Does Sky HD install include a new dish?

[Doric]

My HD installation is due this Thursday. When we bought this house, we inherited an old sky dish which is now a) tatty and b) not in the best place on the back wall, either for appearance or proximity to new plasma. Since it seems from this forum that replacement of the dish is up to the Sky bloke who does the install, should I trash the old one before he turns up, just to make sure? Also, will they drill through (a thick) outside wall to get the feed in?

 

[Andy98765]

I would suggest getting rid of the old dish, and it is questionable if they will drill through a thick wall.

 

[Timh]

Get rid of it.
My existing dish was used for SKYHD, they just replaced the LNB

 

[MisterEz]

How thick it the wall?
They'll be able to drill through a standard double-skin external wall with no problem... really can't see it being an issue, unless it's a foot or so of reinforced concrete!?

 

[Doric]

How thick it the wall?

About 14 inches of cobb - the chalk and stone mix that they used in the SW in the C19th. Actually quite soft and crumbly, but thick.

 

[MisterEz]

About 14 inches of cobb - the chalk and stone mix that they used in the SW in the C19th. Actually quite soft and crumbly, but thick.

Doubt it'll be a problem - you could always pre-drill the holes yourself though, just to make sure...

One of these should do the trick...
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro.jsp?cId=A337789&ts=08714&id=17627

 

[smjxm09]

My rusty dish is 17 years old and goes back to the days of analogue. When digital came out an installer came out with a new smaller dish but because he did not have a pole mounting kit he fitted the new LNB to the old dish and gave me the new dish which I have stored in the loft ever since. Two weeks ago I order Sky HD and multiroom. I have run in new satellite grade cables myself from my new cinema room and a new phone point but when I mentioned that I wanted my old dish replaced I was told it would cost £120 to swap the dish. I cancelled the order.

 

[Doric]

What happened next...

So, the Sky guy came today. There was no problem with him fitting a new dish (old one by now in garden shed), or drilling an enormously long hole through cob wall. So far, so good. Plug in Sky HD box, pair card, run through demo, change channel.... and then... nothing. 'Perfectly normal', he says, 'we'll just re-boot'. Three re-boots, a software upgrade and 35 minutes later, he admits what I had known at the start. 'You've got a DOA box', he says. 'Never happened to me before', he says. Yeah, right.

They promise me a service call on Saturday to replace the box. Stupidly, I signed for it before the screen went blank. Caveat emptor.

P.S. He promised 80 hours of recording, SD and HD. That's not right, is it?