What's new
By:

Alignment or LNB

M

mitchb

Newbie
Looking for a bit of guidance before I end up creating a bigger issue for myself ( which is usually how things play out)

I seem to have no signal/weak signal on a fair number of channels. this is after the recent high winds. I believe I've narrowed it down to alignment or LNB, as I have a satellite receiver and my TV has freesat and both have issues with the same channels.

Dish/LNB is an old one from sky hd days and will be 11 years old.

Ive checked dishfinder and satellite finder pro app and dish seems to be very close to the right direction, azemuith settles around 2 degrees out, holding it at 0 degrees hasn't made a difference. No elevation markings on the dish however it should be 20 degrees and does look fairly flat.

What's the best next steps, I;'m thinking order a new LNB, order a satellite finder or get a local satellite guy out to check it out however open to suggestions.

Some channels i cant get for ref in case useful, BBC 1 Scotland (although can get BBC 1 NI) , BBC News, TNT sports 1, itv 3, sky sports replay

Thanks
 
mitchb said:
Looking for a bit of guidance before I end up creating a bigger issue for myself ( which is usually how things play out)

I seem to have no signal/weak signal on a fair number of channels. this is after the recent high winds. I believe I've narrowed it down to alignment or LNB, as I have a satellite receiver and my TV has freesat and both have issues with the same channels.

Dish/LNB is an old one from sky hd days and will be 11 years old.

Ive checked dishfinder and satellite finder pro app and dish seems to be very close to the right direction, azemuith settles around 2 degrees out, holding it at 0 degrees hasn't made a difference. No elevation markings on the dish however it should be 20 degrees and does look fairly flat.

What's the best next steps, I;'m thinking order a new LNB, order a satellite finder or get a local satellite guy out to check it out however open to suggestions.

Some channels i cant get for ref in case useful, BBC 1 Scotland (although can get BBC 1 NI) , BBC News, TNT sports 1, itv 3, sky sports replay

Thanks
Click to expand...
Sounds like alignment to me .

If it just a static dish and you have no signal meter position TV somewhere, you can see it with signal strength showing while you up aladder by the dish..

Loosen bolts and move left to right to gain max signal, then tighten bolts. Then up and down to max signal tighten bolts.
 
Ferret. said:
Sounds like alignment to me .

If it just a static dish and you have no signal meter position TV somewhere, you can see it with signal strength showing while you up aladder by the dish..

Loosen bolts and move left to right to gain max signal, then tighten bolts. Then up and down to max signal tighten bolts.
Click to expand...
Thanks, yeah static dish, ill give that a try this weekend.
 
manic01 said:
So is it a mix of H and V polarity channels?
If so do as ferret says try fine tuning.
If it's only H or only V polarity then it's lnb.
Click to expand...
Yeah mix of both polarity. All have signal around 92% however on the channels that aren't working quality is zero. For ref on the channels that do work it's between 59% -63% for quality.
 
An update , setup and old TV outside and used the old skybox as that has a constant view of the signal ( I couldnt find similar on the viark sat 4k).

I did get the signal quality quite high on the sky box at the slight expense of the signal strength although understand quality's the important part. Slight improvement on the viark channels that were working. However still 0 on the channels I'm having issues with. For ref the sky box said no signal on the channels that I'm having issues with

I have ordered a signal meter to try and fine tune a bit more , hopefully should come tomorrow.

Sky signal.png
Viark signal.png
viark no signal.png
 
mitchb said:
An update , setup and old TV outside and used the old skybox as that has a constant view of the signal ( I couldnt find similar on the viark sat 4k).

I did get the signal quality quite high on the sky box at the slight expense of the signal strength although understand quality's the important part. Slight improvement on the viark channels that were working. However still 0 on the channels I'm having issues with. For ref the sky box said no signal on the channels that I'm having issues with

I have ordered a signal meter to try and fine tune a bit more , hopefully should come tomorrow.

View attachment 123955View attachment 123957View attachment 123956
Click to expand...
And as Manic said you are 100% sure you can view both V & H channels?

How have you got the LNB setup on the Viark and are you sure it is a universal LNB and not a SkyQ LNB on your dish ?
 
Yeah i think its a mix of both V&H, my understanding is that V or H that show when you switch channel which is what i'm basing that on. I've shared images to be sure of both working and not working just to be sure.

LNB is 100% not SkyQ, its been up untouched for 11 years and was working fine until now

I was starting to think it might be the viark receiver myself however freest on my TV has the same issues with the same channels - Both from different cables as the LNB has 2 outs and a shotgun cable one into viark and one into TV which would also seem to rule out the cables. Its worked fine from September with no kit changes in this time.

BBC1 has returned this evening on viark and freesat TV although is unwatchable as its breaking up.

H not working.png
H working.png
V not working.png
v working.png
 
mitchb said:
Yeah i think its a mix of both V&H, my understanding is that V or H that show when you switch channel which is what i'm basing that on. I've shared images to be sure of both working and not working just to be sure.

LNB is 100% not SkyQ, its been up untouched for 11 years and was working fine until now

I was starting to think it might be the viark receiver myself however freest on my TV has the same issues with the same channels - Both from different cables as the LNB has 2 outs and a shotgun cable one into viark and one into TV which would also seem to rule out the cables. Its worked fine from September with no kit changes in this time.

BBC1 has returned this evening on viark and freesat TV although is unwatchable as its breaking up.

View attachment 123967View attachment 123968View attachment 123969View attachment 123970
Click to expand...
Pic of how you have the LNB setup on the Viark please
 
Are you sure you have a clear view of the sky. no trees etc? do a pic of dish and lnb, using sky box is a good workaround but you have to pause for a few secs for signal to reach box, 11 years for dish is good an arm can go weak ie droop ever so slightly. get a new LNB not expensive.

By the way are you tweaking dish, ie moving left or right, up down?
 
bmitie said:
Are you sure you have a clear view of the sky. no trees etc? do a pic of dish and lnb, using sky box is a good workaround but you have to pause for a few secs for signal to reach box, 11 years for dish is good an arm can go weak ie droop ever so slightly. get a new LNB not expensive.

By the way are you tweaking dish, ie moving left or right, up down?
Click to expand...
Yeah clear line of sight. Did twek left and right both seemed to lose the signal. Moving the LNB arm up improved the quality. Yeah don't mind paying for what's needed it's just knowing what that is but appreciate these things can be a process of elimination.
 
mitchb said:
Yeah clear line of sight. Did twek left and right both seemed to lose the signal. Moving the LNB arm up improved the quality. Yeah don't mind paying for what's needed it's just knowing what that is but appreciate these things can be a process of elimination.
Click to expand...
Did you try skewing the lnb as well, though should be preset.
 
Something that could also be wrong here
mitchb said:
Lnb settings attached.
Click to expand...
Scroll to the UNIVERSAL but press ok

Show us a pic of that please.

Something else that could be out is band switching you may have signals on H & V but if the LNB is not switching bands you would get this issue also.
 
Moving arm up and getting better quality would mean dish elevation needs a tweak. Depending how you have dish mounted but there is a bracket on a sky dish that can droop over time and its hard to spot. here is a pic of a sky arm, dish is triax but the arm bit dropped over time, it was minute but spirit level would show it, once levelled all good. Just a thought.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_8920.jpg
    IMG_8920.jpg
    372.4 KB · Views: 132
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top