My Experience with the T-90 WaveFrontier Toroidal Dish

[dsmith0429]

I was reading an old thread about Toroidal dishes. There was an error about them requiring special LNBFs, but that's only partially true, you only need reversed polarity LNBFs for circular satellites, linear LNBFs work just fine as they are.

Mine is the larger T-90 model. They are a bit tricky to setup, but worth it if you have the time and patience. I currently have 8 satellites setup and they are all linear satellites. It takes a bit of fine tuning to get everything to have nearly equal signal quality.

From what I can tell, it looks like these may have been mainly designed for the European market, because most of the info I've found is all from European countries, so I had to do a lot of my own trial and error to get as far as I have with the setup.

According to the specs for this dish:

1. T90 has the same effectiveness of 90 cm (38 inches) dish for each LNBF installed.
2. T90 can accommodate up to 16 LNBFs.
3. T90 can cover up to 40 degrees in arc (60 degrees in azimuth)

The minimum spacing requirements between two satellites is supposedly 3 degrees, but with a little change in the angles of the LNBFs, I was able to pick up satellites 2 degrees apart. I have 91W, 93.1W, 95W, 97W, 99W, 101W, 103W, and 105W setup so far. Had to tweak the dish a little more with each addition. I'm averaging around 60 to 65% quality on all LNBFs, but it does work. I was able to also get 85W, 87W, and 89W, but I decided to start at 91W with the hopes of picking up signals all the way to 125W.

I'm thinking I may be able to possibly add 8 more if I can tweak them the same way. Also may try using some 20dB inline amplifiers to see if I can boost signal quality.

I also have seen photos of custom made holders and extensions that allowed for more LNBFs, up to 70 degrees in ARC, so more experimentation is planned after the initial LNBs are set on the default/existing mounts.

 

[iBoston]

Awesome.. Congrats...
But would love to see your setup --- Pictures please...

 

[dsmith0429]

Awesome.. Congrats...
But would love to see your setup --- Pictures please...

Pictures coming... trying to keep notes too. Going to post when I'm satisfied with my setup.

One tip I can share that has helped me, was to tell a "little white lie" about which satellites I wanted to pick up using the online WF Toroidal Calculator. Instead of setting it for the actual East and West satellites, I chose to use the range of 61°W to 129°W, then setup the satellites from the calculator that fell between the L20 and R20 markings on the LNB rail. Worked great for me to be able to set up LNBFs at 2° spacing so far... this should give me a range of 83°W to 110°W, with 95°W being the center satellite, but of course I'm not using all of the satellites within that range that don't have any FTA signals, and I'm not setting up any circular satellites.

My plans are to use a second dish to get the satellites after 110°W, hopefully up to 125°W using an old StarBand/ChannelMaster dish I have that's just lying around in my "treasure" (aka junk) pile, with a custom made LNBF holder

 

[kittyhas1000legs]

I've been curious about a T90 for a while now... How well does 103 come in? With my 90cm I can get the standard channels, but the 8PSK 5/6 feeds that pop up are iffy.

If 2 degree spacing is possible with most TPs coming in, I may get one in the future.

 

[dsmith0429]

I've been curious about a T90 for a while now... How well does 103 come in? With my 90cm I can get the standard channels, but the 8PSK 5/6 feeds that pop up are iffy.

If 2 degree spacing is possible with most TPs coming in, I may get one in the future.

I have issues with 103W also, and I didn't see a difference between my old stand alone dish and using the T90.

May be an issue where I installed the dish, or something interfering with the signal, because I used to get everything on 103W with no problems with my motorized dish before the motor quit working.

I'm considering trying using a Interference Filter to eliminate the FM, Wi-Fi, and WiMax 4G LTE frequencies to see if that will help as well.

I also decided to eliminate 93.1, 99W, and 101W from my setup and use those LNBFs for other satellites since there wasn't much programming left on those satellites.

For some reason I can't get 2 degree alignment on half of the dish (below 95W), but I may need to adjust the dish more. Not a deal breaker for me, as there isn't much below 95W anyway.

I'm also going to experiment with a C-band LNBF, just because they said it couldn't be done, but I think I can with a custom mount. Maybe I'll try pointing it at the main reflector instead and see if I can get a signal. Just need to find the right focal point I would think. Might look strange, but who cares if it works, and doesn't interfere with the other LNBFs.

Rain forced me to stop "playing" with my setup, and I have to work the rest of the week, but hopefully I'll get to work on it some more this coming weekend.

 

[danristheman]

Pictures please like to see what's going on. Sounds like you are doing good job on it.