Multiswitches and Sky

masscrazy · 23 Oct 2013 at 01:42

So I was wondering if anyone could help.

We have a single sky dish with two quad lnbs attached. This is clearly sounds wrong and we're having connection issues.

Is it worth buying a multiswitch and quattro lnb to distribute the signal at a better rate and quality? Which presumably means buying a larger dish as I read the sky dishes are too small. Also will sky work with a non-sky dish?

Or do we have two separate dishes with each having a quad lnb each.

Any help would be appreciated.

Tesla · 23 Oct 2013 at 08:52

How many Sky boxes do you have and of what kind (Standard/Sky+).

Are you sure your standard Sky dish has 2 LNBs fitted? I've never seen this on a standard Sky dish?

You can get Octo LNB which have 8 outputs.

lucid · 23 Oct 2013 at 09:50

If you think about what's happening with the LNBs then it's obvious what the solutions are.

The double LNB mounting sits the two LNBs in shotgun fashion. So neither one is at the optimum receiving position. That's why they recommend a larger dish. The dish acts like a magnifying glass for radio waves. It focuses them where the LNB is mounted. A bigger dish will produce a stronger signal, and possibly a larger focus area too. But really, in the south of England the standard dish is perfectly fine as long as the LNB is in the correct place.

An 8 output LNB as Tesla suggested would be the most cost effective solution. You already have 8 cables to the dish. So it's just a case of changing the mount, swapping over LNBs and then realigning the dish correctly.

A Quattro LNB with a multi switch will allow you to distribute more than the current 8 outputs if that's what you need. But if the dish alignment is still bad then you'll still have problems, they'll just be more expensive ones.

Change to an Octo and get a professional installer to fit it and do the dish alignment. That's your problems solved in the most cost effective way.

Caged · 23 Oct 2013 at 11:45

The cheapest upgrade is to move to an 8 output LNB, but I'd get your dish alignment checked at the same time because they are less sensitive.

If you moved to a quattro LNB then you would need to change the dish, not necessarily because of the size but because of the shape - any non-Sky LNB you buy will be designed for round dishes rather than elliptical, and a different system of mounting on the dish.