Receiving Astra 2D and Astra 1 with 1 Dish

[xerxes]

Has anyone had any experience with using a "Wavefrontier Toroidal 90" dish to receive both Astra 2D (the BBC actually) and Astra 1 ( for German TV)?

Should I believe the Munich Sat-Shop, which swore blind that this pretty expensive dish (€209 + mountings) was exactly what I needed?

I'm having doubts as I have since read in the Internet that the "Wavefront Torodial 90" is the equivalant of several 90 cm dishes. I live about 40 kms SE of Munich, and believe I would normally require a 100cm dish to pick up the BBC on 2D.

[rolfw]

From a personal standpoint Xerxes, I would go for a good quality 1m or 1.2m dish and add a secondary LNb for Astra 19.2, then you can at least guarantee your 2D reception, for two satellite reception the Wavefrontier is borderline on 2D and really not necessary for 19.2E.

[xerxes]

Thanks rolfw - I think you're right about not going for the Wavefrontier, considering where I live.

But do you think I could really receive Astra 1 with a 100 cm dish pointing exactly at 2D? - would certainly be a good solution if it were possible. (Numerous reports from the Munich area all suggest that 100 cms is perfectly adequate to receive the BBC here).

I've already got an 85 cm dish on the side of my house's balcony, pointing at Astra 1, with one of those girly 45 cm black mesh jobs next to it for receiving Sky. Bit concerned if I replace the 45 cm dish with a 100 cm dish and leave the 85 cms the neighbours are going to start thinking the CIA have moved in. Not to mention a major problem - having to convince the wife ...

Xerxes

[rolfw]

LOL, you could always lose the 85 cm, the 45 should just about be OK for Astra 19.2, try it and see. The 1m should be OK for 2D, certainly according to reports, a good LNB like the Invacom will certainly help you along your way. A channel master or similar 1.2m dish with a matched feed and Invacom should guarantee it.

[xerxes]

Had thought about this, actually. But a problem here is I'm currently using a twin LNB with the 85 cms to feed not only my Astra 1 receiver in the living room, but also my son's receiver in his bedroom. Doesn't look to me as if you can fix a twin LNB on the 45 cms. Is it in fact possible to do this - do you know if you can get a twin LNB to fit the 45 cms?

Xerxes

[rolfw]

If the 45cm is a Sky minidish then yes you can get a twin for it, but just as easy to get a 9 degree offset bracket and bolt your existing twin onto your new 1/1.2m dish.

[xerxes]

I'll try out your suggestion - down with the 85 cms and 45 cm Sky dish, and up with a 100 cm Gibertini + Multifeed holder with 2 lnbs, and see how it all works out.

All I have to do now is order the bits and join the back of the 2 - 3 week queue for the sat-dish installer - installers with 2D experience seem to be rarer than hen's teeth here. Got a feeling I'll still end up trying to explain to him in German what "skew" is.

I'll report back in a couple of weeks (after July 14th 2003), one way or another, to let you know if I really am able to receive 2D (BBC) and Astra 1 (German TV) with a single 100 cm dish and 2 lnbs.

Many thanks for you help, rolfw

Xerxes

[rolfw]

You're not going to try and do it yourself then Xerxes? It isn't really that difficult and you already have an idea of where the dish should point.

[xerxes]

Funny you should suggest this, rolfw, because my experience with local sat-installers hasn't been the best up until now - can't help feeling the ones I've had contact with would have been happier riding across the Wild West firing their 6-guns. They certainly would have made less holes in my balcony, that's for sure.

It had already occurred to me that the main difference between me and an installer is that an installer has got a digital-signal strength meter, and I haven't. I certainly know what to do, and how to do it (no sniggering there in the back, please) but do you think I could lock onto the BBC signal without a meter? It seems to me with a meter it should be pretty easy, but pretty difficult without.

Interesting idea, though. My dishes are about 3 metres off the ground, and easily accessible. I'd have a reference with the Sky mini-dish, which I could leave up until the 100 cms was installed. I could get some sort of measurement of the signal "quality" by changing my digibox-receiver default signal to the BBC.

I have seen very simple meters advertised for about €30. Would you think that such a meter would be better than nothing, or a waste of money?

Xerxes

[rolfw]

The 30 Euro meter would certainly help, but at the end of the day is is the quality reading which really makes the difference, if you can arrange it so that you can see a portable TV with the manual tuning menu on the digibox it should work. You just have to remember that everything is delayed by a second or so.

There may be a couple of members from the Munich area who can help out with a meter or expertise. Perhaps we ought to get together like the pilgrims did in the early American settlement days, but instead of barn building, dish mounting.

[PoloMint]

The wonderful thing about satellites is that if you have a go yourself and can’t find the satellite/signals you want, provided you don’t drop the dish or fall off a ladder you haven’t wasted or damaged anything except a few hours.

I would certainly also recommend trying it yourself, if installers where you are are anything like some of the ones at home in Spain (and they certainly sound like it) then they won’t be any better than that a keen novice with patience. In fact in many cases they are worse.

There are dozens of ‘how to guides’ for satellite installs without meters or with only the digibox meter, but this one http://homepage.ntlworld.com/de.sullivan/ seems to be very popular. Okey it’s simplistic and written for a minidish in a caravan but the principles (which you probably already know anyway) are the same. It won’t help you offsetting the second LNB but once you find one signal you will have the confidence/knowledge to experiment.

Hope this helps and good luck.

[Old Fred]

@xerxes

Tut mir leidt. Ich hatte es nicht bemerkt, dass Du in Muenchen wohntest!

The Astra 2D signal is poor around Munich. Friends of mine there are using a 1.2m dish with an LNB supplied by Bavariasat. So I suggest you use a dish at least that size if you want to be sure of receiving BBC/ITV etc. The prime LNB will have to be aligned for 28.2'E. Hopefully 19.2'E and 13'E should be strong enough to be received by LNBs at one side, although finding a dish and suitable bracket might be a pain.

BTW, the boss and the installer at Bavariasat are both English. In fact the only German the installer knows is "zwei Bier, bitte!"

Fred

[xerxes]

There may be a couple of members from the Munich area who can help out with a meter or expertise. Perhaps we ought to get together like the pilgrims did in the early American settlement days, but instead of barn building, dish mounting.

So are we all agreed then? - it's all back to my place on Saturday to get everything working. I'll provide the beer

Hang on a moment, rolfw's in southern England, PoloMint's in Spain, and Old Fred's in North Yorkshire. This might not be as easy as I first thought ...

Looks as if I really am going to have to do this myself.

I thought I'd have a sort of a practice run before I go for the Big Dish.

Thought first I'll get a digital LNB (an MTI AP8-T2B).
Connect it up to the 85 cm dish in place of the analogue twin.
Then use PoloMint's D-I-Y guide to try to pick up Astra 2, using my son's TV as monitor (I wouldn't expect any problems there as I'm bigger and older than he is).

With 85 cms I might just be able to get Astra 2D if the weather conditions are right, though not tremendously optimistic . Gives me a chance to brush up on my lnb-skewing technique, though.

I'll post the results of how I get on.

By the way, old Fred (or may I call you Alt Friedrich?) I actually live about 40 kms south east of Munich. I can see that a 120 cm dish has got a big advantage, namely it's huge surface area. Unfortunately it's also got a big disadvantage - namely it's huge surface area.

I don't know, some people are never happy ...

Xerxes

[Tom34]

Here in Munich (trudering) I can get 2D on a 80cm (or is it 85? can't remember, tape measurement is 81cm) dish, but only 2 or 3 drops of rain on the LNB and BBC is gone. Dish is centered on Astra 2, 2nd LNB is for 19.2E (no reception problems) and 3rd LNB for Hotbird (wide beam is okay until it starts raining, narrow beam signals are too weak). You should be able to get all 3 birds with a 1m dish, but if a 1.2m dish is no problem, go for it.

[xerxes]

Thanks for that most interesting information, Tom34.

I'm wondering if you get such good results with an 80 cm dish if I could survive with my 85 cms, being on almost exactly the same longtitude as you, and 40 odd kms further south.

It's clear a bigger dish would be better, but I'd certainly be prepared to live with something smaller, even if meant losing the Beeb in bad weather.

As it is, at the moment I lose everything with my 45 cm Sky dish when it snows or rains heavily, for up to 15 minutes at a time sometimes. This really isn't as bad as you might think - I personally would be prepared to pay a premium to receive fewer Sky channels. Just think, no more Friendly TV, no more Avago, direcelling or US God channels, to name but a few of many. Mmmmmm ..... fewer channels .....

My dish is a bit bigger than yours - it's a Technisat Satman 85, measuring 90 cms x 80 cms.

I've got a multifeed lnb holder for it, which I originally used to receive Astra 1 and Eutelsat. These days I'm only interested in Astras 1 and 2.

You couldn't let me know what make of dish you've got could you, and details of your lnb holder?

Xerxes

[rolfw]

LNB wise Xerxes, you may consider looking at the Invacom, certainly if you are sticking with the existing dish, they have gained a big following of late, may also be worth Tom34 considering trying one to save some of those bad weather dropouts.

[xerxes]

You referred in one of your earlier postings, rolfw, to a dish with a "matched feed" and Invacom lnb. What exactly is a "matched feed", and do I need one?

Having had a quick look around various internet sites, I see that a typical price from German sites for an Invacom lnb 40 is about €33 - ie about 23 pounds, compared to typically 39 pounds from English sites.

Perhaps we should be considering going into the export / import business ...

Xerxes

[rolfw]

They probably came from here to start off with

It would certainly appear that we almost pay an equivalent of £s to Euros on a lot of Sat gear, most of the ones I've seen have been around £35.

It tends to be for the 1.2m dishes and above that you can get a matched feed, then you bolt the LNB onto it, some high quality smaller dishes also have matched feeds.

[Tom34]

LNB wise Xerxes, you may consider looking at the Invacom, certainly if you are sticking with the existing dish, they have gained a big following of late, may also be worth Tom34 considering trying one to save some of those bad weather dropouts.

A Twin-Invacom is in the planning, along with a 1m Gibertini (55€, is that a good price?) but I'll wait until BBC is really FTA.
I'm also thinking of getting a rotor, to be able to get SABC on 68.5°E, but is there any rotor on the market that covers the area from 70°E to let’s say 30°W?
The Diseqc motors I’ve seen so far were 60E/60W and some 70E/70W.
My suspicion is that those 70E/70W are theoretical figures, but maybe one of you knows more about that?

[rolfw]

The E and W parameters are from your local Due south position, so if you are 11degrees east, then you should achieve 50W to 70E with a 60 x 60 degree motor, assuming of course a clear line of sight.

[Tom34]

Thanks for that most interesting information, Tom34.

You couldn't let me know what make of dish you've got could you, and details of your lnb holder?

Xerxes

I've got a Zehnder dish, the 28° LNB is centered on the arm, the holder for 19°E consists of 2 Alu-brackets on a Alu-strip (see pic), positioning for Astra 1 is not so critical...
I used the original multifeed holder to attach the 13° LNB to the 19° LNB. That's one of the reasons why Hotbird reception is not good.

Aligning the dish on 28.2E is very critical, a few millimeters make the difference between clear picture and a distorted picture (sound breaks and pixels) My dish is placed in the garden, so adjusting is relatively easy (as well as me bumping into it with the lawnmower ) and I can wipe off the water from my LNB if necessary, which may be a bit difficult for you (3 meters above ground).
Using my Skybox's (Panasonic) reception meter didn't work well, it's reacting too slow...

[Tom34]

The E and W parameters are from your local Due south position, so if you are 11degrees east, then you should achieve 50W to 70E with a 60 x 60 degree motor, assuming of course a clear line of sight.

Oh, I didn't think of that 11°E.... clear line of sight is no problem, unless the neighbor decides to open his big umbrella, but he rarely does that at night

[xband]

I'm located in the north eastern part of Switzerland, on the lake of Constance and I'm too interested in a setup with Astra 2D, Astra 1 and Hotbird. I decided to use a Gibertini 125cm dish with Multifeed.
Can anyone of you tell me how far apart the LNB holders have to be placed on the Multifeed holder?

Thanks
XBand

[xerxes]

A Twin-Invacom is in the planning, along with a 1m Gibertini (55€, is that a good price?) but I'll wait until BBC is really FTA.

Skimming through "Infosat" (the rather densely written German Sat-Mag) I see there are several adverts for 0.3 db Invacom twins, for about €55.

Gibertini 100 dishes seem to be priced at about €65 and upwards. The cheapest I've seen them is on Ebay .de, for €55 + €9 postage - new.

Ebay had also got quite an interesting selection of multifeed holders, from €12 to €20. With the biggest, they claimed you could receive signals from 28.2° E to 5° W with an 85cm dish. Looked a bit frail though.

Is there anything to watch out for when mounting a fairly large multi-feed holder, or is it really as easy as it looks?

Talking about mounting things, I'm wondering how to mount a 100 cm dish on the side of my balcony, which is made of wood, and runs right round the house.

It would be nice if I could use the same 30 mm fitting as my 85 cm dish, but should I be going for something stronger?

My wife seems to think I should go the extra mile, to prevent the dish from crashing down on her whilst she's partaking of the traditional "Kaffee und Küchen" (coffee and cake) in the garden.

If I am to pander to her every whim I can imagine it might be better to attach the dish to a sort of mini-mast, fixed top and bottom to the balcony with the fixing points being about 60 cms apart. Anyone got any views?


Xerxes

[rolfw]

A photo of the balcony would help Xerxes.