Anyone making a spring FTA "to do list"?

[voomvoom]

Congratulations Al!!

Happy Birthday!!

What a great Birthday present!!

I have never been able to find one of those. I have several 84e's, but not an oval.

Have fun!!

Fred

Thanks Fred! I'll have as much fun as I can with the P*. My family took me to "Golden Coral" tonight. I think I had too much fun....... Oh me.... it's been a few hours and I feel as though I'm still about to Pop!

Al

 

[lumpkin666]

Good weather arrived! Finally got my BUD running last night for some FTA c-band from IA5. The sat meter was useless on this one (not sure why c-band signals were irratic on the meter), so I hit 93W to pickup a very strong analog signal, then switched to the DVB receiver and bumped it west a few clicks. Blind scanning found I was on 95W, so bump a few more times and blindscan tells me I'm right on!

Since I was having trouble with the signal meter initially, I dumped the BSC-621 and went with a new 13degree c-band lnb on a corotor so that I could easily use my old analog setup to find a strong analog signal. I left that on in order to find IA5, but will probably just pull the lnb out of the corotor's feedhorn and slid the bsc-621 in there tonight and see if I can get it tweaked (and see if the KU side will work with this old mesh dish).

I'll tell ya, there's nothing like analog signals for finding a satellite (at least for me!). Watching the sparkles turn slowly to an image on the screen makes it so simple! I also could not believe what a difference the 13degree c-band lnb made over my old 30degree one. Signal strength went from 130's to 200.. then up to the 220's with a bit of tweaking. I didn't even know my recevier's signal strength meter on my old analog unit went above 170!

 

[iafirebuff]

CONGRATS! I wish I had the room for a C-band Now you can really have some fun!

 

[lumpkin666]

CONGRATS! I wish I had the room for a C-band Now you can really have some fun!

You can always find room for one more dish! (I was just thinking that I was running out of space, until I just saw a little 5 footer proped up against a dish installer's building. I'm gonna check it out later in the week!)

 

[iafirebuff]

Well, between the pool, the dishes, my daughter's tetherball area, I am out. Unless I put one where everyone can see it, and I would rather not I am more than happy with what I have now 30w-148w

 

[linuxman]

Congrats lumpkin666!!

I wanted to try one of the newer voltage controlled C-Band LNBFs, but am so used to doing things with a Co-Rotor and polarizer, I have shied away.

I have a brand new Geosat C-Band still new in the box, and haven't tried it yet.

Let me know how yours works out.

Fred

 

[Anole]

Firebuff -
Tetherball, you say?
As she outgrows it, plan on putting a dish atop it!
Just something to look forward to


Linuxman -
I've been working behind the scenes for months to get one of those Cband LNBs reviewed.
I want to know how they differ from the ones from DMSI
Get that thing outta the box and put it up!
Enquiring minds want to know! :


Lumpkin -
So, you're running C-band on a 5 foot dish?
(the one you commented on later in the thread)
Or were these outstanding signals on a real BUD ?
Reason I ask, is I could deal with a 6'er, but not 8..12 feet of BUD

 

[linuxman]

I've been working behind the scenes for months to get one of those Cband LNBs reviewed. I want to know how they differ from the ones from DMSI
Get that thing outta the box and put it up!
Enquiring minds want to know!

Well things have changed since I bought the one I have. When I first bought it the plan was to put up the SAMI dish for my family. It has a 24" actuator, and not truly H-H, so I was going to leave the P* 84e that I have set up now for Ku.

Since I am getting the Pinnacle with the Ajak HH-180 mount, I have decided to make the BUD both C and Ku. I need to sell what I have, and get the Geosat combo unit. Then I might give it a whirl just to see how it does.

I would like to see a side to side comparison too!!

Fred

 

[lumpkin666]

Lumpkin -
So, you're running C-band on a 5 foot dish?
(the one you commented on later in the thread)
Or were these outstanding signals on a real BUD ?
Reason I ask, is I could deal with a 6'er, but not 8..12 feet of BUD

No, the 5ft dish is one that I saw leaning up against a building (that I am going to check on sometime soon) I'm using a 10ft unimesh for my c-band stuff now.

I installed the bsc621 and am getting icky results. The old lnb was giving me high 80's on a DVB receiver, but I cannot manipulate this 621 lnbf to get me more than 66 on the same sat (changing focal point, skewing every direction, etc.) Futhermore, I'm a bit depressed that I get absolutely nothing from the KU side. Maybe my mesh is too large

 

[linuxman]

Hey Lumpkin,

If I remember correctly, the bsc621 has a built-in diseqc switch. You may have to set the receiver on a separate setting to pull in Ku signal. Unless your mesh is larger than a #2 pencil, (not just the lead) you should get something on Ku.

Fred

 

[lumpkin666]

Hey Lumpkin,

If I remember correctly, the bsc621 has a built-in diseqc switch. You may have to set the receiver on a separate setting to pull in Ku signal. Unless your mesh is larger than a #2 pencil, (not just the lead) you should get something on Ku.

Fred

Are certain about the hole size? I always thought it was a #2 pencil's lead. I've never seen mesh large enough to do a whole pencil.

If it's really the whole pencil, then I guess I'd better get out there and check to make sure the dish is perfectly round, and do some more tuning. I'd really like to use this as a c/ku dish if it's possible (since I've already got the lnbf anyhow!)

thx!

 

[linuxman]

Hey lumpkin666,

I have read in many places here and on other forums where they advocate the smaller size holes for Ku. They use the lead from a wooden pencil as the guidelines.

I have also read that if the whole #2 wooden pencil would not pass through the hole, that was the largest the holes could be.

I wondered about the conflicting stories until I put up my Birdview perforated aluminum dish. The holes in it will almost allow a #2 wooden pencil to pass through, but not quite.

The Birdview gets the best Ku reception I have ever had including P* dishes dedicated to Ku only.

As long as the holes will not allow a #2 pencil to pass through, they are small enough.

The next thing to look for is imperfections in the dish, warped, focal distance set correctly, f/d ratio, and skew. Feed-horn centered on the dish and parallel with the plate in the middle.

Also, I have read since yesterday that the BSC621 has a 22Khz switch for changing between C and Ku. The 621-2 has the built in diseqc switch. I would double check that information.

I just got off the phone with a dealer here in MO who sells the BSC621, and he says that he has customers using it with 4DTV and getting good results.

If I don't find a used Co-Rotor soon, I will be using either the BSC621 or the Geosat C/Ku LNBF.

 

[lumpkin666]

Well then I guess i need to do some fine tuning. I know the dish surface has some dings in it (nothing major though), so I'll work on those.. then check measurements to see that the dish is true and that the lnb is straight and point exactly center. It "should" work then!

As far as the BSC621, I had the opposite understanding of which used the switch and which used the diseqc. I'm glad you pointed that out for me. I have the bsc621, so it uses 22khz switching... and guess what!? I have it behind a 0/22k switch! Of course, now my whole wiring mess needs to be re-thought (and now I'm almost positive to need 2 lines run into the house with a physical switch for both motors), but maybe, just MAYBE taking the 0/22k switching into consideration, I'll actually be able to get KU to work.

If I don't get the bsc621 working soon, I'm switching over to a bsc421 (c-band dual polarity) instead and hooking it to a 3X4 so that I can connect multiple receivers for c-band only viewing. If I had a FTA receiver that controled the polorotor on a corotor setup, I'd be going with that for certain - I've read (and thus far, seen) that the corotor setup gives a better signal than the bsc621.


Thanks again for getting my brain back on track!

 

[linuxman]

As far as the BSC621, I had the opposite understanding of which used the switch and which used the diseqc. I'm glad you pointed that out for me. I have the bsc621, so it uses 22khz switching... and guess what!? I have it behind a 0/22k switch! Of course, now my whole wiring mess needs to be re-thought (and now I'm almost positive to need 2 lines run into the house with a physical switch for both motors), but maybe, just MAYBE taking the 0/22k switching into consideration, I'll actually be able to get KU to work.

I hope I am correct on what I have told you about which has which.

I do know that for it to work with 4DTV, you have to have two lines run into the house. If I end up with one of these, I will run two lines into a diseqc switch for my DVB receiver and bypass any internal switch.

I would much rather have the Co-rotor with polarizer myself. Just don't want to spend the $95.00 for a new one right now.

I put an ad in the classified section for the Co-rotor. Hopefully someone will see it and respond.

You would think that out of all the dishes I have found, there would be more co-rotors, but most have been C-Band only.

 

[Shawn95GT]

I was never sure on the pencil vs just the lead, but I tell you what... Both of my Winegards had the diamond shaped holes slightly bigger than the pencil lead. Both got spanked by my 75e dish on Ku.

They were just so barely good enough for the x4 stuff and the PBS on k5 (I think it was k5 - lol), but I expected MUCH better.

I'd like to try out one of those perferated Winegards some time.

 

[drhydro]

I have a 10' perfed (pencil lead size holes) channel master BUD with a corotor that has no problem outperforming my 1.2 channel master on KU. I think the perfed dishes offer a lot more reflective surface than the mesh dishs do, hence the better signal strength.

 

[linuxman]

Hey Doc!!

That's an interesting observation about perfed v. mesh.

I had pretty darn good Ku with my old Winegard last summer prior to discovering the wind problem I had. I can remember 76% SQ on G10 11720V. It had the diamond shaped mesh on it too. Even now, I get 99% SQ on X4 with it and the 4DTV as long as the wind isn't blowing above 20 mph.

I am soon going to change that old Winegard out for a replacement dish and not have to worry about wind any more.

Fred

 

[Mr Tony]

Did some major overhaul on my system
-moved the C-Band dish to a better spot on the deck
-moved the G10 dish (had to since the C-Band blocked it) and found outt he arm was off a smidge so the signal was low. MOved that and boom signal went back up
-fixed the SC dish on the roof
-reran a bunch of cables

 

[Mr Tony]

and now today I had to redo 1/2 of what I did. Put a Dish500 on the roof (actually it was a Phase II) but something was goofy and it wasn't working right (the 811 wouldnt acknowledge the switches)...so I got pissed and tore it down.

-Put up the 36" Fortec for AnikF1 and locked that on good (+11 on TSN +7.5 or above is great signal, +10 is awesome)
-Moved the SC dish back to Hispasat and tied that into the Motorized (removed the 22k switch and added a Diseqc so port 1 is MOtorized KU, port 2 is Motorized DBS and port 3 is Hispasat)
-added a DBS to the G10 dish for 119
-added a DBS to the AnikF1 dish for 110
-combined them....yeah that looks good. LNB's are about 40 feet apart from each other (110/119) but it works now
-redid cabling (about 5 times)

but I think we are done now (hopefully)

 

[Steveo]

From what I have read and from past experiance, so long as the holes in ther mesh are smaller than 1/4 wave length on Ku. Being perforated mesh or solid wont have to much effect on the recepetion. When it comes to Ku it's calls for greater surface accuracy of the dish. Shorter wavelength = more refraction. Naturally enough a smaller mesh dish will probably have a better surface accuracy.