C-band on a KU dish

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DJ Rob

SatelliteGuys Pro
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Sep 8, 2003
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Denver, Colorado
I finally got around to trying out the GeosatPro C2 lnb I got a few years ago. I got a conical scalar ring and and set it up today with my GeosatPro 90cm dish that is motorized. So far I was able to receive the Puerto Rico nets and the DMX music channels. I'm not able to lock onto anything else and those that did cut in and out at times. I'm assuming my dish is just too small. I had to slide the scalar as far away from the dish as I could to get any signal. Has anyone else tried doing this with the 90cm GeosatPro dish?
 
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There have been numerous threads on the subject over the years.
As best I recall, there was some passable success on 1.2m dishes.
However, 1.0m dishes (& below) should be relocated to proof-of-concept.
search for a thread by Linuxman, for the best 1.0 info.


Posted from iPhone 4
 
Yep dish is way too small for C-Band. Neat to play around with, but you need at least a 6 footer for C-band. 10 foot would be way better, because there is stuff a 6 foot just can't bring in.
 
The best C Band HD channel, and also one you can get on a MiniBUD, is NHK World HD :) Even in the weaker part of Intelsat 9's footprint, the northern US! I can get the channel with 25% signal on a 4 footer, which is plenty because the channel has the highest amount of error correction possible - 1/2 - and it's DVB-S, not S2, which certainly doesn't hurt. I've brought the channel in with 10% w/o errors before. I've never tried it on a 3 footer. However, I suspect with you living in an area where the footprint has a higher EIRP level than mine it may just be strong enough for you to bring it in on a 90cm.

NHK WORLD TV | Direct Reception

Galaxy 17 is also a very strong C Band satellite. I can bring in channels like Reelz HD and CW Plus networks @ 65% so I get no errors. This despite the fact that they are DVB-S2, with less error correction. If only every C Band signal were this high powered...

Anyways, I'd say if you can't get a real C Band dish it's worth going the MiniBUD route for NHK World alone.
 
part of your problem with such a small dish is the fact your beam width is going to be super wide, if another adjacent satellite is using the same freq for their tp then the interference is going to knock out the signal of interest.
 
I noticed that beam width issue and how I could get the same sat in a spot 5 degree range on C-Band with it. Oh well, it was a fun experiment. I think when finances allow, I'll give a 1.2m dish a shot with C-band. I do have an 8ft C-band dish but the only empty spot it will fit in my yard is blocked by trees. So I took it apart and have it stored for now...
 
I finally got around to making my fortec 1.2 ku dish into a minibud cband last month. At first I installed a BSC421 with scalar ring and got all of the channels everyone talks about - 91w, 99w, 107w,118w,121w,125w. Then I put on a BSC621 with the hope of getting KU tweaked. The BSC621 peaked a slightly higher Cband signal than the BSC421 (for whatever reason) so I kept it in even though the KU part of the dual C/KU wasn't worth the effort. I put in a Avenger PLL ku lnb as a sidecar, so that was all I needed for awesome KU signal. I was using my Birdog ultra meter so I was able to nail the best signal I could get from Cband and will keep everything just as it is.
I think the Cband signals I do get - like digital music from 91w west or the USVI networks on 99 - the project is well worth the effort as they fill in what is missing from KU channel offerings. The fact that you're getting these on a 90cm dish makes for a cool result.
 
I may try the Ku lnb sidecar idea this week. I like having the option of those C-band channels on 99w even though they only worked when the weather was perfect.
 
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