ADS Tech DVB-S PTV-341 and first time setup

[devillin]

Hello All,

I recently purchased one of these guys: ADS Tech PTV-341 Instant TV DVB-S PCI TV Tuner Card and have kind of hit a planning snag. My house has three dishes on the roof from previous pay satellite attempts: a 3-foot plus Primestar dish, an old Direct-TV dish, and a newer Dishnetwork dish. I had read that you could use the Primestar dishes to pick up ku-band signals, with the right setup. I was really hoping to get some japanese tv stations off of BSAT 1A at 110.5 East (I'm in Maryland). So here's the snag, while the Primestar dish does still have the LNB, it is old, to the point of all of the plastic bits crumbled in my hand (it is 10 years old).

So my questions are:
1) Is it even possible for me to get that satellite, or any other Japanese satellite signal here?
2) If not, is there a satellite in range that offers Japanese programming?
3) Which would be more worth my while to get a LNB for, the Primestar, the Direct-TV, or the Dishnetwork dish?
4) What type of LNB do I need? Any recommendations off of eBay?
5) Anything else I should know?

Thanks All!
Linwood

 

[phlatwound]

Hello All,

I recently purchased one of these guys: ADS Tech PTV-341 Instant TV DVB-S PCI TV Tuner Card and have kind of hit a planning snag. My house has three dishes on the roof from previous pay satellite attempts: a 3-foot plus Primestar dish, an old Direct-TV dish, and a newer Dishnetwork dish. I had read that you could use the Primestar dishes to pick up ku-band signals, with the right setup. I was really hoping to get some japanese tv stations off of BSAT 1A at 110.5 East (I'm in Maryland). So here's the snag, while the Primestar dish does still have the LNB, it is old, to the point of all of the plastic bits crumbled in my hand (it is 10 years old).

So my questions are:
1) Is it even possible for me to get that satellite, or any other Japanese satellite signal here?
2) If not, is there a satellite in range that offers Japanese programming?
3) Which would be more worth my while to get a LNB for, the Primestar, the Direct-TV, or the Dishnetwork dish?
4) What type of LNB do I need? Any recommendations off of eBay?
5) Anything else I should know?

Thanks All!
Linwood

hi Linwood,

I'll leave answers to most of your questions to the pros but....

1.) You can't "see" a sat at 110.5 E from Maryland, it will be below the horizon so you would not have line-of-sight.

3.) Of the dishes you have, the Primestar dish would be the one for FTA, the others are too small.

welcome to the group!

 

[devillin]

hi Linwood,

I'll leave answers to most of your questions to the pros but....

1.) You can't "see" a sat at 110.5 E from Maryland, it will be below the horizon so you would not have line-of-sight.

3.) Of the dishes you have, the Primestar dish would be the one for FTA, the others are too small.

welcome to the group!

1) Well, nuts! Okay. Well, do you know if any of the satellites within my LOS would have japanese programming?

3) Here's a thought that just hit me. Since it was only the plastic cover of the LNB that evaporated, would it be possible to just replace it with saran wrap or waxpaper or something? The metal bits on the inside still looked like they were in good condition (shiney and all). If so, which plug would I connect to, the V or the H ?

Thanks for the welcome! :up

 

[phlatwound]

1) Well, nuts! Okay. Well, do you know if any of the satellites within my LOS would have japanese programming?

3) Here's a thought that just hit me. Since it was only the plastic cover of the LNB that evaporated, would it be possible to just replace it with saran wrap or waxpaper or something? The metal bits on the inside still looked like they were in good condition (shiney and all). If so, which plug would I connect to, the V or the H ?

Thanks for the welcome! :up

I don't know of any Japanese programming on any of the sats that can be "seen" from your location, maybe someone else here does. There is a LOT of ethnic and Asian programming on Galaxy 25 Ku @ 97W though, here is a couple links that may help you find something:

Free To Air FTA Satellite Channels from USA, Europe, Middle East, Asia Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish TV Television Galaxy 25 97W

SatelliteGuys.US - TheList

I don't know about those old Primestar LNBFs, I think they are single polarity but not sure which. If you can't get your old one to work there are a lot of threads here where people have adapted newer LNBFs and installed them on the old Primestars with great results, use the Search function and you will find all kinds of info on that.

 

[devillin]

Okay, I went up and redirected the dish, and I think I'm getting juice. Now my question is, would it be okay to use a splitter/combiner on the V and H jacks to a single line into the house, or would that be a "Bad Thing"?

 

[satcom1]

You should use a Diseqc 2X1 Switch. I saw another thread that someone had used a SW21.

 

[Machman]

I have an LNB like that, and I use a 22kHz to select between the H and V ports. It works pretty well, although a 3x4 multiswitch would be easier to use with some receivers (no need to have separate satellite entries for horizontal and vertical). Using 22kHz or diseqc switches instead of voltage switching lets you always set the LNB power to 18v, which is a huge advantage with a motor or long cable run.

As phlatwound alluded to, if your Dish Networks dish has a linear "FSS" LNBF, you should be able to unbolt the LNB from the feedhorn and swap it onto the Primestar feedhorn. Just make sure it's NOT a stacked LNB (DishPro) or you will likely burn out your card (I know this all too well).

My LNBF doesn't have any plastic parts except for the feedhorn's "eye". Is that what you're referring to? If so, plastic wrap would probably work well enough.

The only Japanese channel I know of is on C-band at 58W. I would be very happy to know of any others up there.

 

[devillin]

I decided to just go ahead and get a new LNB and a better compass. Right now I don't know if I'm getting a signal, or just putting in the wrong satellite in the finder since I don't know exactly what I'm pointed at. On that related note, is there a bit of software that can scan the signal you are getting in and let you know what satellite you are actually pointed at? My satellite software will scan the signal for channels, but it needs to know what bird I'm getting a signal off of first.

 

[devillin]

As phlatwound alluded to, if your Dish Networks dish has a linear "FSS" LNBF, you should be able to unbolt the LNB from the feedhorn and swap it onto the Primestar feedhorn. Just make sure it's NOT a stacked LNB (DishPro) or you will likely burn out your card (I know this all too well).

My LNBF doesn't have any plastic parts except for the feedhorn's "eye". Is that what you're referring to? If so, plastic wrap would probably work well enough.

The only Japanese channel I know of is on C-band at 58W. I would be very happy to know of any others up there.

I wish it did. But Dish and DirectTV made sure to get their LNBs back after my father cancelled service.
Yup, it's the eye. I'm not going to worry about it though, I have a new LNB on the way now. I'll figure out how to mount it once it gets here.

 

[Machman]

On that related note, is there a bit of software that can scan the signal you are getting in and let you know what satellite you are actually pointed at?

Not really. You need to lock onto a transponder before the card will give you any data to work with, but you usually have to know what satellite you're pointed at first in order to do that. The exception is the circular-polarized satellites, where the transponder plans tend to be similar from one to another.

If you have a general idea of what you are pointed at, you could use Lyngsat or The List to determine which transponders are likely to be active on that satellite and the adjacent ones. Then, use TSReader to test them one by one. That's basically how I do it (although, with a good compass and an analog signal finder one can usually hit the right satellite in the first place, as long as the dish itself doesn't need to be skewed).

I love my PCI cards but I haven't regretted buying a standalone receiver with blind scan. There are some nice things up there that you will never find without one. Being able to take it out to the dish with a small TV is great too. The Coolsat 5000 and 6000 are reportedly very good and have been relatively cheap ($60) on eBay recently.

 

[satcom1]

The LNBF that comes with a Primestar 84E is a Standard LNBF 10750 LOF and beats the pants of of my Invacom. You don't say what kind of Primestar dish you have, there is a model or mold number on the back of the dish. Primestar (Channel Master) are of the best in service. My Primestar LNBF has V and H outputs so you would need a Diseqc 2 X 1 switch at the dish ($5) on Ebay.

 

[Machman]

The LNBF that comes with a Primestar 84E is a Standard LNBF 10750 LOF and beats the pants of of my Invacom.

I wonder how much of that is the LNB and how much is the feedhorn (I'm assuming you didn't use the Primestar feedhorn with the Invacom). I tried replacing my Primestar's LNBF with a cheap Digiwave 0.3dB universal, and my quality on G25 went from 80 to 55. I blamed it on the mismatched feedhorn, but maybe I was wrong. I'd love to know whether an Invacom mounted on a Primestar feedhorn can beat the stock LNBF.

(It's kind of a moot question for my situation, because I was mainly trying to replace the LNB with one that weighs less. I'm certain my motor wouldn't move with an Invacom on there.)

 

[satcom1]

Check this out.
Invacom C120 with elliptical feedhorn on P*84E.

 

[Machman]

I guess I'll be keeping the ol' beer can on my Primestar dish then*. I was only considering an Invacom because I thought it would work substantially better, but with the exception of AMC-1 I never have any weak signals anyway.

* Unless I can get my BSC621-2 to work on the thing! No luck so far.

 

[satcom1]

I just posted details on FTA Discussion for BSC621.

 

[satcom1]

I guess I'll be keeping the ol' beer can on my Primestar dish then*. I was only considering an Invacom because I thought it would work substantially better, but with the exception of AMC-1 I never have any weak signals anyway.

* Unless I can get my BSC621-2 to work on the thing! No luck so far.

Hope I didn't mislead about the Invacom. I dug that picture up of the Invacom and P*scaler ring. In my test I used the SNH-031 and that has a scalar ring for offset dish but not elliptical. So who ever did this install did not post their comparison. My take on the original P* LNBF is that it is more to commercial grade.

I would be interested in your findings if you decide to test one of the Invacoms with the P* elliptical conical scalar ring.

In my testing with the BSC-621-2 I will compare it against a B1SAT STACK.