Smallest Dish for QVC?

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stone1150

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Dec 2, 2008
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Northern Indiana
OK gang. My mom wants me to hook up OTA for her. She has been a cable person for many years. Her only thing is that she wants QVC shopping channel. Has anyone out there have any idea on what the smallest dish I could use for just that one channel? I am well aware that C-band needs a larger dish. That said, she don't want a 6 footer if at all possible. I have seen that some have experimented with smaller dishes on C-band with limited success. So the question is.... Is the QVC signal strong enough to use a smaller dish and how small can I go? This system will be fixed for QVC only. I would really like to avoid having to play with different size dishes to find out. If anyone can share their experiance with smaller dishes, that would be great! Thanks! Have a great day!:)
 
stone
QVC is on both analog and digital (and a HD feed too)

Here in MN if I remember right the signal is pretty strong on the 6 footer (70 or so on the GeosatPro). Checking the maps you are in the same "boat" signal wise as I am so a 4 footer might work. This is the digital feed on AMC11 (131W)...the analog feed is on 135W
7409057
 
Thank you my friend! I was wondering about a 4 footer. I'm donating my Pannie 9200 for the cause. QVC is the only reason that mom is keeping cable for now. She wants to ditch it bad as it is just too much for her budget even with the "basic" she has. The 9200 will give her the channel and also be another OTA converter for her. Thanks again! Have a great day!
 
QVC isnt in lifeline? (unless thats what you mean)
Here in Minneapolis lifeline cable is about 15 bucks and includes the locals, a few shopping channels (QVC, HSN, Jewelry, ShopNBC), TBS, CNN & WGN. Most areas that have lifeline include QVC in it
 
stone
Just went out (since its 40 out..woo hoo) and did some tests. QVC shows on the GeosatPro at 70 quality. Clone Pansat 2500 (same meter like the 9200) flickers between 58-64. I know 30 is threshold on the 2500 so a 4 footer is probably possible
 
5FT C Band (AC3)

I used a 5ft solid metal dish set at 0.38 for my test. Geosatpro 1100c shows 50% Quality on AMC-11. Course it's audio is AC3 and I can't hear a thing unless I push it through a stereo. (One other thing.... you realize of course you are 'enabling' your Mom, by giving her that channel? ;>)
 

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I know all about enabling..... We had cheesecake tonight for Christmas celebrations. The deal was Mom got up last tuesday in the middle of the night. Turned on QVC and ordered it. The funny thing was that she didn't realise she did that until she saw a paper she wrote on. Then she didn't remember ordering it! I've heard of sleep walking, But sleep buying???? The cheesecake was good anyways. LOL! Thanks again for the input. I talked to mom tonight and she can deal with a 4 footer.

Ice... Thank you too for your informative "test" that you ran. I'm fairly certian I can get a solid signal since the dish will be a fixed setup. I wouldn't of known that without the information. :)

May I wish all here a very Merry Christmas!
 
I'm sure a 4 footer will work. You may have to do some tweaking on the LNB but I'm sure it will come in fine

QVC HD...uh oh...mom will be ordering like crazy ;)
 
Does she have internet service? If so, she can watch it online. It seems silly to go through all the trouble and expense of installing a C-band dish for one channel, especially when it's something that's readily available online.
 
Does she have internet service? If so, she can watch it online. It seems silly to go through all the trouble and expense of installing a C-band dish for one channel, especially when it's something that's readily available online.

She only has dialup for 9 bucks a month. Can't afford anything else so streaming online is out of the question. As far as trouble goes, I have enough equipment here to take care of that and I've been doing this long enough that the actual install will only take a couple hours if that. The only thing I need to do is find a 4 foot dish. I saw one about 4 miles down the road at an abandoned factory. It is a 4 foot off-set dish. I'll check it out in greater detail this week. Have a great day!
 
Perhaps an old Chaparral feed, rotated around to the one polarity you'll need?
(only use I can think of for the ones I have) - ;)
 
I have a couple of those. One C/Ku and another Duel C-band in the garage. From what I have been reading, The Chap is the way to go if messing with a smaller dish for C-band. :) Have a Great Day!
 
If you use an offset dish you need a conical scalar ring for your C band feed. A 4 foot should work, but a 6 footer would work much better. I only got QVC on my 8 footer, and I know the bit error rate was very low, and the signal is easy to lock. I can receive it now very easily, actually. This is QVC running through my QPSK to QAM modulator, modulated on channel 36:
386273_2956581192608_1203828635_3220690_1664520175_n.jpg
It was used as a test, I honestly have little interest in QVC. Convince your mother that a 6 footer will give her stable signal, it's not much bigger than a 4 footer.
 
check your offair digital subcarrier channels. HSN is on one of mine locally (and maybe QVC too if I did more looking at the mom and pop UHF digital stations).
 
Thanks for the suggestion about OTA, But we are in the same market and no dice on QVC being OTA.

As far as dish size is concerned, I tried like mad to get her to agree to a 6 foot dish because I have an extra 6 foot prime focus that I can give her,but she don't want it. I have some time to try and convince her to go bigger. This project is a couple months off due to the weather here. If she don't want the 6 footer, I will wind up giving it to a local hobbiest so it will get a good home. I need the pole so I can play with a unicable LNBF on an old superdish on a more permanent basis. Have a great day!
 
Hmmmmm. Ordering cheesecake in her sleep and only being able to afford dial-up. I wonder if this is cause and effect.... LOL!!!

I agree that a fixed 4 foot optimized with a quality LNB should do fine for QVC.
 
I would like to know more about this QPSK to QAM modulator if you dont mind. What equipment are you using?
 
Thanks for the suggestion about OTA, But we are in the same market and no dice on QVC being OTA.

As far as dish size is concerned, I tried like mad to get her to agree to a 6 foot dish because I have an extra 6 foot prime focus that I can give her,but she don't want it. I have some time to try and convince her to go bigger. This project is a couple months off due to the weather here. If she don't want the 6 footer, I will wind up giving it to a local hobbiest so it will get a good home. I need the pole so I can play with a unicable LNBF on an old superdish on a more permanent basis. Have a great day!

You could always paint flowers on the 6' so it has that feminine appeal.......Maybe some other type of nicey paint job could sway the decision on a 6'........
 
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