HI All

Sorry to follow up my own post - but just for the sake of anybody who
might be interested

After a lot of faffing around the 'expert' installers failed to turn
up - so I got in touch with an alternative installer.

We now have more than twice the signal strength from the Sky antenna -
turns out that the dish the 'experts' installed was deformed - and
only gave 35% signal strength. A more solid dish of the same size
(80cm) installed by the new guy, using the same quad lnb, gave a 70%
signal strength reading on his portable meter.

At the Sky+ box this not surprisingly increases signal strength - but
also gives a much higher 'quality' reading - which should make the
system more tolerant of rainstorms etc.

Interestingly, the original dish had already started rusting - after
only 5 weeks up on the wall.

As to the terrestrial problems -
the new guy replaced the wideband, loft-mounted aerial with preamp
with a new chimney-mounted yagi of the correct band. Because of the
fact that the transmitter arrays are al pointing away from our
direction (!) - all isn't simple - but the addition of a uhf-only
preamp and a lot of 'tweaking' has resulted in a much better signal on
RTE.

Conclusions....?

Just because the aerial installers have a big red van with 'expert'
written on the outside, it doesn't necessarily mean that they actually
know what they are up to.

The 'good guy' works for his own family business, doesn't have
anything written on the side of his estate car g - but does know
what he's up to. In case anybody needs his assitance he is Anthony
Hayes - and his family shop is tucked away in Bridge Street,
Skibbereen, County Cork.

I won't name the other crowd - but they're also in Skib - and they
have big red vans with 'expert' written on the outside g

Thanks all for the comments & suggestions

Adrian
West Cork, Ireland