Starband Channel Master 74E Pick or Not

[sixersclt]

Got a chance to pick a Starband CM 74E .74m 24x36. The question is is it worth it for free or just buy a 90cm? 90cm is the largest I can go at this location, although I just picked a 10' mesh CM for another location further north. I call it back to the future as I had a 10' 25 years ago. Getting back into FTA again after all these years - I'm actually kind of excited.

I'm not sure if the Starband would give the gain to get the job done for this motorized Ku only setup. The footprints show I need a 90cm to get most of the birds. Is the Starband worth futzing with or just buy a WSI9036 90cm and be done with it.

I was leaning toward a Avenger PLL321S-2 universal for either dish - any thoughts on that? It seems to be simple to take off the starband stuff, add a bracket and put the new lnb as close as possible to the old focal point. In theory the existing would work probably better since it appears to be "elipitical" verses the round head. But the new LNBs have much better performance figures, so might it be a wash?

By the time I get done futzing, mounting the Starband, buying a motor and LNB...I could just spend another $80/90 and have no grief. I kind of like the challenge, but time is money and less work with the 90cm. The Starband pic is below.

Great to be back in this hobby with the best folks on these boards.

 

[whatchel1]

I have one in the garage and doubt it will be coming out anytime soon. In your area to me you kind of answered your on question. The footprints show that you need a larger dish. Yes the feed horn is elliptical but I don't think it really gets you much more gain out of the dish. The shape was more to be able to pick up 2 sats when it came out for primestar. That's how I wound up w/one in garage. I used it for dish for a while but went to more standard dish and got more signal.

 

[Bob2011]

It's a nice dish and I would take it for a fixed installation if someone offered it to me. There are plenty of strong channels up there that this size dish would do fine with. I use even smaller dishes for FTA. For a motorized setup you should go with the 90cm dish. There are many weak channels that go away in bad weather on sub 30 inch dishes.