What part of the country are you in ? I’m near Carcassonne with a 1.2m offset dish and just a regular quad LNB. The further South and East you go the worse it gets, so Nice for example or near the med Spanish border can be challenging without a good setup or a larger dish, especially for the HD channels.
Hairbear. I am only a few km north of Carcassonne so a comparison with your something new could be most revealing. I have a Gilbertini 125 with Invercom C120 Quad and Feedhorn, and very dear co-ax – the best recommended combo available at the time apparently. But that was more than 9 years ago. Less than a year later, they put up Astra 2G and mucked about with the other two satellites, impacting on reception of some channels from then on. Also since then, the LNB has not half had a cooking lately. It’s probably well past its best.
That seems to me to be a good setup for around here. The Gilbertini is a good dish, and using a feedhorn with a good LNB (and Invacom are a good make) should perform well. The only caveat I have is that feedhorns are normally matched to a particular dish and so you’re feedhorn should be a Gilbertini one for that particular dish. If you’ve had the setup for 9 years with the same LNB then it’s performance will inevitably degrade especially in our climate and so that may need replacing. The only other thing I can think of, short of misalignment, would be distortion of the dish. Metal dishes, particularly in hotter climates can distort over time and lose their perfect parabolic shape.
Another thing, although this may not make a huge difference, is the LNB skew. Nine years ago you would have been using Astra 2A and 2B (I think !), whereas Freesat are now on 2E and 2F. The skew for 2E and 2F were shifted by 7 degrees. Now, in a good signal area this would have made no real difference but in marginal signal it might. The skew needed for my location. which is close to you, is -25 degrees for Astra 2E and 2F.
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Can I return to the original post.
Nothing has radically changed except C4 and BBC are now HD by default. Plus a few frequency changes which can make a slight difference.
The problem is satellite TV is digital - it works or it doesn’t - there’s no fuzzy snowy picture anymore. HD is much more sensitive.
Anyone who’s satellite was on the edge now has a problem …it’s the installation.
Remember it’s not designed to work in France - so it’s not going to be as robust anyway
Absolutely. As for HD, it’s not that HD transmissions themselves are more sensitive, it’s the fact that HD channels use more data bandwidth and so you have to squeeze more data out of each transponder to support the same number of channels. The harder you squeeze the more sensitive it gets 
(Original poster).
I have tweaked the LNB skew on my setup and now am back to reception as it was a year ago. All HD channels good.
Looking at the front of the dish I have turned the LNB about 7° anti-clockwise, this then reads about 22° on my scale (which may or may not be a true value, I know).
Thanks to those posters who have contributed relevant posts.
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That’s great @lebeuil1 . So, that extra 7 degrees of skew does make a difference in marginal signal areas. That’s good to know. @Pete_Paterson have you checked the skew on your setup ?. It should be 25 degrees for you.
Our reception only became any kind of issue again when BBC1 South News suddenly disappeared, no other missing channels are worth bothering. (I also have a Firestick and a streaming PC). As you say, my 9-year-old setup could probably do with some replacing, but is it worth speculatively shelling out, for no more really than the off chance of spotting family or friends frolicking on Bournemouth beach?? Also, practically, I read some opinions that there is no longer a LNB which matches the Invercom with a feedhorn. As I say it will be most interesting to compare the reception you receive after upgrade. I would be grateful to hear the results.
Love a good frolick, haven’t frolicked for a while now but that’s what holidays are for 
looking forward to frolicking good time with friends in a few weeks!
It was probably exactly a year ago I reset my skew to the -17.4° (still) showing in Dishpointer, from whatever my setting of 9 years ago was (I don’t recall the figure). This made a marked improvement. I shall however give a -25° skew a try, showers and OH willing (and locating college protractor again from 63 years ago!).
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Dishpointer is unfortunately wrong for Astra 2EFG. You need to subtract 7 degrees. Here is the official SES calculator which gets it right
Can’t read it it wants me to sign something.
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Interesting that they’re basically promoting TV piracy over IPTV. No judgement, it just seems unusual for a commercial publication to do so.
Thanks @Bonzocat but somebody else wants me to sign something now, MS, but I got the drift in part with @JohnBoy’s comment. 
No matter, as I have said there is a way around bad reception, flicking up or down a channel momentarily, except for Channel 4 now. For some reason that is bad more often than not these days. A shame because I used to prefer their news programme, but not disastrous there is little else I watch on that.
Typical Connexion article. Full of ‘he said, she said’ opinions but woefully short on useful information
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Very occasionally I think about subscribing to the Connexion. Then I see the quality of their articles and remember why I don’t subscribe.
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