Satellite dish installation & repairs in Great Dunmow

Sky and Freesat dishes around Dunmow

Out in the lanes around Dunmow, satellite often picks up where the aerial leaves off. A farmhouse tucked into a fold of the Chelmer valley, or a cottage behind a belt of old oaks, may never see Sudbury cleanly. Turn round to face the south-eastern sky, though, and there’s usually a corner of the house with a clear shot at Astra 2. That’s why so many homes in Barnston, the Eastons and the Rodings rely on a dish for most of their viewing.

We fit new Sky and Freesat dishes, replace LNBs that have given up, move dishes when you extend or reroof, and cable up multi-room systems across CM6. Each dish is peaked on a meter rather than by eye, so it keeps its lock when a heavy shower sweeps across the open fields.

What we do with dishes in CM6

Sky dish installation

Dishes for Sky Q, with the LNB chosen for the number of boxes you run, and the cable taken neatly into the house. Sky Glass and Sky Stream don’t need a dish because they use broadband, so if you’re changing over, the old dish can come down or go on serving a Freesat box.

Freesat installation

Live TV from satellite with no subscription to pay. For homes in the villages where trees or the lie of the land weaken the aerial signal, it is often the dependable choice for everyday viewing.

Dish realignment and LNB replacement

One box dropping out while another carries on, or everything freezing in a downpour, usually means the dish has shifted or the LNB on the arm is failing. We re-peak and replace as the readings show.

Moving a dish

Barn conversions, extensions, new windows and solar panels all end up in the way of a dish sooner or later. We take it down, find another south-east-facing spot, and run and seal a new cable.

Multi-room and communal satellite

A multiswitch feeds several tuners from one dish, whether that’s every bedroom in a large house, an annexe across the yard, or each apartment in a block of retirement flats in town.

Foreign-language satellite

A second dish, or a dual-feed set-up, aimed at Hotbird and other European satellites for Italian, Polish, Greek and other channels, placed so it doesn’t shade your main dish.

When the box loses the satellite

Out here the cause is usually outdoors. A gale across the farmland can rock a dish fixed to a soft old wall; a hedge or a young tree can grow into the signal path in a single season; LNBs give up after years of frost and sun; rooks and pigeons perch on the arm and bend it. Inside, a cable crushed by furniture or a failed multiswitch produces the very same on-screen message.

First switch the box off at the socket for a minute, and see whether a storm or snow is passing over, since both of those clear without help. If the message keeps coming back, we test from the dish to the box and fix whatever has failed, usually in one visit.

No signalCheck your aerial connection

Signal

Turn up the signal

35%

No signalBreaking upOdd blockPerfect

Finding the right spot for a dish

A dish must face the south-eastern sky with nothing in the way, so north-facing walls and gardens under tall trees can be tricky. Planning permission usually isn’t needed. Great Dunmow’s centre is a conservation area, though, and so are Little Dunmow, Felsted, Stebbing, Thaxted and Great Easton, where dishes facing the road are more tightly controlled. Many of the older buildings in the town and villages are also listed. We’ll find a discreet position, often at the back of the house or on an outbuilding, and tell you if you should check with Uttlesford District Council first.

Areas we cover in and around Great Dunmow

Satellite installs and repairs across Great Dunmow and the villages around it.

Nearby towns we also cover

• Braintree
• Chelmsford
• Bishop’s Stortford
• Saffron Walden
• Harlow

Great Dunmow questions