Thread: Smallest dish for RTV???

I know that some of you guys take it as a challenge to see what you can pick up with small dishes (smaller than 30") I've heard that a Dish 500 with a linear LNB can pick up some FTA channels such as the Pentagon Channel, etc.. reliably.



Has anyone ever tried Retro TV with one of these smaller dishes, and if so, what is the smallest to ever get a lock?

-LoTech

I get it on a 30" Fortech Star Dish. I am currently getting Q of 40%, and before leaves started dropping Q was 30%. It scans into my receiver, a Fortech Star Dynamic, and locks in with no problem.

honestly with RTV I wouldnt go anything smaller than a 30"

People pull their hair out trying to get RTV on a 30" so a smaller dish probably wouldnt lock anything

Wait, you can pick up the Pentagon Channel with a dish under 30"?

Yeah I had not seen that on here before either Blue. Would wonder how small I could use to get Pentagon. I hate having to use the Channel Master on the Pentagon Channel. But would like to keep the channel on a fixed Dish. I may have to try one of the smaller dishes maybe a Dish 1000 or something like that?

As a experiment I tried getting 97 West on a old 18" Dish. It worked....somewhat...I had a 25% quality on it and it was very difficult to keep it a usable level. And even then that was the audio side...the TV side was pretty unusable.

Maybe a 24" dish might have worked better.

Is the Pentagon channel very strong? Strong enough for a 18" dish? Maybe someone should start a separate thread on what is the strongest FTA Ku Band signal with a Linear LNB 18" dish.

I have a super dish coming tomorrow from a installer that has no use for it. I will try it and see how it works. I have a few LNB's that I can try so should be interesting to see what happens. If it works ok I can move the Channel Master to something else. I will post the results as soon as I can get it done. Probably be next weekend as it gets dark before I get home from work.

I get Retro TV on 83 with a DTV AT-9 dish (24x29 inches) but reception is not reliable. I use a 0.2 dB lnb and have peaked the signal as best as I can. In clear weather (both here in Colorado and at the uplink site) it will lock with no break up, but there is no margin to spare (i.e. ~66 quality on a Coolsat 6000). For some reason, I usually get best reception in the evenings - the signal gets worse and often breaks up late at night until about midday. This is the most difficult of any Ku signal I have tried with my small dishes, and I would reiterate the advice above to use a bigger dish if you want more reliable reception.

I use a separate AT-9 aimed at 97 with very good results except in the very worst weather. Even then, only the two or three weakest transponders show any drop out. I use a second lnb on the same dish to get Pentagon at 103 with good results (after adjusting for the weird skew).

Originally Posted by Bill_KY

As a experiment I tried getting 97 West on a old 18" Dish. It worked....somewhat...I had a 25% quality on it and it was very difficult to keep it a usable level. And even then that was the audio side...the TV side was pretty unusable.
.

did that test too about 2 months back now. all i could get that was useable the azteca mux on 93. was so disappointed i forgot about it.
That has to be the strongest tp on Ku Linear out there with a picture.
so ice add that to what can be had with a 18'' if needed.
it was a dual Cir/ Lin lnbf
was really going for ONN but they lost signal since that outage.