I think it might be the dish. With the LNB mounting bracket, I could never get it to properly hit the sweet spot. I'll try the Invacom and see if I get better performance or the same. I have a Fortec 90cm I got from Sadoun, and from day 1 I had trouble with it. Seems I could never get it bent right. Seems very flimsy, it's very flexible, and it's very hard to hit the sweet spot. I was thinking of getting a Geosat pro 90cm to replace it. The LNB arm seems more stirdy. The arm on the Fortec is too thin and not rigid enough. If you bump it, the whole thing goes out of whack. I have a hard time getting 12140V to come in strong enough. 12104V and 12180V can come in fine even when 12140V can barely lock. I'm not sure if it's the LNB or the dish. Dish just seems easily bendable and anything not perfect can cause 12140V to drop out and that is what I watch most.
The files will be in .mxf format, a standardized, professional container, and are not encrypted. The transmission can be, but PBS hasn't opted for it because of the extra cost. The files are copyrighted, of course. I do not see personal use as any problem with copyright violation, but there are people who are paid millions to make such silly decisions.
I have a Fortec 90CM which also started out with a KUL1 lnbf. I agree that the Fortec dish is VERY flimsy, and the lnbf arm also is flimsy and is difficult to get the lnbf positioned at the focal point. Before I even installed my dish, I checked the position of the LNBF, and it was about 2 inches away from the actual focal point of the dish, and the only way to get it at the focal point was to BEND the lnbf arm. Rather than doing that, I've just used it as is, and it performs *OK* on most transponders, but there are several, particularly on AMC21, that it just can't get. My old Primestar dish does a MUCH better job than the Fortec dish. My experience is not an isolated event, I've read posts from other people whose Fortec dishes came with lnbf arms that were bent to the extent that the LNBF was about 8" off the focal point, and they couldn't pick up anything until they bent it back to the theoretical position.
Anyway, due to my issues with positioning the LNBF on my Fortec, I finally decided to bend the thing to make it right, however I also wanted to add support for my Invacom lnbf which is a bit heavy for that flimsy lnbf arm. So I carefully measured up from each of the holes drilled in the rim of the dish, and drilled a pair of holes at about 2:30 and 9:30 on the rim of the dish. I then connected a wire to the lnbf holder, and ran the wire through each hole, and first pulled the wire which was closest to where the true focal point on my dish, attempting to pull the lnbf up to the proper point, then, with that done, I pulled the other wire tight, just to make the lnbf position more stable. Of course doing this meant that I had to re-align the dish, but after doing that, I found that I had improved the S/Q performance. I knew that I hadn't bent the lnbf arm enough to correct for the 2" error, so I decided to try to bend the arm even more..... at that point, my wire broke. I am encouraged though that this seemed to help, however I think I am going to have to actually BEND the lnbf arm, and then just stabilize it's position with the wires, rather than trying to use the flimsy dish to bend the flimsy lnbf arm. Hopefully I can get this bending job done before the black flies come out, which unfortunately has already started about a mile from here. No fun to work on a dish when surrounded by black flies.
Now, relative to the KUL1 lnbf. I originally used my Fortec dish with a KUL1 lnbf. This LNBF was quite sensitive, ie high gain, however it was TERRIBLE with respect to frequency accuracy and stability. My KUL1 was off by a couple MHz even at ambient temperatures, and when the temperature got relatively cold in the winter, it was off by as much as 5 MHz. When using a receiver that seeks a lock by varying frequency, as most STBs now seem to do, it usually didn't affect the ability to lock channels, and with it's good gain, it performed well. However when you have narrow transponders near to each other, such as the 4444 SR SCPC PBS transponders, or sats that have multiple 3978SR news feed transponders side by side, the KUL1 had problems with these as the receivers would typically lock on the wrong transponder. Receivers that don't seek very far off the set frequency would often not be able to lock at all on some narrow SR transponders, unless you enter the wrong freqs.
Anyway, I am not at all impressed by either the KUL1 lnbf or the Fortec 90CM dish.
I'm now using an Invacom quad on my Fortec, which as others have mentioned is a bit heavy for the flimsy lnbf arm. The Invacom works a bit better than the KUL1 with respect to frequency stability. It is usually within about 1 MHz of the proper frequency at normal temperatures, and might drift up to 2 MHz at cold temps. On my Primestar, however I use a very inexpensive Extreme III lnbf, which seems to have better frequency stability than the Invacom, and is MUCH lighter. However I use the Invacom on my motorized Fortec because I need the circular DVB capability. It works OK. This is my 2nd Invacom though. My first Invacom started acting up on individual ports, which I corrected by using the spare C and L ports, but then those ports started acting up, so nothing worked. Finally had to buy a new Invacom.
