Building your own "superdish"
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fv3 said:
I understand that 105 is much lower in power. I assume WCS was using a larger dish. "Low" is of course relative, but if signal strength is "low" with a 3 or 4 foot dish, how "low" would it be with the smaller Superdish?
I wonder when Dish will "turn on" 105 for regular users. I've secured a dual output Ku FSS LNB that will fit my Unity Motion Ku dish and I'm debating if I want to try it with my SW64, substituting the two outputs from the 105 LNB for the 61.5 feeds into the SW64. If I experiment with this, I'd like to wait for the 105 to be functional for regular users.
Jerry G said:
I am using a 36 inch (90 cm) dish and have peaked it as best I can. Most of the transponders on 105 were in the high 40's to low 50's (locked on) as reported by the 6000u, with one in the 60's (locked on) and at least two in to 20 - 30 range (no lock and zero on the 501 receiver). My FTA receiver had a lock on all these transponders when I checked it and it identified 60 channels on AMC-2 Ku Band, all but one scrambled. Today was overcast, heavy at times, with some rain, so weather may be a factor in addition to low satellite power and interference from nearby satellites. It was quite an exercise for having just three "test card" channels in the guide. I have an old SW64 I could try but all my Ku FSS LNBFs are single output.
--- WCS
G
Guest
Guest
Original poster
Thanks for the test results WCS! Nuts on the low power situation... Where are you located in the US? I heard they had interference problems in certain areas with other sats.
Scott: Have you heard from any of the superdish beta testers? What are thier signal strengths? Could the LNB affect signal strength?
Second point is the cascade switches. It doesnt look like cascaded sw21s will work? Has anyone tried other combinations? I have a dish500 twin lnb (built in sw21) I will try that combined with a 105 feed once my dish arrives.
WCS could you try the sw64 with only one of the inputs for the 105 connected? This should yield you only getting vert or horz tp's correct (or will the switch allow this)?
If you read page 2 of the thread Guest posted, Wildkat has gotten the 105 to work with the 61.5 through a sw64, but so far as i have read, noone has gotten 110/119/105.
Scott: Have you heard from any of the superdish beta testers? What are thier signal strengths? Could the LNB affect signal strength?
Second point is the cascade switches. It doesnt look like cascaded sw21s will work? Has anyone tried other combinations? I have a dish500 twin lnb (built in sw21) I will try that combined with a 105 feed once my dish arrives.
WCS could you try the sw64 with only one of the inputs for the 105 connected? This should yield you only getting vert or horz tp's correct (or will the switch allow this)?
If you read page 2 of the thread Guest posted, Wildkat has gotten the 105 to work with the 61.5 through a sw64, but so far as i have read, noone has gotten 110/119/105.
HokieEngineer said:
I am in Hiawassee, GA, on the border of Georgia and North Carolina. I don't think I'm far enough north to get Canadian interference.
HokieEngineer said:
I have hooked up an SW64 before with 119 119 110 110 61.5 XXX and the result was that I only got the odd (or even) transponders for 61.5. I can try that tomorrow, if the weather isn't thoroughly nasty, and will post results. I wonder if I have a dual pass splitter I can use to make two connections to the SW64 out of a single LNBF. If I only use one receiver on the SW64 it might work.
HokieEngineer said:
I hadn't read that thread. I thought I saw somewhere that someone had used cascaded SW21's but that didn't work for me.
--- WCS
Wow that is pretty low signal. I hope the SuperDish can get the signal well above 70 to prevent rain fade. Dish is going to have a lot of problems if all the locals on there fade out every time it rains.
HokieEngineer said:
Ok, the SW64 is installed with the following configuration: 119 119 110 110 105 XXX. A standard 38 step switch test identifies the SW64 and reports 119 119 110 110 X X. The 50 step superdish test does the same. Right now I have some truly foul weather south of me, so I may be losing 105 due to rain fade. I will try a switch test again later when the weather clears and I'm reasonably certain I can get a signal from 105.
--- WCS
G
Guest
Guest
Original poster
Interesting. SES Americom is replacing AMC2 at 105 with a new sat soon right? I wonder if dish is just going to deal with the low power levels until then. Let us know what happens when you get some better weather!
AMC-15 is scheduled to launch August 2004 on a Proton from Baikonur. This, of course, is subject to delay and other changes.
http://www.ses-americom.com/media/2003/09_08_03.html
Officially, SES-Americom is only saying "second half of 2004".
Expect 45 to 90 days of testing before AMC-15 is deployed to replace AMC-2. So what we know now leads to a deployment date, at the earliest, of mid-September 2004. Late October 2004 is more realistic, and December 2004 is not out of the realm of possibility.
http://www.ses-americom.com/media/2003/09_08_03.html
Officially, SES-Americom is only saying "second half of 2004".
Expect 45 to 90 days of testing before AMC-15 is deployed to replace AMC-2. So what we know now leads to a deployment date, at the earliest, of mid-September 2004. Late October 2004 is more realistic, and December 2004 is not out of the realm of possibility.
So even if this SuperDish we are getting is a lower signal strength, the satellite at 105 is a temporary solution to get the locals up until the new satellite is launched. I have been hearing that they may require the lnbf pointing at 105 to be changed out once this new satellite is launched next year.
I know that the shape of the SuperDish is in a way to help the signal strength so that a larger dish would not have to be used, to get the size down as much as possible.
I know that the shape of the SuperDish is in a way to help the signal strength so that a larger dish would not have to be used, to get the size down as much as possible.
Stargazer said:
Mr. Gazer,
I think the speculation about having to change out the 105 LNBF came from me, and was actually a question (to be asked at the Tech Chat) instead of a statement. It was prompted by reports that the AMC-15 Ku band transponders will be circularly polarized, while the existing ones on AMC-2 are linear polarization.
Anonymous said:
Better weather arrived today but I'm still getting just 119 119 110 110 X X on the SW64 switch test, both standard and superdish/129 mode for a 119 119 110 110 105 X configuration. I'll have to check the connection and maybe experiment with moving the input around.
--- WCS
At first I thought I might just turn my 61.5 43.5 degrees and get a new LNB and continue using my SW64. But, after seeing all these problems, I think I will go for the "free" SuperDish installation.
My current configuration has a separate dish for each satellite. I put in 24"/36" dishes to combat rain fade (works quite well actually).
My current configuration has a separate dish for each satellite. I put in 24"/36" dishes to combat rain fade (works quite well actually).
mike123abc said:
I'm also going to go for the free superdish. I have an all DishPro system now with two DP34 switches, but will need at least one DP+44 switch to keep 61.5 (where two of my locals and one favorite international reside). This experiment with 105 on a 36 in. dish (and legacy LNBs off my DirecTV dish) has not instilled a lot of confidence in me about getting much service from 105 before AMC-2 gets replaced late next year. Hopefully I can get DISH to pay for the new switch when they install the superdish, though they're not predicting that the switch will be available before the superdish stops being free. Yeesh! I could end up with 119/110/105 on one DP34 and 119/110/61.5 on the other, minus the feed-through, for awhile.
--- WCS
G
Guest
Guest
Original poster
Cyclone said:
On AMC-15, the spotbeams are on the Ka band transponders.
http://www.ses-americom.com/media/2003/09_08_03.html
http://lmms.external.lmco.com/newsbureau/pressreleases/2002/02.31.html
At this time, it is expected that Ka will be used for Internet/broadband type services, not for DBS service.
Why would they use spotbeams for a national internet service, when the current use for spotbeams is used to distribute locals to certain regions of the country? Would using spotbeams for internet access help in the same way that it does right now for using spotbeams for locals?
