Thread: Review of Invacom QPH-031 C/L LNB

As many of you may have already read I received my Invacom QPH-031 Combined Circular / Linear LNB from a Satelliteguys.US / Satelliteav.com contest/giveaway.

When I first received it we I pulled off my Coolsat Ku-LNBF with a N. F. 0.6db and attached my Invacom to the arm of my 80cm Fortec Star dish with an SG 2100 motor mounted on a traditional DBS mount to the eave of my house. I did not adjust the Dish nor the motor at all. I went down to my Pansat 2500A receiver and tried to hit my Southern most Satellite which would be Nimiq 2 at 82. I got nothing. I then did the standard thing of loosening the U bolts and adjusting the dish until I locked on the Satellite. Found it pretty quickly and thought I was in great shape. I then tried to move across the Clarke Belt going to 91 first, very low quality. Next I went to Echo 10 and got no signal at all. I climbed up on my ladder and pushed and pulled on the dish and found that I was low on the horizon. I checked my mount to make sure that is was set up correctly and it was perfect. We were beginning to get the effects of Hurricane Dennis, the winds were blowing at about 20 mph with fairly strong gusts so I figured I would wait the storm out to finish the installation. Three days later I jumped back on my ladder and started adjusting the elevation and declination but I could not come close to getting any of those satellites on the same arc. The QPH-031 is a fairly heavy LNB (about 1.5 lbs) so I checked the effect it was having on the arm of my dish. It is a very flimsy arm with no extra supports and was being weighed down a little by the heavy LNB. I went out and got a new dish. In my city they have very tough code enforcement and with already having a Dish 500 and Dish 300 at 61.5 I wasn’t going to push my luck with an odd mount on a 1.2 meter dish (which I was dying to use) so I opted for the Winegard 76cm dish which is reviewed here http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=28735 .
I put it up, set the declination and elevation, mounted the LNB, did some fine tuning and BAM got 82. went to my Pansat and moved to 91, then 110 and then 119 and got quality on all three. Seems the Arm on the previous dish was definitely bending.

If you get this LNB make sure your arm is very strong or very well supported.

On to the review of the Invacom QPH-031

When the LNB arrived it seemed to be packaged in much the same way any other Invacom LNB is packaged. They don’t let you forget about their incredible noise figure on the LNB by having graphs and stickers showing it all over the place including on the LNB itself.

In focusing the LNB on the Satellites you will find that it is a very exacting LNB meaning that you must have it aimed exactly right to get your lock. Off by more than a cm and you probably don’t have a signal so have some patience and probably some help by either a signal meter or someone at the tv and receiver box to help you know when you have a lock. I probably spent five hours figuring out that I my lnb arm was being bent by the weight of the Invacom lnb and then another hour on the new dish getting the alignment perfect.

I have installed numerous motorized dishes in the past and can usually align them to the full arc within 30 minutes.


The Numbers

On 82, 110 and 119 I was getting 99% quality with the Invacom QPH-031 LNB. I did not have a circular lnb on before to compare it to but I don’t think it would have been better than 99%.

Next I went to the all popular G10r satellite. With the original Coolsat .6db lnb I would get quality between 25 and 30 trying to get the Tube. Most of the time it was unwatchable for me since I would lose lock on it often. Add the Invacom and I immediately went to around 40-45% quality and got The Tube with no problem and no breakup.

I experimented on a few other satellites to find that I would get about the same increase in quality. I rarely “scanned” the satellites before because my signal was so bad that it was difficult to get a lock on most things that I was interested in. Now for the fall I look forward to scanning the skies looking for those wild feeds of college sports.

In conclusion

The performance of this LNB is exactly as advertised. I would recommend it to anyone, especially those using a motor on their dish.

The downside to this is that it is a little difficult to align and may take a little patience. I would be very interested to see how those with larger dishes, 1 – 1.2m, will fair. I plan on figuring out a way that I can put up a 1.2 meter motorized dish firmly mounted on a pole in the ground that would have an acceptable wife factor and the City would not be able to see.

Remember, If you are going to get this unit then make sure you have a nice solid dish, arm, and mount. If you have trouble aligning your Dishnetwork or DirecTV dishes then this is probably not the LNB for you.

I will post pictures very soon and probably add to the review as time goes by so I can test different satellites hopefully larger dishes with it.

Again I thank SatelliteGuys.us and Satelliteav.com for the opportunity to use and review the Invacom QPH-031 LNB.

THANKS John, GREAT review!

nice review

Thanks for the great review! I look forward to getting my Invacom with my new 1m Winegard on a Stab 120, hopefully next week.

Jim

It was mentioned in another review that this LNB is better in North America than other parts of the world due to its FSS 10.75 GHz (not a standard elsewhere). If used elsewhere, it would not get as many channels.

They mentioned a Universal LNB would be more appropriate to getting these channels.

My question is, what do we loose in North America with this LNB? I live in the Montreal, Canada (North Eastern part of North America). What channels (Satellites) will I not be able to get with this LNB?

Anyone else try this LNB yet?

Thanks in advance!

only thing would be Cubavision on PAS9 (58)

I use the QPH-031 LNBF, best one I have ever used, the GREAT thing about it is the linear side is a STANDARD so the L.O. is set to 10750

Pete, I recently switched back to the SNF-031. I was using the QPH-031, but I found that the SNF seemed to give me better quality readings. Do you know of any reason why that might be, other than the fact that the QPH weighs so much more that it might be affecting the dish arm?

Not really, one is a Standard and one is a Universal, otherwise the weight may be the issue.