Noobie to FTA

[gjvrieze]

Hi,
I am a newcomer to both this forum, and FTA... Live in Rochester, MN I am very very well schooled in OTA analog/digital, but only have a little reading in on FTA...

I am thinking about grabbing a Winegard 76cm KU-band dish/LNBF and a PC DVB card. I would like to aim at AMC21 and get all of the PBS feeds... I have an older FTA reciver that a friend borrowed, that supports DVB, so I should be able to use that to preform the aim, then switch to using the card... I was not looking to move the sat dish, so I am going to fix mount it to my 50ft Rohn tower in the back yard near the bottom... (4000lbs of concrete, it does not even wiggle at the base, in the wind!) I have conduit running from the base of the tower into the house, so pulling a coax cable will be no big deal....

Anyway, any thoughts?

 

[voomvoom]

Sounds like a Good Start. Let us know how it comes out..!

And.... Wecome to SatelliteGuys..!!!!!!

 

[Anole]

That will work.
Especially the part about using a stand-alone receiver to do the dish-pointing.
I always found that nearly impossible with my old USB-based FTA receiver.

As for the dish, I'd get a bit bigger one.
The 123° bird and the 125° bird interfere a litttle bit with each other.
Or, read the comments of others.
Now that I've mentioned it, I'm sure you'll get lots more input.

 

[gjvrieze]

That will work.
Especially the part about using a stand-alone receiver to do the dish-pointing.
I always found that nearly impossible with my old USB-based FTA receiver.

As for the dish, I'd get a bit bigger one.
The 123° bird and the 125° bird interfere a litttle bit with each other.
Or, read the comments of others.
Now that I've mentioned it, I'm sure you'll get lots more input.

Ya, that is what I figured and read, really do not want to spend a weekend to aim it!

As for the dish, any recommendations?

 

[brentb636]

Well, if you have the MONEY, this is what I covet
149.00 100 cm Commercial Offset with 3-inch OD Clamp at Mike Kohl's site.
http://www.global-cm.net/satantennaLarge.html . That Patriot dish is solid. Figure shipping to be a small fortune.
If you're looking to get by okay, then a 90cm dish from Sadoun or SatelliteAV will work. I lean to the GeosatPro 90 at SatelliteAV because of the lnbf support struts, but I actually have the Fortec one from Sadoun and it's worked well for years. The shipping on these lighter dishes is not so painful as the shipping on the Patriot. The Patriot is also much heavier making it a poor choice for a motorized unit.

 

[gjvrieze]

So if I go with a 90CM one, what is reliability going to be like? How bad will rain fade be? (I would hope to at least take a lite rain without giving out)

BTW, can anyone tell me what the bitrate is the PBS feeds?

 

[brentb636]

Rain fade on the 90cm will be okay. Light rain is not a problem, so much as heavy clouds full of rain, between you and the bird.

The HD channels are running at 18 Mbps, the SD channels 5 to 7 Mbps.

 

[Mr Tony]

welcome gjvrieze

I am just up the road form you in the cities and I use a 76cm Winegard...works great and get the PBS stuff just fine

I use a Coolsat 8000 for the PBS stuff and the picture is spectacular

If you want to go bigger, a 90cm will work too

on a side note..can you get the Mpls stations on digital OTA? I figure you can get KSMQ in Austin but I heard that PBS isnt as good as say KTCA

 

[gjvrieze]

welcome gjvrieze

I am just up the road form you in the cities and I use a 76cm Winegard...works great and get the PBS stuff just fine

I use a Coolsat 8000 for the PBS stuff and the picture is spectacular

If you want to go bigger, a 90cm will work too

on a side note..can you get the Mpls stations on digital OTA? I figure you can get KSMQ in Austin but I heard that PBS isnt as good as say KTCA

I was getting KTCA on clear QAM on Charter cable, but I went OTA (off of the grid, is cool!) and get KSMQ/KYIN/WHLA-DTs.. KSMQ does not do HD, mulitcasts 4 HD channels, KYIN is my favorite, but still shares the HD with 2 SD subs and WHLA down converts to 720P before sending it out with 2 other SD subs....
At the moment, I am dead to the TC stations OTA, that is my goal, but even with a tower, I am blocked in badly to the North, making the TC digitals hard to lock... I get LaCrosse very well and of course the locals on a 50ft tower are not a problem.....

 

[gjvrieze]

Rain fade on the 90cm will be okay. Light rain is not a problem, so much as heavy clouds full of rain, between you and the bird.

The HD channels are running at 18 Mbps, the SD channels 5 to 7 Mbps.

Sweet deal, I miss WCCO-DT at 18Mpbs!!! It is time to replace that glory!

 

[Mr Tony]

interesting KSMQ doesnt do HD but then again they arent owned by a big conglomerate

on KXLT DT-2 there should be a RTN (Retro TV Network) feed...I know RTN had some issues recently (see "red screen of death" thread in main area) but is it still there?

 

[turbosat]

Suggest you be sure your card will do HD, I think most of them do. The PBS feeds are going to be all HD soon, next month I think. Read that someplace just a couple of days ago, if anybody else knows anything different, please correct me.

 

[Mr Tony]

correct turbo

The HD feeds are going HD but the "other" PBS channels (v-me, world, create) will stay SD

 

[gjvrieze]

interesting KSMQ doesnt do HD but then again they arent owned by a big conglomerate

on KXLT DT-2 there should be a RTN (Retro TV Network) feed...I know RTN had some issues recently (see "red screen of death" thread in main area) but is it still there?

KSMQ used to do HD back when they were low power (before my OTA days 4 years ago roughly) I like the fact they are locally owned/operated.. I watch a lot of political debates on their channels during the election season, they ALWAYS invite the third party and inpendent minded candidates who are legally on the ballots....

KXLT has not gotten the gear installed to add the RTN sub yet, the engineer replied to a friend of mine, that he figures it will be between Jan-Feb 09, so not that far off... Would like to have RTN as well, and no loss in quality in the Fox feed on KXLT because of the sub, since Fox only runs around 14Mbps anyway.... The RTN site also lists WXOW/WQOW-DT as an RTN affiliate, but I can confirm, the only sub on WXOW is The CW....

 

[gjvrieze]

correct turbo

The HD feeds are going HD but the "other" PBS channels (v-me, world, create) will stay SD

I have never seen Create on a sub channel look good (at the low bitrates they have to compress it to) so I am curious to see what it looks like on sat....

 

[gjvrieze]

So, I can go with whatever dish I want, that is larger then the 76cm Winegard (that can be verified as working further North of me by Iceburg)... What LNB should I go with, dual output would prolly be good for future proofing, but "un-needed" for now...

 

[phlatwound]

So, I can go with whatever dish I want, that is larger then the 76cm Winegard (that can be verified as working further North of me by Iceburg)... What LNB should I go with, dual output would prolly be good for future proofing, but "un-needed" for now...

A single (output) Standard LNBF (LO 10750) will do the trick, a dual output will allow you to hit more than one receiver in the future, if that's what you want to do.

 

[Mr Tony]

I personally would get a dual LNB just because the price difference usually isnt much different (5 bucks maybe)

 

[rv1pop]

I personally would get a dual LNB just because the price difference usually isnt much different (5 bucks maybe)

double ditto