Superdish to FTA?

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Aug 20, 2008
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Sportsman's Paradise Northern Mi
Yesterday, someone gave me a Superdish that measures about 33.5" wide and 24" tall, bigger than most of the frisbee dishes I see so often. Looks like it ought to be adaptable to FTA, has anyone tried it, what do you get? 1 of the lnbs is a really strange looking weapon. It looks like 2 feedhorns together at the front, leading back to 2 lnbs, 1 says "dbs stacked", the other "fss stacked". What in the world is this thing for? What birds are they intended to be pointed at? Is it 1 lnb with close separation of 1 or 2 degrees, or is it considered to be a single lnb aimed at 1 bird? Then there's a separate lnb that looks like a standard dbs lnb. Mathematically, it looks like these 2 [or 3?] lnbs are separated by about 11 degrees, is that correct? Excuse my ignorance, but I don't know much about E* or DTV, just wondering if this thing can be adapted to FTA. Sure looks like it has possibilities, just looking for a direction to aim it at.
 
Thanks for the response, Elchucko, but my computer says that file is corrupted and can't be opened. Not sure it's what I wanted anyway, was especially interested in what "fss stacked lnb" means and how it might be applied to FTA, if at all.
 
Not sure it's what I wanted anyway, was especially interested in what "fss stacked lnb" means and how it might be applied to FTA, if at all.

The SuperDishes and their components can be useful for FTA. It sounds like the one you have was for receiving the DN 110, 119 and 121 birds. There was an alternate model for DN 105, 110 and 119. The reason for the weird looking feed you mentioned is the difficulty of receiving the closely spaced 119 and 121. From a FTA perspective, a SuperDish will have a sensitivity in the 70 cm range, which isn't incredible. However it does have a better ability than typical offsets to receive multiple satellites.

What I particularly like about these dishes are the FSS LNBs. While the 110 and 119 LNBs are pretty much only useful for receiving circularly polarized DBS satellites, the 105 and 121 LNBs are designed to receive linearly polarized Ku signals in the standard North American bands. The feeds are rather marginal, but the LNBs turn out to be of good quality (coincidentally I started this thread a few days ago on some of the technical aspects of these units).

The point of bandstacked LNBs is to pass both H & V polarizations on the same cable. Typical FTA LNBs will send only H or V from 950-1450 MHz, depending on the commanded voltage (18V = H, 13V = V). The SuperDish LNBs send V from 950-1450 MHz, and H from 2150-1650 MHz (the spectrum is inverted). This isn't that useful if you only have one LNB and one receiver, but it becomes very nice if you have more than one of either or both.

If you have multiple receivers, you will need only one downlead coax and a splitter to connect all the receivers. Because H & V are on the same cable, any receiver can get to either polarization. Without a bandstacked LNB, you would need either a multi-output LNB and/or switches to make this work. If you have multiple LNBs, particularly feeding multiple receivers, the use of bandstacked LNBs will cut the number of cables and switches in half.

It's not a completely free ride because bandstacked LNBs put a higher premium on quality components because the highest frequency they send is 700 MHz higher than a typical LNB. Also some receivers are not well set up to work with bandstacked LNBs, although there are usually workarounds. Nevertheless in anything but a very simple system, bandstacked LNBs can be very nice to have.
 
I tried the fss lnbf with my pci card and It worked fine @ 91west. Blind scan is slow with pc but if found all the channels
 
Wow! Did you see that fly right over the top of my head? Anyway, doesn't sound like something useful to me since I only use 1 receiver. It does look like it was set up for the DN 110, 119 and 121 birds you mentioned because of the spacing. Oh well, something else to play with next spring. Thanks BTW, what does FSS mean?
 
Superdishes work great for many of the stronger birds. Remove the feed assembly and fabricate a bracket for a standard lnb and you're off to the races. As is, the FSS lnb on the SD is not a stellar performer, but read Pendragons recent thread on bandstacked lnb's, they can modified to give pretty good performance.
 

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Wow! Did you see that fly right over the top of my head?
Anyway, doesn't sound like something useful to me since I only use 1 receiver.
It does look like it was set up for the DN 110, 119 and 121 birds you mentioned because of the spacing.
Search the FTA Forum department for plenty of info on the Superdish 121.
Ignore the 119 and 110 LNBs, and just hook directly to the 121 LNB.
Aim at your desired bird and then blind scan with your Coolsat (see below).
Should work fine.

Nothing to be afraid of. Here's more reading material:

Iceberg on Bandstacked Dish Network LNB frequency considerations:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/117442-surplus-super-dish.html
- which LNB to use on SuperDish:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-air-fta-discussion/159383-amc-21-superdish.html
 
heh - :D

I'm not sure about the top hat 'n cane for new years, but I do have another graphic for after the 25th.
It may capture my better side. - :eek:

= SantAnole =
 
LOL

heh - :D

I'm not sure about the top hat 'n cane for new years, but I do have another graphic for after the 25th.
It may capture my better side. - :eek:

= SantAnole =


That avatar has been one of my favorites since I discovered this place! It's just , hmm, Festive.
 
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