "arm" to atach it. Fitted a new (quadruple) LNB and it started working a treat straight away. Think it's a pretty safe bet your LNB is faulty.
 

Xanderzdad

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Big Aura said:
I've already taken her box to mine and it worked fine! what additional benefit would serve from taking my box to hers??!

Not a thing - I thought you meant that your box worked fine at your house so you knew that the general Freesat signal was fine. I hadn't realised you meant that it was her box you tested at your house. Just trying to save you the hassle of ladders. :doh:
 

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