Which to motorize for reliability?

[meinename]

Well I'm stuck. I'm frustrated with my 75e and trying to replicate a 3-LNB set-up for 83-89-97 on it, spending minimal time. And now the rainy season has come so it's becoming inadequate for reliable reception.

My Geosatpro is fixed on 123W
The single-polarity 75e known LOS is 87W to 116.8W

The 8.5-footer has an (18-inch?) actuator in a EAST-Coast mount but the rotation counter only has 4 notches at 90 degrees from each other.

So now for the question.
What would you do in this situation with a 100 bucks to "fix" it?

I'm stuck between DG-380 or Gbox V3000.

 

[pendragon]

I'd take the GBOX. A properly set-up 8.5' will have more gain to spare that it won't matter as much if the positioning steps aren't as close as you want. The GBOX reads double the clicks (rising and falling edges) compared to a traditional controller, so that will help, too. But the DG-380 is a pretty accurate motor, and if you have enough on-axis gain from the offset dishes, it would be a fine alternative.

 

[meinename]

But using the 4-click and a GBox for Ku?

Somehow I don't think that will work too well.

Perhaps I need to ask in the C-band forum about the actuator paired with the GBox.

I would still like everybody's opinion on the subject:

Geosatpro 90cm on a DG380 vs. 1985 Uniden 8.5' solid aluminum with an 18" 4-click actuator and a BSC-621 (22kHz)

Must be easy-to-fix with regard for troubleshooting.

 

[pendragon]

What satellites do you want to get?

The 90 cm should pull in most, if not all, of the Ku band visible to you. If that's all you want get the DG-380. It's a bit touchier adjusting a small motor like that, but if you can track the arc accurately, USALS is nice.

I have a DG-380 on a GEOSatPro 1.2m and use two GBOxes on my 1.8 and 3 m dishes. I'm expecting to pick up another GBOX for my 2.4m with an 18" actuator much like yours. I haven't installed the 2.4m yet, but I have been refurbishing the polar mount and testing the actuator. I threw away my notes when I measured the number of clicks to several representative motor angles, but I didn't find any problems with not having enough resolution for Ku positioning. With the GBOX you of course also get C-band and it really does double the number of clicks generated by an actuator.

 

[meinename]

What satellites do you want to get?

The 90 cm should pull in most, if not all, of the Ku band visible to you. If that's all you want get the DG-380. It's a bit touchier adjusting a small motor like that, but if you can track the arc accurately, USALS is nice.

I have a DG-380 on a GEOSatPro 1.2m and use two GBOxes on my 1.8 and 3 m dishes. I'm expecting to pick up another GBOX for my 2.4m with an 18" actuator much like yours. I haven't installed the 2.4m yet, but I have been refurbishing the polar mount and testing the actuator. I threw away my notes when I measured the number of clicks to several representative motor angles, but I didn't find any problems with not having enough resolution for Ku positioning. With the GBOX you of course also get C-band and it really does double the number of clicks generated by an actuator.

I opened up a thread in the C-band forum to get some feedback from those who don't leave there and see if anyone knows about my actuator. I was much more detailed about what I want there.
Thread here: http://www.satelliteguys.us/c-band-satellite-discussion/169539-reviving-1985-uniden-8-5-footer.html

 

[guapoharry]

How would you rate the BSC-621 on Ku?

A number of BSC-621 threads seem troublesome about the focus problem. From what I read, some people opted to replace their 621s with the Satellite AV CK1 product.

If there is an issue, why not address it first since the LNBF is in hand already?

FWIW...

 

[meinename]

How would you rate the BSC-621 on Ku?

A number of BSC-621 threads seem troublesome about the focus problem. From what I read, some people opted to replace their 621s with the Satellite AV CK1 product.

It's fair on a poor-fair-good-best scale. But I've only used Geosatpro's (best), a Techsat Tracker II+ (best DX), and a Gilat VSAT Rx LNB (good, very stable).
The BSC-621 Ku-side is the worst out of all of them.
But I don't think that says too much about the BSC-621 since what I have to compare it to is the some of the best Ku LNBF's IMHO

Knee-jerk reaction: I would have to struggle ghetto-aiming that beast get a 70% on a good day, so that on a bad day we'd never see a 63% dropout on a bad day. So reception fluctuates on the Ku-side(wait that's with the cap). Without the cap, C-band is great(80%-97% Q's), and Ku (70%-90%) is okay.

Clarifying, I have a 1/4 inch focal-length separation between having perfect C-band reception and perfect Ku-reception. C-band being more forgiving, I give as much as I can to Ku since C-band takes about a 6% loss on the Coolsat. As far as hitting the Ku sweet spot with a BSC-621? Not something to be left to a newbie as his first project. It was like giving a newbie an intermediate-advanced project as his starter. I had to go and get a Geosatpro dish to make sure that it really was that hard to hit Ku for reliable reception. That and learn how important skew was for Ku.

The biggest problem I had was figuring out the orientation. Mine was way off what everyone else's was. Arrow at 12 o'clock, LNB/Switch box at 45° Top-East quadrant.

If there is an issue, why not address it first since the LNBF is in hand already?

FWIW...

Ku reception as far as aimed at a sat was not my uncertainty, It's a 4-click having enough resolution to find Ku sweet spots. Once I find the sweet-spot, the gain on this dish makes up for almost any shortcomings.