On 2006-10-16 07:57:13 +0100, Adrian said:

HI All

A tiny bit Off Topic - but if I can't get any joy out of the people
I've paid to do this job then I may end up DIY-ing it myself !

There was a discussion a few months back about the practicalities of
DIY setting up for a sky+ system out here in West Cork. General
consensus seemed to be that it wasn't such a difficult task - but, in
the end, time constraints cut in and I got a man in g

Result is that we have a little (oval - perhaps 80cm ?) sat dish up on
the gable end - with a clear view of the sky....

This is mostly OK (signal stength on channel 1 is about 50%, quality
about 25%, Stength on channel 2 is lower and quality doesn't even
indicate on the scale) - with a little 'stuttering' and picture
freezing from time to time.

When we have a heavy downpour the signal disappears altogether - which
means that the sky+ box gives up on any recordings that we're trying
to do.

Should we expect this situation (about the signal strength) - we're
out in the West of County Cork, near a little place called Ballydehob.


Basically the dish isn't large enough. Signal strength needs to be
higher, but more
importantly the signal quality.

It may be possible to make *some* improvement with a better quality LNB
on the dish but this is usually a second order thing.





The same 'expert installers' ( it says so on their van !) fitted an
aerial for Terrestrial Irish TV. We are about 5 miles direct line of
sight from the transmitter at Mount Gabriel - and getting a noticeably
snowy picture with some ghosting. The aerial is a 4 dipole + reflector
arrangement, that they've fitted in the loft (where it has to look
through two concrete walls and is about 1ft from an enormous steel
'I-beam' which forms the ridge of the house. To compensate for this,
they've added a high-gain amplifier....

This is pointless. Adding an amplifier when the signal is poor adds
noise as well and
doesn;t improve multipath reception.



To be fair - they did say that if we weren't happy then they'd come
back & fit the aerial outside...

I think you should ask them to do that, to be sure.



So - what should I expect in terms of satellite 'reliability' and
terrestrial picture quality?? - given that we are somewhat 'out in the
sticks - I don't want to be unreasonable with them, but I also don;'t
want to pay good euro for a 2nd-class job...

It should have gone outside in the first place,



Advice appreciated - thanks in advance

Adrian