Largest Ku Band dish

[PKII]

What is the largest offset Ku band dish anyone has ever seen available for sale? Are the 4 footers the biggest?

 

[Anole]

Linuxman, Pendragon, Phlatwound, TruckRacer, Corrado ... and others, have shown off the Prodelin 6' offset Ku dish.
I'm sure it's not the biggest, but it does show up used/free around the country, and draws some members in...

Linuxman even put multiple Ku LNBFs on the dish (and a few C-band LNBFs) , too!
So did Mike Kohl...

 

[Tron]

I think I've seen a commercial 8 footer, but not too many offset dishes bigger than the Prodelin.

 

[Cham]

Found a 12' offset with Ku feed at a local TV station one piece reflector they wanted to get rid of... wouldn't fit in the little half ton so it went to another worthy home. Would have been easy to modify for C band. It didn't come with a mount either. Ended up the engineer wanted to get rid of a 6' microwave dish too that did end up in the truck.. Works dandy on wifi!
-C.

 

[whatchel1]

Found a 12' offset with Ku feed at a local TV station one piece reflector they wanted to get rid of... wouldn't fit in the little half ton so it went to another worthy home. Would have been easy to modify for C band. It didn't come with a mount either. Ended up the engineer wanted to get rid of a 6' microwave dish too that did end up in the truck.. Works dandy on wifi!
-C.

Should of rented a cheap flatbed trailer for the 12 ft. offset. I bet it weighted a ton though. The 6 ft Prodelin are pretty dang heavy.

 

[osu1991]

Isn't the rare Birdview Spoon, that Phlatwood has about 7ft?

 

[mr.crane]

Largest is 2.4 meter. http://www.anderseninc.com/satellite/kuoffset.pdf

I use to own the 8ft prime dish, cant go wrong with it. RSI used to distribute their products. Recreational Sports Imports

 

[mr.crane]

Found a 12' offset with Ku feed at a local TV station one piece reflector they wanted to get rid of... wouldn't fit in the little half ton so it went to another worthy home. Would have been easy to modify for C band. It didn't come with a mount either. Ended up the engineer wanted to get rid of a 6' microwave dish too that did end up in the truck.. Works dandy on wifi!
-C.

Can you post a picture of your 6ft microwave dish, how far away signal can you get

 

[truckracer]

My 6' prodelin was a killer ku dish. I used it for the G10r KU equity channels back in the day. Strong signals.

My 10' mesh is actually pretty amazing on ku!

 

[Mikey11]

im not sure why anybody would want a ku-band dish bigger than 4 feet....if you cant get good ku-band signal quality with a 4 footer than a bigger dish wont help....(in my experience....and talking about ku-band only)....

 

[pendragon]

There are lots of reasons for 1.8m or larger Ku dishes:

1. Out-of-footprint reception
2. Very low elevation reception
3. Rain fade margin
4. DVB-S2 16PSK or higher for future

If you only have a 1.2m, your CNRs are 3.5 dB worse and you probably can't even see what you're missing

 

[Mikey11]

There are lots of reasons for 1.8m or larger Ku dishes:

1. Out-of-footprint reception
2. Very low elevation reception
3. Rain fade margin
4. DVB-S2 16PSK or higher for future

If you only have a 1.2m, your CNRs are 3.5 dB worse and you probably can't even see what you're missing

1 - if are TRUELY 100% out of the footprint a bigger dish wont help you
2 - im not sure what you mean by this....if a satellite is below the horizon then you can not get it....doesnt matter how big your dish is
3 - if your having "fade" issues in certain weather conditions i dont believe a 6 footer would help over a 4 footer
4 - yes you might have a good point there

 

[whatchel1]

1 - if are TRUELY 100% out of the footprint a bigger dish wont help you
2 - im not sure what you mean by this....if a satellite is below the horizon then you can not get it....doesnt matter how big your dish is
3 - if your having "fade" issues in certain weather conditions i dont believe a 6 footer would help over a 4 footer
4 - yes you might have a good point there

He said low elevation reception not below horizon. A 6ft will give him a gain of at least a 1/3 more over the 4 ft.

 

[Mr Tony]

1 - if are TRUELY 100% out of the footprint a bigger dish wont help you

yes it does. It all depends on how far out of the footprint you are

3 - if your having "fade" issues in certain weather conditions i dont believe a 6 footer would help over a 4 footer

I have both a 6 footer and a 4 footer and the 6 footer hangs on longer than the 4 footer did on KU

 

[Anole]

need more input

What is the largest offset Ku band dish anyone has ever seen available for sale? Are the 4 footers the biggest?

I think we need input from the OP before we go off the deep end.
PKII, what is your intention and price range?
If you have acres and acres and $100,000 available, I'm sure we can find you a suitable dish.
If you are on a budget or have no space to deploy a dish, or want something for a roof (bad idea), those would be things to consider.
More importantly, we might come up with a way to get your Ku on a free BUD, efficiently (by using the right LNBF).

 

[pendragon]

1 - if are TRUELY 100% out of the footprint a bigger dish wont help you

The use of 1.8m and larger dishes is actually fairly common to pick up DBS outside of traditional service areas or where the incident power is particularly low. Examples might be Alaska, Puerto Rico, the reception of Canadian services in Mexico, etc. If one looks at a power contour chart, wherever the cutoff for a 1.2m is, the cutoff for a 1.8m will be about 3.5 dB lower. That can extend the reception area considerably, or very little depending on the beam shape.

2 - im not sure what you mean by this....if a satellite is below the horizon then you can not get it....doesnt matter how big your dish is

Low elevation for me is less than 10 degrees above the horizon. In Denver 30W is about 3 degrees above the horizon and 37.5W is about 8 degrees. In this regime the major limiting factor is the increased noise from the earth's thermal radiation. Not only will a 1.8m have more gain (more signal vs. noise) than a 1.2m out of the box, but the tighter beam pattern will pick up less earth noise at low elevations. A 1.2m has a beamwidth of about 1.6 degrees vs. about 0.9 degrees for a 1.8m and that isn't small potatoes.

As I lower my 1.2m pretty far down I can see the noise floor mushroom on my spectrum analyzer. The 1.8m goes further down and locks signals that don't even show up on a spectrum analyzer with the 1.2m. Both are peaked all the way down.

3 - if your having "fade" issues in certain weather conditions i dont believe a 6 footer would help over a 4 footer

Broadcast stations use large Ku dishes to better hold lock under rain fade conditions. I've never seen a station here use something as small as a 1.2m. Also I've watched/recorded a number of high SR HD feeds that were perfectly clean in a downpour with the 1.8m, while my 1.2m was hopeless.

Another way to consider this is the difference in CNR of a 1.8m over a 1.2m is the same as a 1.2m over a 80cm dish. If someone insisted their 80cm was as good as your 1.2m, what would you think?

 

[Kallesatman]

PENDRAGON, are you in the Denver area? If so shoot me a pm so that I can contact you. Thank you.