What you'll notice
Total loss of signal across every channel, with the dish visibly still pointing where it always did and no storm or knock to explain it.
Why it happens
The LNB has failed. It is the only powered component outdoors, exposed to sun, rain and surges year-round, and it is the most common single hardware failure in a satellite installation.
If your dish has not moved, your account is paid, and you have lost everything at once, the LNB is the leading suspect by a wide margin.
Why LNBs die
Two reasons dominate. The first is water: the rubber boot at the cable entry perishes under UV, moisture wicks in along the cable, and corrosion attacks the electronics inside. The second is surge — a nearby lightning strike does not need a direct hit to induce enough voltage on a long cable run to destroy the LNB's front end, and load-shedding switching transients contribute over time.
The pattern that gives it away
Water-related LNB failure very often announces itself before it becomes total. The classic story is: reception disappeared for a day or two after heavy rain, then came back once things dried out; a few weeks later it happened again; eventually it stopped coming back. If that sounds familiar, it was your LNB slowly drowning, and the sealing was the underlying fault.
Replacement, done properly
An LNB is a sealed unit — nobody repairs one, and anyone offering to is wasting your money. What separates a good replacement from a bad one is everything around it: fitting the correct type for your number of viewing points, compression-fitting and weather-sealing the connector, dressing the cable with a drip loop so water runs away rather than in, and re-peaking on a meter afterwards. A new LNB with a badly sealed boot fails again in about the same time as the last one.
Upgrade while we are up there
If you are on an older twin LNB and thinking about a second decoder, replacing it with a Smart LNB at the same time costs a little more in parts and saves an entire second callout and cable run later. We will mention it once, with the price difference, and leave the decision to you.
How we fix it
We confirm the LNB is dead by measuring at the cable and, where necessary, substituting a known-good unit, then fit the correct replacement type for your setup and re-seal the connection properly so the same failure does not repeat.
Still not working?
If the checks above haven't restored your lnb (low-noise block), this usually needs a technician. Our Smart LNB Installation service covers exactly this fault — from R750, quoted upfront.