Modifying the LNBs on a DIRECTV AU9 (Slimline) dish for 18-degree spacing

[buckchow]

I'm thinking about modifying the LNBs on a retired Slimline/AU9 dish so that the middle LNB (for 110W) is disabled and the end LNB (for 119W) is passed through unfiltered when a 22 kHz signal is present. With 22 kHz on, transponders 8, 10, and 12 (and probably some neighbors) from the end/119W LNB are normally covered up by transponders 28, 30, and 32 from the middle/110W LNB with this hardware. I thought it would be fun to get the re-mapped signals from the middle LNB out of the way so that I have a large dish with 18-degree spacing to play with. I'll worry about whether or not it can be converted for practical use of linear signals later.

I'm not a hardware expert by any means, so if anybody else has poked around the innards of the AU9's LNBs before I'd appreciate your thoughts on this before I dive in. Thanks.

 

[photoman76]

If that is the five lnbf, I've played with it. I discarded the 110 and 119 part and just used the 99/101/103 lnbf. I wanted to see what was up there on KA band. My experiments weren't too successful though. Directv uses a strange setup for lnbf switching. I got a B band converter, but still ran into problems with signal strength on my 3 foot Fortec dish. I might have done better with a Slimline dish, but I only had the lnbf to play with. 110 and 119 are combined on the 22khz switch, so I don't know if you can separate them. You might be interested in this link:
What is a B-band Converter for DIRECTV?

I don't think the directv lnbf will be useful for linear feeds. You can add a linear lnbf, but the dish is probably undersized so you might not receive much on KU.

 

[Mr Tony]

if you are content with using that dish you can fabricate something for a KU LNB (remove the existing setup). I know folks have done it before and got some strong transponders (but not all)