DSTV Installation in Lambton

The piece of hardware that decides this is the LNB, the unit on the arm at the front of the dish. A single-output LNB feeds one decoder and nothing else. A twin or quad unit gives each decoder its own dedicated feed, which is what you want — splitting one cable between two decoders weakens the signal to both and causes faults that are miserable to trace afterwards.

Swapping an LNB is a small job compared with replacing a dish, and it is a sensible moment to check the mount, reseal the outdoor connectors and look at the condition of the existing cable. If the dish itself is sound and well aimed, that is usually all that stands between one TV and three.

A run to a separate building crosses ground that gets used: a washing line, a driveway, a vegetable patch. We plan the route before quoting, take it along walls and under eaves where we can, and put anything crossing open ground into conduit. A run that is buried or clipped down does not get caught by a wheelbarrow or chewed by a dog.

Long runs also lose signal, so the route length affects the equipment. We work out the expected loss for the distance rather than fitting the cheapest option and hoping. If the cottage is far enough out that a standard run would be marginal, we say so at the quote and price the proper solution.

Extra View links an additional decoder to your existing DStv subscription, so the main house and the cottage can watch different channels at the same time without a second full account. That suits family or a flatlet you use yourself.

Where the cottage is let to a tenant, a separate subscription in their name is usually cleaner — they control their own account and their own channels. The physical installation is much the same either way; it is the account arrangement that differs, and that part is set up with MultiChoice, not with us. We tell you which questions to ask them.