Your Favorite c band lnb and why

[Cadsulfide]

The wife asked me what I wanted for xmas, although this may sound like sacrilege, I already have enough guns.

So I mentioned dish toys, she rolled her eyes and gave me the look, then said ok. wooo....hooo!

I may be scoring a 12' solid, and want to equip it with a good business end. I put a BSC421 on a 10 footer at 99W and while it works fine, I don't know if I should be using something a little better on the next BUD. A lot of talk about digital vs corrotor designs, anyone done a side by side compairison? I don't need ortho feed, but want max clean signal to pull out those weak transponders.

 

[tdti1]

Depends on how much you get into feed hunting, with my 10' I have used lower quality lnb's and can't lock many feeds depending on modulation, fec, with the Norsat 8115 and 4106a I use now, I have been able to pull in feeds I was not able to hold in the past as the stability really help, mind you there are still feeds that just will not work, if I have a 12' or 10' solid it would probably be different.

As a hardcore feed hunter I would get nothing less than the lnb's I mentioned, or even pll lnb's, for the average user 4dtv and most dvb feeds the low cost lnbf's should work ok though I would not use them.

I enjoy pulling in feeds across the whole arc, that I can see from my specific location, I use the corotor II plus wideband feed, no c-band elbow and my commercial grade Norsats, I am pretty happy, a bigger mesh dish or brand spanking new commercial solid would be nice

 

[tvropro]

I like the California Amplifiers. I personally have a commercial 40 degree C band unit on my BUD since 1989. Everything digital I throw at it works flawless. Since it's an older unit it also has the ability to reject out of band TI. In the newer units they removed the filtering. Norsat offers it as an option but it adds to the cost. Cal amp makes some very nice professional units today I have one on a clients system for a few years now and it works great.

Like Tdti said above if your into feed hunting and have a smaller dish. (mine is 12 foot) you may want to pop for a tighter unit as far as drift goes. Although if you can scrounge a good old Cal Amp commercial unit such as the cable companies used back in the late 80's to mid 90's you may find it plays right along with the best out there today.

 

[1captain]

I got several dishes up an running with all different feeds, but got to say out of all (chap co-rotor, Chap bullseye, bsc-621) I like the Chap bullsye the best, an you can gain a bunch of signal with 1 over a co-rotor.

Now on 1 of my bullseye have pair of 8515 an 4206a norsats, an it does a great job, on the other Bullseye have Cal Amps 20 degree c-bands an Galant .5 ku-band lnbs. an on the co-rotor have norsat PLL an Galant .5 lnb, now these Galants are for compt 2-way commercal satellite an have found them to be real stable, but costley, an they work great.

But if you score a 12ft I would go with a dual ortho feed, an will have more signal than any other type of feed that is offered out their.

 

[truckracer]

I had a bsc-621 dual band lnbf. It was not very satisfactory compared to my Chap Orthomode dual c dual ku feed. The corotor or ortho will be your best friend with cal amp or norsat lnbs.

I have a bsc-421 that is a great c-band only lnbf I had on my 7.5' mesh dish and it worked very well. Still not as well as a corotor or Ortho.

 

[tvropro]

As far as feeds go and you can set it up right the ADL feeds have the highest gain. I use a RP1 C ADL C-Band Single Polarity Feed with Servo

These are all the C band feeds they offer. C-Band ADL Feeds

Mike Kohl of Global communications http://www.global-cm.net/ Also says that you can't beat the ADL feed for gain and TI rejection. They have to be set up right though. Many think the corotor or polorotor are better because they don't set up an ADL right. If you search through the threads here Mike has some interesting things to say positive about the ADL's and setting them up right.

 

[truckracer]

The ADL RP's are the pinacle of feeds.
They are a little pricey however but well worth it.

 

[tvropro]

The ADL RP's are the pinacle of feeds.
They are a little pricey however but well worth it.

I had a Polorotor years ago and by some research and advice from big players in the field back in the day I switched to the ADL. From day one I noticed the difference in gain and sidelobe & TI rejection. I would never go back now. Kinda like going from a 4 cyl to a 427 Chevy

 

[truckracer]

In today's cars it would be like going from a 2.2L cavalier to a 6.2L ZR-1 vette LOL.
120Hp vs 630hp. LOL

 

[Cadsulfide]

Thanks for all the advice. Did a little checking on the web, those ADL feedhorns are a bit spendy for a poor working stiff, maybe one will fall out of the sky. Looks like the Chaperral Bullseye can be had with Norsats or Cal Amps for ~$200 or so. This is not to say I won't play with a corrotor if a bud turns up with one.

 

[ACRadio]

Norsat 8115's are a good mix of cost vs stability. Cal Amp Extended Pro II's are good also if found at a good price. I have both...

 

[tvropro]

Thanks for all the advice. Did a little checking on the web, those ADL feedhorns are a bit spendy for a poor working stiff, maybe one will fall out of the sky. Looks like the Chaperral Bullseye can be had with Norsats or Cal Amps for ~$200 or so. This is not to say I won't play with a corrotor if a bud turns up with one.

See if you can scrounge an ADL feed. Some of the guys here got them for nothing. I payed well over $100 back in the day for my RP1C. But then when I put up my 12 foot dish I only used the best on it. Back when I was younger cash was no object. As I got older responsibilities took the fun cash away that I had back then. I scrounged my 2 ku dishes and have a minimum amount in those installs. In C band equipment over the years I have over $7000.00 invested. Ku maybe $150.00.

 

[truckracer]

Right now, my orthomode Chaparall feedhorn has two DMSi BSC-211's on it. I am locking some pretty hard to get signals. G3 equity channels coming in strong @ 80-85% with no pixelization.

 

[Anole]

In today's cars it would be like going from a 2.2L cavalier to a 6.2L ZR-1 vette LOL.
120Hp vs 630hp. LOL

And on that scale, how would you rate your BSC-621? -

...I had a bsc-621 dual band lnbf. It was not very satisfactory...

 

[skysurfer]

c-band lnb, no doubt the Norsat 8115 for a LNB. Pulls in all those DVB-S2 signals across the arc as well as handles Trellis 8PSK signals well on my 10' solid dish. Other c-band LNBs I've tried (cal amp mini-mags among others) are not good enough to do the job on several of those tougher type signals to receive.

If you are into just DVB-S, mini-mags or most cheap asian LNBs should work fine as those are easy to receive.

 

[tvropro]

c-band lnb, no doubt the Norsat 8115 for a LNB. Pulls in all those DVB-S2 signals across the arc as well as handles Trellis 8PSK signals well on my 10' solid dish. Other c-band LNBs I've tried (cal amp mini-mags among others) are not good enough to do the job on several of those tougher type signals to receive.

If you are into just DVB-S, mini-mags or most cheap asian LNBs should work fine as those are easy to receive.

The Mini Mags were never very good for tight digital from what I heard. They were the beginning of the downsized cost cutting lnb's with stages missing in the circuitry.

My LNB is before the Mini mag and is like this design, except not PLL:

Vincor Limited - Earth Station Antenna and Satellite Communication Product Specialists

I have used these Cal Amp C-Band DRO LNB (Pro II) Vincor Limited - Earth Station Antenna and Satellite Communication Product Specialists for clients and had very good results.

More info is attached.

 

[emuman100]

Personally, my favorite is CalAmp and Norsat. I have three Norsat 8515 LNBs and I love them. I don't do those cheaper LNBFs anymore. I had a BSC621, but a Chaparral Dual output C band feedhorn and the Norsat 8515 LNBs work way better. I would have went with CalAmp or Norsat PLL LNBs, but the cost was double of what I got the Norsat 8515s for.

Jonathan