Old Satellite Dishes - Do They Still Work?

Hi all.

I have been wondering about this for a while now, so I'm asking it on here; seeing as it is TV-related.

Do old satellite dishes like the ones from the 90s, etc, still work on satellite receivers that are used today? I know some people who have some Sky dishes that were fitted in the 1990s. It had been working fine with their Sky box, but they then switched over to Telewest/NTL/Virgin Media (whatever it was at the time).

So the question is: do the old satellite dishes work?

Thanks all!

I can confirm that our satellite dish, which was fitted in the 1990s, is still in fine working order today with our Sky+HD box. Its parabola is as parabolic as it ever was, and its feed horn is as horny as before.

They don't just expire, and they should be good for a good number of years (although having just got back from the seaside I did see a few rather rusty ones!). The main determining factor I would expect would be whether it was from a Sky Analogue or Digital installation - since the former were pointed to the 19.2 degrees position Astra satellites and the latter are pointed at 28.2. I think the LNB on the analogue setups are no good for DVB-S either (fixed rather than able to switch between H/V positions?).

Rule of thumb - if it's a minidish, and it's all intact, it should be good to go.

I don't think it's a minidish, because it's a completely round dish. I don't think the minidishes are completely round, are they?

The communal dish on the roof of my block of flats has been there since the late 90's and its working perfectly fine...

It will be the LBC, that might be the problems.

The LNB you mean lol...

No, but it is entirely possible that a compatible larger dish has been used.

Has the dish previously been used for Sky Digital? If so, you should be good unless a component has become faulty.

If not, it probably is an old analogue dish which is no use (for English broadcasts).

If you're not sure, buy an old Sky box from ebay or your local car boot for less than a fiver, try and plug it in and see what happens.

Old Sky analogue LNBs were H/V switchable as well - but their frequency offsets were different ISTR, and they may have used different switching systems. (ISTR that early Sky 16 transponder systems had to have external band switching gubbins added when more transponders launched?)

An original Sky dish itself is probably fine, though it will be pointing at 19.2 not 28.2 - but if you wanted to watch European TV then there is quite a lot FTA at 19.2, or you could re-point it to 28.2. However you would need to replace the old Sky analogue with a Universal LNB - and you'd need to make sure it was designed for the dish-type you were using (so it was optimised for that dish shape and offset style)