Hi all
We have a 100cm satellite dish with an unobstructed view and quad LNB.
We used to get a strong signal on UK FreeSat but recently the HD channels have started to disappear.
Does anyone think going to a 130cm dish would be a solution and / or changing the LNB.
Any recommendations for dish and LNB gratefully received.
Regards
Nick
Oh yes the dish and LNB are about ten years old, I don’t know it that will make a difference.
I have checked all the cables and connectors and changed out one rat chewed cable.
If you are convinced that the cables & connections are in OK condition then the next step is to make sure that the dish is properly aligned.
With the recent hot weather metal mountings & brackets will have expanded & contracted so the dish could easily have started to wander off beam.
Whereabouts are you - we are in 33 Gironde and our 80cm dish works fine.
Hi we are in the Tarn near Albi.
I have just looked at the signal strength and quality and both channels are giving about two thirds of full bars.
Nick
BBC2 Hd works (sometime it doesn’t) and ITV HD will not work
Quality counts more than strength. It seems the dish is slightly out of alignment. Buy a cheap meter as the receiver indicators are not particularly accurate.
Hi Nick,
I’m close to you in Lescure. I had the 100cm dish and LNB installed in October 2018
. All worked well until about four months ago when I started to lose some of the Sky channels plus BBC and some ITV channels. I popped into the sat man in Albi who reckoned the LNB was on its way out. He changed the LNB about two months ago and all is normal.
He did say a 130cm dish would help if the problem persisted. My dish is exposed tho the elements 100% so maybe that shortened the life of the LNB ?
He checked the orientation of the dish and it hadn’t shifted after almost four years despite some strong winds over the years.
Peter
Thanks, I just checked the Humax box where the other two channels go and BBC1 Wales HD will not work but BBC Northern Ireland HD works fine, very strange. The HUMAX box shows full strength and quality.
Thé dish is in a corner between the house and barn so not really subject to winds.
I think I will probably change it out for a 130 cm dish and a new LNB.
I see that Leroy Merlin sell 130cm dishes and LNB,s anyone got any experience with them?
Regards
Nick
Yeah, the LNBs are standard and decent quality. I bought one at the ladt house and it worked fine.
It usually starts making sense when you look at the actual channel grouping on transponders.
Each satellite carries a set of transponders each of which transmits on a fixed frequency in the Ku band (Astra 2 transmits between 10.7 and 12.75 GHz ).
Each transponder’s signal carries a digital multiplex which carries several TV channels.
BBC1 Wales HD is on 11023H, BBC Northern Ireland HD is on 10847V so it is perfectly possible to be able to pick up one but not the other.
Typically dodgy LNB’s and cables will make higher frequency multiplexes disappear first.
Ah thanks for that, as you say it starts to make sense.
I am sure the dish is aligned correctly, I did it recently with a meter.
So new dish and LND. Cables as a last resort but I am 99% sure they are good.
Reds
Nick
I would try anew LNB first.
Yes you are right the easiest first.
The LNBs in somewhere like Leclerc are usually compatible ( universal).
ITV HD is the hardest channel to get reliably in marginal signal areas. All HD channels will probably be worse than any SD channel. There is a ‘summer fade’ that happens in marginal signal areas that starts in June and gets worse. Hotter weather can exacerbate this issue. If it’s only just, suddenly started, then I would suspect some dish, LNB or cable issue . As this summer has been exceptional, Freeesat reception in marginal signal areas has been worse than normal. I’m about 60Km south of you and normally get some issues with HD channels in the summer with a 1m dish, but this summer has been worse than normal. It may be something you have to live with. I do.
If it’s one of those meters than have a beep that increases in frequency and a meter that moves, they’re shit. Don’t rely on them.
Did you install this yourself, or was it done professionally ?. What many people forget when installing a satellite system is the LNB skew. Where you are, the skew should be around 17 degrees anti-clockwise. What this means is that the LNB should be physically rotated around 17 degrees anti-clockwise from vertical in it’s collar. The collar often had a scale printed on it to guide you when setting the skew. Do check this as in marginal signal areas, it can make a big difference. You can check your dish setrings at
Did you install them yourself?
Two common problems with cables are waterlogging and installers using standard TV coax which is only really designed with the 600-800MHz bandwidth needed for standard TV rather than the 1000MHz plus needed for satellite. Both problems reduce the high frequencies faster than the lower ones.
I can only reinforce what @billybutcher says about cable. Satellite installation should use the correct cable. There are many cables that may look the part but will give you poor performance. All cables should have some repeated printed writing on thier side. Somewhere in this writing you should see ‘RG6’ (or if you’re really lucky, ‘RG11’ 
). If your cable does not have this, then it’s probably not suitable for satellite TV. There are other telltale signs of bad cable.