Decent Sky dish fitters in the Thames Valley?

[RichB]

I want to get my Sky HD dish moved from halfway up the the back wall of the house (where the Sky fitter put it) up to the top of the chimney stack - which he said was so high it would be more than his job's worth.

So does anyone have a recommendation for a good fitter who could do this? I ask because over the years I've not had good experiences with aerial fitters and I want a decent job done.

For example I would like advice on if moving my dish higher will improve the signal quality or should I fit a larger dish?

Anyone?

Edited by RichB on Monday 14th September 21:16

[cjs]

RichB said:

I want to get my Sky HD dish moved from halfway up the the back wall of the house (where the Sky fitter put it) up to the top of the chimney stack - which he said was so high it would be more than his job's worth.

So does anyone have a recommendation for a good fitter who could do this? I ask because over the years I've not had good experiences with aerial fitters and I want a decent job done.

For example I would like advice on if moving my dish higher will improve the signal quality or should I fit a larger dish?

Anyone?

Edited by RichB on Monday 14th September 21:16

Moving the dish higher will not improve the signal, unless something like a tree is blocking the signal? If it is a standard dish, and the signal is poor, then it will be down to the alignment or bad connections/cable.

[Roop]

cjs said:

RichB said:

I want to get my Sky HD dish moved from halfway up the the back wall of the house (where the Sky fitter put it) up to the top of the chimney stack - which he said was so high it would be more than his job's worth.

So does anyone have a recommendation for a good fitter who could do this? I ask because over the years I've not had good experiences with aerial fitters and I want a decent job done.

For example I would like advice on if moving my dish higher will improve the signal quality or should I fit a larger dish?

Anyone?

Edited by RichB on Monday 14th September 21:16

Or the dish is too small for the area in which you live. There are two types of Sky dish. Zone 1 and Zone 2. Zone 2 is larger and has higher gain for locations at the fringe of the transponder footprint.


Moving the dish higher will not improve the signal, unless something like a tree is blocking the signal? If it is a standard dish, and the signal is poor, then it will be down to the alignment or bad connections/cable.

[cjs]

Roop said:

cjs said:

RichB said:

I want to get my Sky HD dish moved from halfway up the the back wall of the house (where the Sky fitter put it) up to the top of the chimney stack - which he said was so high it would be more than his job's worth.

So does anyone have a recommendation for a good fitter who could do this? I ask because over the years I've not had good experiences with aerial fitters and I want a decent job done.

For example I would like advice on if moving my dish higher will improve the signal quality or should I fit a larger dish?

Anyone?

Edited by RichB on Monday 14th September 21:16

Or the dish is too small for the area in which you live. There are two types of Sky dish. Zone 1 and Zone 2. Zone 2 is larger and has higher gain for locations at the fringe of the transponder footprint.


Moving the dish higher will not improve the signal, unless something like a tree is blocking the signal? If it is a standard dish, and the signal is poor, then it will be down to the alignment or bad connections/cable.

He's in the Thames Valley, so a standard Sky Dish will be fine.

[bridgdav]

Hi Rich..

I have used theses guys as have a few friends in the past. I'm not sure of the area they cover, but on a Reading Tel. code..

http://www.apolloav.co.uk/

[Roop]

cjs said:

Roop said:

cjs said:

RichB said:

I want to get my Sky HD dish moved from halfway up the the back wall of the house (where the Sky fitter put it) up to the top of the chimney stack - which he said was so high it would be more than his job's worth.

So does anyone have a recommendation for a good fitter who could do this? I ask because over the years I've not had good experiences with aerial fitters and I want a decent job done.

For example I would like advice on if moving my dish higher will improve the signal quality or should I fit a larger dish?

Anyone?

Edited by RichB on Monday 14th September 21:16

Or the dish is too small for the area in which you live. There are two types of Sky dish. Zone 1 and Zone 2. Zone 2 is larger and has higher gain for locations at the fringe of the transponder footprint.


Moving the dish higher will not improve the signal, unless something like a tree is blocking the signal? If it is a standard dish, and the signal is poor, then it will be down to the alignment or bad connections/cable.

He's in the Thames Valley, so a standard Sky Dish will be fine.

I agree, but there's no substitute for, err, square inches and beamwidth...!

...and a properly aligned dish.
...and a very low noise LNB.
...and ultra-low-loss coax.
...etc

The larger Zone 2 dishes when used in a Zone 1 region simply allow the receiver to operate in more marginal conditions. Where very heavy rain or snow will knock out reception using a Zone 1 dish, a Zone 2 stands a much better chance of maintaining an adequate signal due to significantly higher gain through a narrower beamwidth. Equally, if your coax or LNB is a bit marginal, a bigger dish can sort it, but best off makind sure all three are top notch.

[RichB]

OK chaps, thanks for taking an interest. It has been suggested I talk to Plotless whose local to me in Windsor which I will do but can I explore this a little more. So, is there a tree in the way, no, but there is a railway embankment which IK Brunel put there 175 years ago, unfortunately I can't move that! Thing is that reception has been fine for the last 2 or 3 years but recently it's breaking up so I thought I'd get the dish moved higher. As the relationship between the house and railway hasn't changed, it's about 100 feet away, it may be something else. I want to get my HD fed into the bedroom and kitchen so perhaps Plotless can help me on that too

[Roop]

RichB said:

OK chaps, thanks for taking an interest. It has been suggested I talk to Plotless whose local to me in Windsor which I will do but can I explore this a little more. So, is there a tree in the way, no, but there is a railway embankment which IK Brunel put there 175 years ago, unfortunately I can't move that! Thing is that reception has been fine for the last 2 or 3 years but recently it's breaking up so I thought I'd get the dish moved higher. As the relationship between the house and railway hasn't changed, it's about 100 feet away, it may be something else. I want to get my HD fed into the bedroom and kitchen so perhaps Plotless can help me on that too

My basic analysis would suggest that given nothing has got in the line-of-sight of the dish to the satellite cluster then I'd suggest one or a combineation of the following:

- Your dish has become misaligned (sagged on it's mountings, moved by the wind etc)
- Rain water has got into the coax cable and has damaged the insulation and thus the dialectric properties of the cable.
- Connectors at either end of the cable are damaged / loose.
- Cable is being routed close to a strong source of RF interference.