06-07-2013, 07:00 PM
(06-07-2013, 09:50 AM)dennishoy Wrote: Satellite channels are normally 'polarised'; some horizontal and other vertically to avoid interference between adjacent frequencies. Polarisation is perfomed within the LNB by software in the receiver changing the supply voltage down the coax cable. However, Sky HD boxes are made cheaply for a mass market aimed at the Sky package only, and as far as I know, this feature has been omitted. (I think) all the channels are transmitted with horizontal polarisation.
No, this isn't the case. A couple of randomly chosen links:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1176626
http://free-tv.ie/astra-satellite-frequencies
With the normal mini-dishes, satellite reception is pretty marginal at the best of times, and is affected by all extremes of weather. Anything less than a 100% perfect installation will suffer from occasional channel loss, and obviously cheap plastics where once metal was used might well contribute to this.
I got $ky Digital back in 1999 or 2000 - and back in those days you had to pay a massive(!) £40 for the installation (the boxes had just become free at that point - before they were £200 IIRC). The chap who installed the dish was a local self-employed engineer who did jobs for Sky, and as he wasn't especially busy on the day, he ended up staying for about 90 minutes, drinking tea and chatting about technical stuff (he realised who I worked for, so as you can imagine, we had plenty to discuss!). Nice guy - who did a proper job. I never suffered reception problems in the 5 or 6 years that I lived in that house - but plenty of our neighbours did with their 20 minute free installations!
Haven't had Sky since then. Hardly watch TV these days
Cheers,
Mark
