BBC and ITV in Costa Blanca Driving me MAD

[bignick]

One horizontal and three verticals,starting at the highest point on top of the dish,stretching down..

50/50 chance and I scr*wed it up .... storey of my life!!

Thanks for the info

Cheers

Nick

[bignick]

Ok, will take your advice and swap LNB tomorrow.
Signal is just on the threashold, occasional breakup, so hope that solves that problem.

Might be worth 'upgrading' to a Pace 2600C1 ... for this situation I think it will have a better effect.

nick

[thegadgitman]

One last thing. I had to buy a feed horn with the LNB as the dish did not come with one. I was given a feed horn with an outer diameter of 6cm on the receiving face. I have an option of a few larger outer diameters. Will this improve signal strength if I go larger on this dish ??

[thegadgitman]

Might be worth 'upgrading' to a Pace 2600C1 ... for this situation I think it will have a better effect.

nick

The 2600C1 is older than my DS430N. I was under the impression the DS430N was the best for weak signal areas.

[snap]

2600C1 has a small but significant advantage over the 430n. It can mean that a programme is watchable on the 2600, but not the 430n. The 2600 is slower on channel change and will show higher bars in the signal test screen, but that is just the way it was calibrated by Pace.
Can't answer your question on the feed horn,but someone who works with prime focus dishes may be able to.

[iceman]

One last thing. I had to buy a feed horn with the LNB as the dish did not come with one. I was given a feed horn with an outer diameter of 6cm on the receiving face. I have an option of a few larger outer diameters. Will this improve signal strength if I go larger on this dish ??

Go for the feed with larger diameter scallar rings.....even if it doesn't improve,it wont do any harm to the signal..

[thegadgitman]

Nearly done. What a Bas***d dish to fine tune. The feed horn mount was out. Had to pack one side of the feed horn 3mm to pull it back into the center, then hey presto a good signal. Still no signal on BBC2 though and a couple of the BBC1's. All other channels seem stable and we have heavy cloud cover at the moment. I am swapping the LNB for an Invacom Quad tomorrow morning so hopefully that will be the last thing to do.

Once again thank you all very much for your help.

[thegadgitman]

Ok have now got the quad Invacom LNB and have purchased a feed horn with a larger scalar rings. BINGO strong signal straight away. That did it.
It is the Invacom QDF-031

1 more thing. I now get everything I want but no BBC2, 3, 4 .

When I connect my dish to my Kaon receiver. I get all the low Vertical frequencies but non of the Horizontal. Also the same on my Pace receiver.

However the higher frequency H & V are perfect.

I now have a strong signal approx 80% signal and same on quality for the astra 2D Vertical signal. But all low H signals not there.

Really confused !!!!!

[hoppo1]

I install on the Costa Blanca as well. BBC2 is a pig to get, even with a 2.4M you will get it for probably a max 6 hours a day here.
I am up in Alzira, where are you?
Hoppo1

[snap]

I assume you've tried adjusting the skew whilst metering 10773H.
If still no signal, then that's the best this setup can give you.
The only thing now is a better dish. A good 1.8m offset would probably be better than what you currently are using.

[thegadgitman]

Thanks Hoppo1. Am in Benidorm. Have a good strong signal on the Verticals on 2D but seem to get Nothing on the Horizontals. Only on the low frequencies though. So I guess this is normal for arround here !!

[hoppo1]

With a 2.4 you should!! be able to get BBC1 & ITV's most of the day. BBC 2 is a pig to get and in Benidorm you will get it for maybe 4-8 hours a day.
With the Fortecstar dish though who knows?
Did the Qaud make a vast improvement by the way? I say they are better than the Twin but the wholesaler/installer i get them from swears blind the Twin is best.
Hoppo1

[iceman]

Did the Qaud make a vast improvement by the way? I say they are better than the Twin but the wholesaler/installer i get them from swears blind the Twin is best.

He probably has a good stock of twins he wants to get rid off

[hoppo1]

That & Sharps i think 'cause that's what he always wants to give me!!
Got a question for you Iceman... You say you put in a lot of 1.8M offset dishes (not doubting you of course) are you getting them at a good price (for good read cheap) and also what ones do you use.
Here on the Costa Blanca people just won't pay for the offset big dishes and always go for the prime focus dishes, for cost reasons.
Cheers Hoppo1

[wod]

you probably need a better quality dish such as andrews or prodelin with the matched feedhorn

[thegadgitman]

Since I changed the feedhorn and LNB I do get BBC and ITV untill about 11pm in Benidorm. Not a great problem as I go to work at 9pm. I did get the invacom Quad LNB and port 2 is by far the best I loose about 2% of the signal quality on the other ports. I also changed the feedhorn and this made a Great difference. So I have managed to get the Fortecstar dish working. Although as said before it was a pig to fine tune. Just changed recivers over to my Kaon as this works well on low signals, so maybe I may get another hour out of the dish on my nights off.

Still for the price I paid for everything I am quite happy, as it would have cost well over double if I had gone to an installer here. I also know others that have paid through the nose for their systems have been sold the same dish.

Some guys cashing in on the British tv viewers ! ! !

Once again thank to everyone here that helped me.

[lezb]

Thanks for an intresting read guys am on the blanca myself in Oliva must be one of the worst reception areas in Spain for the old BBC/ITV syndrome 2 months ago a client supplied a 1.8 offset and no matter what I tried not glimmer of a signal in the lower bands.The client changed it out * a place in Gandia for a prime foc us same size same price 330 euros did not even fix the base just used as a support to do a quick check with a rough alignment on my signal meter.Set * best signal set up skew little more than a guess went down and tuned in on my Illusion sat box and bingo up came the BBC/ITV channels that had alluded for best part of the previous day.Fixed down fine tuned and then hung on the clients Sky box scanned and I asked the client to let me know what time they lost BBC * night.22 hrs but changing to Channel Isles they retained a picture till after 23hrs.As for the offset not a clue as to the probs.Just my two penneth for what its worth.Again thanks to all that contributed I learned a lot.
lezb

[hoppo1]

What lnb did you have on the offset?

[lezb]

LNB INVACOM UNIVERSAL 0,3 dB.
EL ROLLS - ROYCE DE LOS LNBs

The gear was client supplied and the above was cut and paste from the wholesaler,s site 26 euros +itv.Just checked out the price of the offset again and noted that the price has been increased to 370 euros+iva some increase but hell its Christmas everyone jumps on the band waggon.Still the price of the prime focus has remained the same at 330 euros.thanks for your interest.
lezb

[pete_l]

OK THAT DID IT. Got an Invacom and feed and that sorted the problem. What a PIG of a dish to fine tune ! ! ! !

How I wish I had internet access at my place in Spain. I was out there at exactly
the same time, with the same dish you have (Fortec 2.4m). I took my Pace digibox
with me and spent many days over my 5 week stay trying desperately to get any
kind of reception.
The annoying thing was I also had a SS2 card in my PC. Using that I could see
signals from Sky One coming in peaking at about 11dB SNR, so I knew I was pointed at
the right place ..... but for the life of me I couldn't get a squeak out of BBC/ITV on it or
anything at all from the digibox - just continuous "no satellite signal" messages.

I was beginning to think, like you, that there was some sort of problem with my LNB
even though I had swapped the one that came with my Fortec dish for a known good 'un
I brought as a spare.

I'll also try the fishing line idea to check that the dish is square/focussed. I did notice
that tightening up the bolts holding the dish onto the mount gave me an extra 2dB SNR.

So here's the stupid question section of the posting.
Given that I should toss the generic LNB and get an Invacom C120 and a feedhorn,
are there any other things I should know before I go back out there in January?
(this is one of those "I don't know what I don't know" kind of situations)

any suggestions are gratefully received
Pete

[snap]

Make sure you get the Invacom adjustable feedhorn for prime focus dishes.
The big problem with the FortecStar dish you have is the setup process.
Mine came with really terrible instructions, with no indication of the sequence to use. The petals are very thin and bend under their own weight. The critical time is lifting the assembed petals onto the support frame. If you rest it at any point onto the ground, the petals will distort and the dish will never work properly. This is what happended to mine, it was probably my own fault. I thought I was getting a bargain, but it turned out nothing of the sort.

[iceman]

The big problem with the FortecStar dish you have is the setup process.
Mine came with really terrible instructions, with no indication of the sequence to use. The petals are very thin and bend under their own weight. The critical time is lifting the assembed petals onto the support frame. If you rest it at any point onto the ground, the petals will distort and the dish will never work properly. .

My advice is this....To avoid any distortion in the petals the dish must be assembled on the mount in a horizontal position,then lift the dish up to the correct angle when all the petals are in place and nuts/bolts tightened..
This way the weight distribution is even and prevents the petals bending out of shape from the weight of the dish..You will need a helping hand from someone for this method..
I have installed few of these dishes this way..

[pete_l]

Make sure you get the Invacom adjustable feedhorn for prime focus dishes.

Noted, thanks.

The big problem with the FortecStar dish you have is the setup process. Mine came with really terrible instructions, with no indication of the sequence to use.

Yes, I agree about the instructions. Since I was assembling it on my own I built the frame
frst then added the petals one at a time (making sure to add them so the whole mess
balanced) rather than building the dish and then attaching it. Getting some of the
bolt-holes to match up was a bit of a struggle. I also had some bolts left over afterwards
which was a bit worrying - the bill-of-materials listed the number I got, but I couldn't find
any spare holes to screw them into.

Pete

[thegadgitman]

The way I assembled the Fortec star 2.4 dish (And it was perfectly in line when finished) was to find a nice flat surface bigger than the dish and placed a cardboard box in the center. I placed each of the petal centers on the box and bolted them together, this held the center of the dish up as I was assembling and I did not get any distotrion and all petals fitted perfectly. Then I placed on the suport ring. Assambled the stand and had 2 people lift the dish into position while I bolted it onto the stand. At no time did the dish stand on its edge under its own weight. I then purchased a feed horn that has an outer diameter of 7.5cm on the scalar rings (I had a 5cm one before and that was a pig) and the 4 output Incacom c120 LNB (Much better then the single) and used output 2. I am using the Pace DS430N receiver and now have BBC and ITV (No BBC2 thought) till about 11pm back about 3.30am. This is great for me as I go to work 9pm till 2.30am anyway.

Total price of the setup was less than 500Euros. Which is great for this area as installers are charging well over 1100Euors here for the same thing.

But it is still a pig to tune. Even if you get a strong signal for something like Reality TV, this does not mean that BBC will come in straight away. There is a lot of fine tuning to do. It is like finding another satellite within another satellites signal. So a lot of fiddling is needed with the dish. Moving it just 2mm will lose the signal, it is that sensative.

Good luck to anyone else trying to set up a Fortec Star dish. ! ! ! ! !

[sat man]

Hi,
New to this thing etc.etc. BUT the bottom line in my experience is the dish. Without a shadow of doubt the Portuguese 2.4 M is the king when it comes to pulling in those 2D signals along with a Invacom twin, 2600 or 430N and decent quality cable too. I have worked on loads of other 2.4's over the years and apart from a channel master 2.4 offset (loads of money !!) no other dish really comes close.
Hope this helps.