Decibel rating

These can be confusing because if you have read as many forum threads as I have you learn that this can be slightly misleading and is not always a guarantee of high quality.  Generally however the rule is the lower the better.  The lowest I have come across on the internet is 0.1db however these do tend to be a little pricier  at over $50.

Price

Anywhere between $10 and $250.  I would avoid anything under $25 unless someone you know has one and you are happy with the results they are getting.  At the top end of the price scale any value added would only be appreciated by the purest of technofiles or those with receivers on the very fringe of the reception who need to eek out every last drop of signal available to them.

Weatherproofing

Most but not all come with a snap out cover which protects the connectors from rain and frost etc… If you do decide to go cheap make sure you take steps to protect the connections at the dish as the weather will cause wear and tear and subsequent signal loss if these are left unprotected.

Weight

Anywhere between 0.1 and 0.9 kg.  I know it sounds crazy but some of the heavier ones may weigh down the arm of your dish enough to put them out of alignment.  Just make sure that the dish you buy or already have can take the weight.

Quality

You can easily pay over $50 for an LNB Quad and get a cheap shoddy product.  There are, as with any product, sellers on the internet who don’t give details of the product and only supply the cheapest of Quad output LNB.  Make sure you know who you are dealing with.  Amazon have a few for sale and are always worth a shot if you don’t know where else to shop.

So how do I upgrade?

If you have a Sky mini dish there are Quad output LNB’s available for your dish but be warned these can vary from mini dish to mini dish and are also not the same as the satellite dish Quad LNB’s available for larger dishes used by satellite enthusiasts and those on the fringe of the broadcast signal.  Be sure, especially if you plan to do the Quad LNB installation on your own, that you buy the Quad low noise block converter that fits your current dish.  Now would also be a good time to upgrade your dish and so bear this in mind when upgrading your LNB.  If you do change your dish I would wholeheartedly recommend you employ the services of a professional as aligning the dish is far harder than solely changing the LNB.

Another factor to consider is the weight of your proposed purchase – will your Quad LNB bracket be strong enough?  Ensure that your dish arm is able to bear the extra weight as some Quad LNB’s can be heavy enough to move the arm down thereby reducing the quality of signal that you receive.  Before you rush out to do the Quad LNB setup yourself make sure that you have the right one for your dish, you have a decent set of ladders and all of the right tools.

The process itself is fairly obvious but it is always a good idea to familiarise yourself with how your existing LNB is attached before you dismantle it and forget how it was positioned.  As with anything involving a signal, gentle manipulation is the order of the day.  If you do not have a signal meter (and let’s face it who does?) it is imperative that someone indoors can see the signal screen of your receiver (via the TV) so that you know when maximum signal is found.

With the smaller dishes, especially Sky mini dishes, there is little room for manoeuvre and so you can have little to no impact on the signal with fine adjustments.  On the larger dishes however there can be more room for slight changes in angle of the Quad LNB (often referred to as skew) which means more manual adjustment may be required.  If you are fitting the Quad LNB to a larger dish then it is even more important to note the exact position of the original LNB as it is likely that you will achieve the best results by mimicking this postion with your replacement.

The main reason that Freesat is more popular than Freeview is that Freesat is also broadcasting HD pictures by way of the BBC HD channel.  Remember most people with HD ready televisions do not yet receive HD programming because they only have analogue or Freeview receivers.  If you purchase a Freesat box with or without a built in PVR then you will not be able to record a program whilst watching a different channel.

A standard satellite dish installation comes with a single LNB.  This means that you can only watch one channel or record one channel but not do both at the same time.  You could opt to have a dual LNB which will solve this problem.  But what about Granny’s telly in the bedroom or little Timmy’s or the second telly in your bedroom?  Nowadays a one telly house is a rarity.  So if you want to record programs in the lounge and also have a telly elsewhere in the house you will need a Quad LNB.  This is also true for you Sky worshippers who will also have the exact same issues if you record via Sky Plus or the HD package.

So who exactly needs an LNB quad?

1. Anyone with Freesat or Sky who wants to record one channel while watching another and has more than one television in the house.
2. Anyone who plans to add an extra telly for viewing Sky or Freesat in the future.
3. Anyone currently limited to analogue or Freeview TV and wants the ability to upgrade to Sky or Freesat which opens up the wonderful world of watching and recording High Definition TV.
4. Basically anyone who decides that satellite is the way forward.  Single and dual LNB’s are in the past.  For very little extra money you can have the extra feeds the satellite dish Quad LNB gives you.  Don’t hesitate rush out and get one now!!

Remember satellite is no longer limited to Sky and with a Quad output LNB you can watch and record High Definition, non subscription television with around one hundred and fifty channels available.

Single feeds are becoming rarer as they do not offer the user the ability to add additional receivers to their household or even have a receiver that can both record and watch live TV simultaneously.

Dual feeds were very popular when satellite receivers could not record and a video recorder was used to record Sky whilst the watcher was forced to only watch an analogue TV signal in the meantime.  The duo LNB feed enabled the householder to have two Sky boxes running at the same time.

Then came the dawn of Sky Plus which could record whilst you watched another satellite channel.  This was heaven to many and had the biggest impact on the massive increase in sales of the Quad LNB (not to be confused with the Quattro LNB).  Suddenly two feeds were not enough as one Sky Plus box took both of these leaving no spare feeds for another telly anywhere else in the house.  This effectively meant that with a dual feed being wholly taken by the Sky Plus box, Granny or little Timmy could no longer have a feed into their bedrooms.  There were solutions other than upgrading to a Quad LNB such as using a videosender (i.e. stealing the signal received from the Sky Plus box) but this meant Granny or little Timmy were forced to watch whatever the person downstairs was watching.  Not a good idea if you subscribed to the Adult Channel!!  Another attempted solution was to use the LNB out socket on the Sky Plus receiver but this came with its own problems not least of which was you needed to hardwire a cable from the back of the box all the way to Granny’s or little Timmy’s rooms.  Internal cable is usually unsightly and hard to hide easily. So many upgraded to the Quad LNB which is probably the most widely used of all satellite LNB’s today.

Finally for those of you (including me) there is only one real winner in the LNB stakes, the Octo LNB which allows a massive eight feeds into your house allowing Granny and little Timmy to be sorted and leaving you six spare feeds to use in whatever way takes your fancy.  So go and treat yourself, at the very least to a new LNB Quad – you know you want to.

A Quattro LNB is designed for use in buildings where there are different users of satellite like a block of flats.  The Quattro LNB is then joined to a multi switch to supply different apartments or flats with a cable or cables to their receivers.  A multi switch allows many people to use the Quattro LNB as if they each had their own LNB Quad.  A Quattro LNB will feed many more than four receivers via the multi switch.  I have heard numbers of feeds up to a hundred mentioned.  These LNB’s are never, unless by mistake, used for single households.  As Quattro LNBs tend to get ‘switched’ less often they usually have a longer lifespan than the Quad output LNB.  If you share your building with many other tenants and subscribe to Sky or receive Freesat then you are likely to be feeding your satellite signal via a Quattro LNB.  If your signal is not satisfactory via this system it is not advisable that you touch the satellite dish or LNB or you may find you and your fellow signal sharers end up with no signal at all.  I would suggest you contact whoever installed the system and get them to check it out.  If you are not sure who this is then perhaps you can contact the maintenance contractor.

A Quad LNB on the other hand is normally used by one household and this supplies four separate cables with an equal strength signal that can be sent to various rooms in the house or flat.  People use satellite dish Quad LNB’s if they need at least four feeds to their dwelling.  The way these are used can be many fold.  There may be a main television which is connected to a receiver which can record while watching live television in which case this will take two of the cable feeds.  There may be another television with the exact same setup or another two televisions which do not require a record and watch at the same time facility and therefore only require a single feed each.

For those who require more feeds and let’s face it this is becoming more and more frequent there is the giant amongst LNB’s – the Octo LNB which provides, as the name suggests, eight feeds.