I have been using 1.2 dish for commercial installs for a while, and I would like to know if there are Directv assemblies available for dishes larger than 2m. On the manufacturer website I have seen reflectors 2.x and 3.x meters but not sure if directv have LNB kit for it.
DIRECTV 1.2M DISH
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I haven't heard of DirecTV having anything larger than the 1.2M that are mainly for AK and HI, though make sense for some commercial installs. It can probably be done with something larger but it isn't any sort of off-the-shelf config that I've heard of.
I kind of remember a 1.8m on a large non-pen tripod mount for Alaska but that was probably 10yrs ago. It could also have been a prototype that never caught on.
Some people outside of the US have posted about trying to build Frankenstein monster setups using multiple LNBs to compensate for the fact that Directv's LNB wasn't focused correctly for the larger dishes they were trying to use. As in they talked about trying it, but I never saw anyone confirming they got it to work (though I suppose if they did they didn't have any reason to come back here...)
If you took three legacy LNBs and opened them, and for the LNB at the "99" location connected the traces for the 99 ka even/odd to replace those identical locations in the LNB at the "101" location and the traces for 99 rb even/odd to replace those identical locations in the LNB at the "103" location, then connect the 99/101 lines from the "101" LNB and the 103 and rb lines to the appropriate inputs on a DSWM30 it could work. Assuming you figure out what to solder where, do it correctly and insure it is weatherproof, and determine exactly where the 99, 101 and 103 LNBs all need to be for perfect focus with your larger dish. You probably don't really need reverse band so you could ignore that and simplify things a bit, but only a bit.
So yeah, its theoretically possible, but Inclined Orbit may the only person here qualified to actually attempt this with any chance of success!
If you took three legacy LNBs and opened them, and for the LNB at the "99" location connected the traces for the 99 ka even/odd to replace those identical locations in the LNB at the "101" location and the traces for 99 rb even/odd to replace those identical locations in the LNB at the "103" location, then connect the 99/101 lines from the "101" LNB and the 103 and rb lines to the appropriate inputs on a DSWM30 it could work. Assuming you figure out what to solder where, do it correctly and insure it is weatherproof, and determine exactly where the 99, 101 and 103 LNBs all need to be for perfect focus with your larger dish. You probably don't really need reverse band so you could ignore that and simplify things a bit, but only a bit.
So yeah, its theoretically possible, but Inclined Orbit may the only person here qualified to actually attempt this with any chance of success!
It would not be practical to cobble a DirecTV Ka/Ku LNBF onto a random dish, the spacing and aiming of the individual feed horns is very specific to the Slimline dish geometry and they are all cast together as one metal feed. In fact they had to compromise where the 99 and 103 feed horns encroach into the 101 feed horn due to size constraints. It may be possible to fit individual Ka and Ku LNBFs on a much larger dish with a longer focal point that will accommodate multiple feeds with 2deg spacing. Not something I would want to attempt unless I was still on staff and got "paid to play".
The original, pre Slimline Ka/Ku AT9 dish was made by several mfrs and each had a slightly different focal length and you couldn't swap LNBs between mfrs. This was the very first commercial Ka/Ku consumer dish designed and brought to market in record time and each mfr optimized things to what they though was best, which was close but not the same. On the Slimline, a focal point was chosen for all mfrs to use so LNBs could be swapped if needed. One lucky mfr probably got to use whatever spacing they already had in their design and all other mfrs had to redesign their LNBF with multiple feeds to the new fixed spec. This is not a simple task and was probably dreaded by the mfrs. I can't imagine a hobbyist pulling something like this off trying to interface a Ka/Ku LNBF with a larger dish.
Can't one go back to non-SWM LNBF's and use 3 dishes and 3 lnbfs then use band pass filters, combiners, and a multiswitch to SWM converter?
Theoretically, but you'd have to custom order the parts as there aren't off the shelf filters for the proper ranges.
You'd also need multiple amplifiers as you wouldn't want to take the hit of multiple filters and combiners without first amplifying the signal.
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