HAPPY NEW YEAR! EXCITING CHANGES COMING IN 2026! Thank you for a great 2025 and we are so looking forward to 2026! PLEASE CLICK HERE to find out about some of our plans for 2026 including our BRAND NEW NAME we will be moving to in 2026! Exciting times are ahead! Happy New Year from your friends here at SatelliteGuys.US!
With a little tweaking can the DVB-S2 transponders on Galaxy 16 (99.oW) C-Band be received using a 6' dish without the video breaking up? I'm mainly interested in receiving the ABC feeds.
Agree with KE4EST. Using an optimized 10' and PLL here in Northern California and occasionally have a problem locking on the 9/10 FEC transponders. A 6' may tune these feeds, but certainly will not be reliable.
I installed a 6' Prodelin offset dish back in 2010 and converted for C band use. It has been pointed at 99W using a Geosatpro C2 LNBF with a conical scalar and works 100% of the time on the ABC feeds running the 9/10 FEC here in the upstate NY beam footprint. I watch these channels all the time for time shifting purposes and cannot remember a time when I had reception issues unless the dish was covered with heavy wet snow.
I realize that some satellites have some difficult DVB-S2 TPs for 6' dishes. For example, until a change last summer on 87W, I was never able to receive the Luken mux with any of my 6' dishes, now it's fine with about 70Q on the microHD. I think 99W is one of the best C band satellites for the hobbyist, a nice variety of channels.
Corrado, I'm going to try again this weekend. The dish is now pointed to SES-3. Last night, I actually broke the scalar ring while trying the loosen a rusted set screw and replaced with a new WSI C-band LNBF that I had as a spare and saw an increase in signal. So, now I'm going to go back to Galaxy 16 and see if the increased signal helps discover additional transponders. I also ordered a Titanium Satellite C1-PLL C-Band LNBF yesterday, so I want to experiment with that too. I actually received these ABC channels with no breakups using a 4' dish several years ago, but I believe they probably were DVB-S back then.
I agree with Corrado, give it a try. I am using an 8 ft stationary aimed at 99W, and receive one of the ABC feeds with a Q of 98-100 on my AzBox Premium Plus, and a Q of 86 on my AzBox miniMe. The LNBF is a C-Band Dual output (not PLL) feeding switches to allow multiple receivers off of the one dish. Avatar pix shows the LNBF and dish, although I have changed the offset LNBF and its mounting since that photo.