Fault finding on new Freesat install

[nelectric]

Have installed Freesat kit from B&Q combined with Silvercrest SL45 receiver from Lidl. Nothing but the best for me!

http://nextday.diy.com/app/jsp/product/productPage.jsp?productId=85448

Initially got good signal from Astra 28.2 - in fact I barely had to set it up at all, initial setup by eye after looking at neighbour's dishes, then a small nudge on the side and got 73% signal. This was on saturday last. All well and good except had no signal on two occasions since. First time I think the dish dropped because I hadn't tightened it up enough - easy fix. Second time, no such luck. Cannot get any signal now, no matter how much I move the dish side to side and up and down. All movements are incremental and with pauses of 10 - 30 seconds between.
So I connected the signal finder that came with the dish. It has lights and 'screeches' when I turn the knob. Now, no matter where I point the dish, the signal according to the signal finder does not change. i.e. the sound does not raise or lower in pitch, and the number of lights neither increases nor decreases. Well, actually the sound lowers in pitch slowly over time (five minutes), whether the dish is moved or not.
Could it be I have a faulty LNB? Not sure I know anyone well enough with a similar system to be able to try swapping parts. What sort of tests can I make? Don't want to have to resort to buying duplicate parts just yet.
I am an electrician and have electrical test tools to hand, just don't understand satellite systems.

 

[ericmark]

I have similar set-up. However also have Sky+ so can swap parts to test.
The dish on my house is a small Sky dish and turning the knob on the alignment tool until no sound and moving dish worked well. However on my son-in-laws house with a really big dish which he has for Turkish TV I found it very hard to aim the dish. We have two boxes nearly the same one was from Lidi and the other off my sons narrow boat and the latter has an audible as well as bar graph indication and what we had to do was take the unit to some one who had the dish aimed and let it tune in channels then return and use box to show when set correct and the little in-line tester was useless. In fact we had whole TV outside as we set it up.

I found the EPG on both boxes next to useless and the one got in Turkey was far better and although it was not as good as an old Sky box as far as program guide went it didn't show all the encrypted channels which is a real pain with old sky boxes.

If replacing now I would go for one with output to rotator so the set top box would receive Euro Bird as well.

 

[nelectric]

It was either the LNB or the set-top box that was at fault - was prepared to get both exchanged, and was ready for an argument seeing as how the sat kit and the box were bought from different retailers, but went for the LNB first. Went into B&Q and said the LNB doesn't work. They didn't question it, jut exchanged it. Makes me wonder how many returns they have had! This seemed to fix the problem, but the next day lost the signal again. But the day after it miraculously re-appeared and so far (fingers crossed) the problem has no re-appeared since.