Can a C band mesh dish be converted to a fta dish?

[edlkll]

Can a older C band mesh dish be converted to a ku band dish? If you change the C band lnb to a fta lnb with a bracket will
it pickup ku satellites like 119 and 110? Someones answers will be helpful. I have a older C band mesh dish and was thinking
of fooling around with it to see if it would work. Has anyone tried it? And do you think it would work? Answers apprecated
Thanks edlkll

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

KU satellites such as 119 and 110 are not FTA satellites.

But on regular KU satellites the answer is YES as long as you cant fit a pencil through the mesh of the dish. If it fits through the mesh is oto wide and will not do KU well.

 

[rv1pop]

While the answer is yes, a poor illustration / analogy would be using a 5 ton dump truck to wheel a 16 lb bag of pet food from the road to the kitchen door. A full size C-Band dish can be made to get Ku signals as long as the parabolic shape is good and the mesh is small enough, but the weight and aiming hardware makes it less that ideal. A good 1m dish is usually easier to use for Ku signals. As Scott said, the subscription services are not FTA, and not what we discuss on this forum. Over two hundred FTA signals on 97W keeps my family busy.

 

[edlkll]

Just wondering if the signal would be better with the bigger older dish for a weak signal. If I am trying to pick up a satellite and I am on a fringe area of picking it up
would the signal be greater the bigger the dish? Or better with a bigger fta dish, just trying to compare. Thanks for the replys Scott and rv1pop. edlkll

 

[skyscanner4ever]

If you have a c band dish I wouldnt waste it on a premium satellite when all you need to get a great signal is a dish 1000 or even a 30 inch fta dish with a circular lnb.

You can get the highest signal possibly on the dish network sats using a 30 inch dish or even a dish 1000, however it isnt real fta. I would say you could do like I did before for an experiment by putting bunches of lnbs all over the dish and arms and using a diseqc switch, however that switch wont work on a dish network receiver so it would be pointless.


But to honestly answer you Yes, it will get a higher signal, but you are not gonna tell any difference unless you are watching tv in a severe hurricane.

 

[Lone Cloud]

I have wondered openly before what might happen if you got some aluminum flashing and alternated the pie shaped dish sections, solid then mesh. Of course you only try this if you have a mesh dish with big holes.

Seems like it would still be pretty good in the wind and maybe you could get both bands. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find out if it worked with just one or two sections done. It would look pretty radical too. You could tell your neighbors you are scanning deep space for NASA

 

[SatelliteAV]

Surface accuracy is rather poor on most mesh dishes. You would not notice much difference in gathered signal between a mesh and similar designed solid panel reflector.

The mesh appears as a solid surface to both RF signals and wind over 25mph. Once the wind load develops on the dish surface, the air no longer passes through the mesh.

 

[rv1pop]

The wind load statement is true -- unfortunately! From the OP we are presuming you are looking for subscription channels. If not, what satellite are you really trying to receive and from where? USA is quite a big area.

 

[Anole]

Where are you located?

If you subscribe to Dish Network, we could help, but non-Dish hardware requires some understanding to set up.
It's not trivial, and there's no point discussing it if that's not what you need.

As for real FTA, there is plenty on Ku, and we could help you there.

C-band is also a great source of free programming.

When we understand better your needs and interest, we can help.
But right now, I don't have a clue, based on the original question.