FITTING LNBs

[johntywino]

Hi, Sky has just fitted my Titanium quad LNB,,and had no idea what he was doing as he only used Sky gear. He fitted the lnb on an angle ie cables coming out slightly to the right of vertical,and had no idea what the + or - calibrations were for on the lnb.When he tested the cables with his box of tricks he said strength was only showing 3 instead of about 6, but that was ok as the picture was fairly good.Signal 1 on tv shows strength 100% and quality about 55% . Will turning the lnb alter this? any help appreciated! John

[redman41]

LNB stands for Low Noise Block . Why did the Engineer not alter the angle of Dish if signal was only 3 as he should have had a Signal Meter with him for testing Signal strength.

[razza]

Signal strength is fine however I would question the 55% quality

[johntywino]

Before he fitted the quad lnb tv showed both signals at 80-80%. I don't think he had much idea, as he took one look at my Triax dish and said it was about ten years old! I told him it was less than 3 MONTHS old. Anyway he took the twin lnb off and put the quad on, but didn,t test anything. I was wondering if I could twist the new lnb round slightly it would make any difference to the quality reading. John

[redman41]

Rather than messing with LNB's try altering the angle of your Dish slighly, when you move Dish, LNB's will move as well as they will be fixed to it.

[johntywino]

Hi Redman.....I can try that, but won't help with the plus and minus calibrations on the LNB--Still wondering what they are for! John

[ChuckFickens]

Well this is a slightly tricky one to explain!

If you imagine all the satellites are orbiting over the equator, if you could see them in the sky they would form a giant arc of satellites, if you was to look at a sat that was orbiting over the same longitudinal line on the earth as you were standing on it would be at the highest point in the arc and would be exactly on an horizontal level as you viewed it from your position.

If you were to look at a satellite off to the left on that arc though you would obviously need to point your dish off to the left a little and a little lower in the sky, this part is obvious.

But what also happens as you look at a satellite that is off centre in the arc from your viewpoint is it will also be rotated a little bit from the horizontal (anti-clockwise if it was to the left) so you have a skew angle setting on either the dish or the LNB to enable you to set a tilt to match how far from horizontal the satellite would appear.

(did that make any sense at all LOL)

[redman41]

lol Chuck !
johntywino, are some of your Sky Channels not showing or breaking up ?
Try a slight re-alignment with your Dish when tuned to one or more of these 'weaker' Channels as the ' stronger' ones should automatically correspond. Without a Signal Meter it's trial and error.

[ChuckFickens]

I tried to find a pictorial demonstration of skew because it's the sort of this a pic can show very easily but is really hard to explain in words :)

[fourteen85]

Or you could ring Sky back and tell them that what the 'engineer' told you and ask them to send someone out who knows what they are doing

[johntywino]

Thanks Chuck...Just what I,ve been looking for in a couple of easy to understand paragraphs! I shall do exactly what you suggested and screw it right round and then recheck the signal...I WOULD ring Sky, but the pictures OK, I am just a bit concerned about the quality.. Thanks to all John

[whiskeryron]

johnty, if you are paying Sky for a service to be supplied you want GOOD Service, don't do it yourself get sky to come back & finish the job. In the last 4 months I have had 3 replacement H/D boxes fitted, all is ok now ( if not they would come back as many times as it takes until I was completely satisfied) Ron.