Social Feed

Dear folks,
I just found this forum, and hope that perhaps anyone here might be able to help me with the following question:

I own a 10 ft Unimesh dish on an AJAK H/H mount, and living in Europe this means that there are many satellites which lack power for a perfect picture on C-Band. In the 80's and 90's this was no problem, with the necessary audio and video band filters even the weakest signals could be viewed, most notably the Intelsat international news feeds on 4166,5 and 4188,5 MHz.

Digital TV made all of this equipment useless. For a long time I left C-Band for what it was and concentrated purely on Ku-Band improvements on other dishes like my Gregorian 120 cm and a noname 190 cm solid prime focus dish on an EGIS dual motor positioner.

A few years ago I wanted to pick up the bobby of C-Band again and purchased something which appeared to be a total desaster: an MSI C/Ku band LNBF for digital use. It was a desaster in more than one way: first of all it never allowed an equally well reception of opposing linearities: one could optimise RHCP reception but then there was no LHCP reception on C-Band possible, one could optimise for vertical Ku Band reception but then no horizontal channels could be seen, not even on the strongest satellites. In addition the indicated noise figure were an illusion: My Gerdiner 25 degree K LNB which was bought in analog times was at least as sensitive as this one which claimed to be 17 K.

What shocked me most was the shabby construction of the scalar rings. Being used to very sturdy and solid Seavey and Chapparal feeds I now got something that looked as if it was made out of a used tuna fish can. Pure rubbish from a quality point of view.

The funny thing was that I kept reading articles in which it was claimed that for digital reception specially made C-Band digital LNB's are needed because of their improved stability. This one experience at least contradicted this.

Now I am faced with the question how to go on. My basic issues are:

1. I receive a numger of C-Band satellites that are right at the brink of reception/non reception. Most of these, BUT NOT ALL, are in circular polarization. I won't use my dish for Ku-Band reception so no need for compromises on that part. I see that there is a Norsat LNB of 15 degrees K that is offered for prices between $50 and $ 80 but buying that one would force me to go on with an analog sat receiver as intermediary in order to adjust the polarization between horiz-RHCP-vert-LHCP.

2. Obviously a specialized C-Band only LNBF of very good quality would be much easier to use because you would only have to move the dish separately but all other functions would be carried out by the sat receiver.

3. However, somehow I can't imagine how to control such a system if it existed because the average digital sat receiver only knows 2 polarities. I am testing an AZ Box Premium HD+ receiver with experimental Enigma 2 software which appears to list separate settings for these 4 polarities but they are not (yet) functional.

4. My questions:

what should I do, which options do exist if I want an optimal sensitivity reception on C-Band? Get the Norsat 8515 LNB and attach it to a simple 20 year old Chapparal C-Band feedhorn using the skewing function of an analog receiver to switch polarities? Or is the stability of an Norsat LNB exaggerated and might one just as well buy a cheaper one?

or is it possible to get a complete C-Band LNBF of excellent quality in terms of reception which can be controlled by a normal sat receiver? I find so far the receivers of Clarke-Tech/MaxDigital to be the best in terms of sensitivity and blind scan results but they don't allow installation of 4 polarities. Funny enough on one satellite only (40 East) a blind scan gave the indication RHCP in spite of the fact that manually one can only select between V and H. I never found an explanation for that anomaly, other circular polarized signals were always indicated as V or H.

I'd be most grateful for any suggestion!
kindest wishes,
Paul.