Issue with signal?

[suley]

Hi Guys,

Basically im going round to a friends next week in London to fit his vu solo i got him, he has just moved into a new flat and it has a sky cable. I got him to put any sky box in just to check he gets a signal and he said he does but some channels that are free were not showing up and some where intermittent. The cable he has is a dual cable it seems from the sky dish outside the cabling is a dual so it would work on a dual input box. Now I was thinking how can i sort this issue he is having, i can either get s signal amplifier and have the one signal amplified or i was thinking since its a dual cable is there any way i can have the 2 signals merged into one output / input cable so like a t split but doing the reverse. If you know what its called im looking for i would appreciate your help. Also what do u think is the best solution to fix this? He lives in a block of flats so may not be easy to play with the dish itself.

[ramjet]

all he needs is to use one of the 2 feeds from the sly dish into the solo , it has 2 feeds for sly plus but each feed is separate and can be used on its own

no amplifiers are required, and no splitters or combiners either

so either of the 2 coaxial cables can be used from that sly dish (or both cables if he had a solo2 or duo2)

so unless he has a faulty cable or faulty lnb, he is good to go

[wakkaday]

i have the same set up, sorry to jump on thread. i am trying to connect via mobile hotspot via wifi dongle/icloudbox but only fta work. is the sat dish in the right position?

[happy_highlander]

The position of the sat dish is irrelevant in your quest to watch anything other than fta without a valid subscription. If you can see fta then dish is aligned

[wakkaday]

great thanks... could be another issue. cheers

[Benzade]

Sounds like a dish alignment issue to me Suley, that or the LNB is on it's way out.

As for merging two cables the way you have described you are forgetting that the reciever sends an electric current to the LNB via your cable to enable it to work unlike a TV or Radio ariel. If you start to merge cables with splitters and other unorthodox methods then you will be tampering with the way the voltage is designed to be delivered to the LNB by the receiver and you could end up damaging the LNB, the receiver or both. At the very least it will not increase the signal strength in anyway as two poor signal feeds will not equal one good one.

[suley]

Thanks guys for your advice, he was telling me last night he when it was raining the picture went so it seems an alignment issue, is it worth getting a signal booster as in these little mettle things that goes in one end and out other? Was thinking until he gets permission to play with the dish from land lord can do something for him

[ramjet]

Thanks guys for your advice, he was telling me last night he when it was raining the picture went so it seems an alignment issue, is it worth getting a signal booster as in these little mettle things that goes in one end and out other? Was thinking until he gets permission to play with the dish from land lord can do something for him

no, waste of time, if the dish needs aligning or the lnb changing, then that is what must be done

I already mentioned for you to forget any boosters, splitters or combiners , so its the same answer every time = NO

[Benzade]

Is this a dedicated dish or a communal dish?

Depending on the height of the dish and it's surroundings it's unlikely that it will have been knocked out of alignment (unless it was never aligned correctly by the Sly installers in the first place, has been known to happen!) otherwise it will most likely an LNB on it's way out. If it's a Thompson then I know these can fail as it happened to me a while back.

If so then it's simple to resolve and can be swapped over in minutes.

[suley]

Thanks guys, i believe its a dedicated, I remember seeing a few dishes on the side of the property. I have a strong feeling it is the LNB. I am just thinking which the cable he gets in is a dual cable similar to this (100M TWIN / SHOTGUN SATELLITE COAX CABLE 4 SKY+ HD SKY APPROVED | eBay) so im amusing its a fairly new dish, im trying to work out LNB wise if it is a replace where is a good place to buy and how much should i be looking to pay? Also do i need to work out the length of the arm or is that for older dishes? Finally the LNB is it more then likely a MK4 or MK3 if recent and is there a compatible model between the two

[ramjet]

buy one from ebay with the legacy bracket and you can be sure it will fit any sly dish

[suley]

buy one from ebay with the legacy bracket and you can be sure it will fit any sly dish

Thanks just ordered one, I was just thinking do i need any specific tools to put it in or just a normal 4 headed screw driver? Also if it turns out the dish needs a slight realignment how is it done? Do i just move the dish slightly or do i need to unbolt it? I am hoping its just the LNB as i dont want to be playing with the dish alignment

[ramjet]

you may need a small spanner to undo the f connectors, and cutters to cut any tape, then remove a peg and swap them over, any screwdriver is used to swap the lnb holder parts you bought to match what is up there already

to realign the dish, you either use a proper meter like a sly engineer does, or you get the signal levels on the tv screen using the box menu, then use spanners to slightly loosen the adjuster nuts and move the dish up or down or left or right, or a combination of those movements, until you peak the signal so its as high as possible, the tighten up and ensure nothing moved and the levels are still high

[Benzade]

Just to add before slackening any bolts off on the dish try "skewing" your new LNB in the LNB holder by twisting it slightly to the left or right to see if that increases your signal strength.

Youll be amazed what a little twist on the LNB can do for the signal strength.

[digicon]

Just for information if you ordered an official $ly Quad LNB then they are preset for skew at No3 on the scale which is used all over the UK so you should not need to touch the Skew of the LNB, what you should in fact do is alter the Azimuth by gripping both sides of the $ly dish and tilting either left or right very marginally to maximise signal.