February 25th, 2008 by RocketMBA

Don’t you just know what it’s like to have a load of old crisp packets lying around the house? I know I do, so I decided to make use of them the only way I know how: irresponsibly.

The goal of this experiment was to answer the question “Does a crisp packet increase satellite dish gain?”.

The tools I used were a computer fitted with a SkyStar 2 card, an 80cm satellite dish with a cheap Korean LNB on the end, and an old crisp packet.

The crisp packet (ASDA Smartprice, Ready Salted) was placed over the whole of the LNB face and most of the LNB body.

Now for the readings. The dish was aligned to 1w, and tuned to transponder 11325 H 24500.

Before crisp packet:

After crisp packet:

As you can see, placing the crisp packet over the LNB has no effect upon the signal strength recieved. As such, the crisp packet cannot be recommended as an item to increase satellite dish gain, but it does look quite snazzy and may make a short-term alternative to LNB joint sealant.

Further things to try: different flavour crisps, foil-lined crisp packet, using tape to hold the crisp packet in place.