Dents in Slimline Reflector

Where did you get the dish from?

If you wore glasses and one of your lenses looked like that, how well do you think you could see through it? At least it's the least critical side.....

That needs to go back if for no other reason than appearance!

Should be ok. Unless the whole dish is warped it will work fine.

Looks like someone took BB gun practice with your dish. If this was sold to you as "new" I'd promptly ask for a replacement. If it was sold to you as "used" I'd promptly ask for my money back. Even if it "shouldn't" cause an issue, I wouldn't want to take a chance.

Grentz said:

Where did you get the dish from?

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Just look on his profile, under the avitar area.

He's from "Canuckistan."

I got the dish via ebay since I don't trust the local contracted installers to do the job correctly (and DTV won't ship me the dish to do it myself). Heck, I can barely get them to install my wireless internet correctly... I shudder to think of the hack job they'd do with the satellite hookup.

I'm opening a dispute to resolve this. We'll see how it goes (20 days on the clock).

Update: Wow... Paypal gets results. Buyer will refund if I ship the whole lot back. Not really what I wanted (just wanted a new reflector) since this brings my costs up (return shipping) but it's something.

Mike500 said:

Just look on his profile, under the avitar area.

He's from "Canuckistan."

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Actually no, but I've family there.

I'm surprised you haven't found a dish somewhere that's not being used. I have a couple at home that I picked up from friends that either discontinued Directv, or moved. I even found an old Dishnetwork one a guy had that I saw laying on the ground and asked if I could have it. I don't know if I'll ever need them, but just in case!

Operationally, those dents will cause no great problem. If you took that dish and a "perfect" one, set them side by side, aligned each and checked signal strength with the same receiver, you would find not a dimes worth of difference.

If it were mine, I would use a hammer and a block of wood to get the dented area back to the contours of the dish, primarily for appearance.

However, if the dish is warped, ie twisted or flattened out, then that is a big problem.

bigwad said:

I'm surprised you haven't found a dish somewhere that's not being used. I have a couple at home that I picked up from friends that either discontinued Directv, or moved. I even found an old Dishnetwork one a guy had that I saw laying on the ground and asked if I could have it. I don't know if I'll ever need them, but just in case!

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Heh... I still have my original Sony 18" single LNB dish from 1996! Just moving to HD now.

I've got a DN dish in case I ever go with them, but haven't seen any slimlines lying around for the picking up.

eakes said:

Operationally, those dents will cause no great problem. If you took that dish and a "perfect" one, set them side by side, aligned each and checked signal strength with the same receiver, you would find not a dimes worth of difference.

If it were mine, I would use a hammer and a block of wood to get the dented area back to the contours of the dish, primarily for appearance.

However, if the dish is warped, ie twisted or flattened out, then that is a big problem.

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And this is the real problem, because a dish that has had that much stress to an edge could actually be significantly warped. Because of the curve of the dish, it's really not that easy to tell if it's warped just from casual observation. I recently received a shipment of two Slimlines which were damaged in shipping. The damage to the edges didn't look that serious. However, sliding a yardstick across one side of the face of the dish while viewing another stationary yardstick placed across the opposite face, revealed that both dishes were definitely warped.

K4SMX said:

Because of the curve of the dish, it's really not that easy to tell if it's warped just from casual observation.

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I second that. Once I went on a service call not too long ago. Worldirect dish had dislodged due to poor mounting but seemed fine. Remounted properly but still did not get 95 bird after ten minutes. Got another reflector and the dish must have hit the roof in such a way to warp the dish. Wit the new reflector all was A OK in 2 minutes. :grin:

Some of the worst calls I've ever had were over warped dishes and none of them look as bad as yours. The little dings won't hurt a the way the dish works but that bent edge on top will kill the way it works.

Do yourself a favor and get another, if you can.

If you don"t trust the installer check out some web sites. Usually you can purchase a new dish on line from companies for under $ 100.

yeah there are many reputable places to buy a new one for not a whole lot of cash. Won't DTV send you one for free? I wouldn't want the 2 year contract extension either, but if you just got HD equipment your getting that anyway. Or better yet put it up and buy the protection plan, heh, hey I don't know how it got dented!