DSTV Installer for Linksview, Benoni

A DStv dish has to see one point in the sky and nothing else matters, which gives us more freedom than people expect. On a Linksview home that usually means we can work around the elevation the house was designed for: a side wall instead of the front gable, a lower mount behind a parapet, or a position at the back of the property with the cable brought through rather than around.

We check each candidate position with a signal meter before anything is drilled, so the choice is made on a reading and not on a guess. If two positions both give a solid signal, you pick the one you would rather live with. If only one works, we will tell you that plainly instead of mounting somewhere that will disappoint you later.

Height changes the job. On a double-storey the best line often comes off an upper wall, which means working safely at height and fixing into the right material — face brick, plaster over brick and cladding each take a different anchor, and a bracket that is under-specified will let the dish drift out of alignment the first time the wind gets up.

Cable is the part people notice after the fact. We run it along existing lines of the building, tuck it behind downpipes and mouldings where we can, and clip it properly rather than letting it swing. Every outdoor connector is sealed, because water in an F-connector is one of the slowest and most annoying faults to live with.

An older installation here is often perfectly serviceable apart from one weak link. We measure at the dish and at each TV point so we can see where the signal is being lost, instead of replacing parts in order of price. A dish that has been nudged, an LNB past its best or a connector that has been letting water in for two summers are the usual answers.

Tell us when the problem happens — only in the rain, only in the evening, or all the time. That pattern narrows it down quickly and sometimes means we arrive with the right part already on the van.