It's really not about the forum members being unwilling to give you answers.
It's really about that this can be complicated stuff to get your head around, and there is a learning curve to get this in place.
A sat antenna is not another stick in the air - there's some basic theory that you need to appreciate to be able to do what you want.
If you don't find that appealing, hire a professional sat installer.
But for your benefit (and in the spirit of the forum), here's:
--- A quick intro to satellite reception ---
Sat TV is broadcast from geo-stationary sattelites.
They are situated along the path of one specific orbit aruond the globe roughly 22.000 miles above the equator.
See wikipedia.org for more info on geostationary orbits if this is not clear.
The satellites are spaced suitably along this orbital path in regular intervals so they don't interfere with one another.
Each satellite appear to be stationary in the sky at one single point.
The antenna used to receive the signal must be "pointed" at that single specific point.
This is why all Sky dishes are point to the exact same spot in the sky.
As you are on the surface of the earth, you can only see the bit that is "on your side of the planet".
This translates to a theoretical 140 degree view.
In other words, you can't see the US sats, or the Chinese ones, as they are on the other side of the planet. Literally.
But because the signals are incredibly weak (coming from 22.000 miles away), you need some sort of amplifier to receive them.
For satellite antennas, the actual receiving antenna is the LNB, and the amplifier is the parabolic reflector.
The LNB *has* to be in the focal point of the parabolic reflector, otherwise the parabolic reflector has no effect.
See wikipedia.org on parabolic reflectors if this is not clear.
For strong signals, most residential sat tv can get away with a 60 cm dish.
The weaker the signal, the more amplification you need, the larger the reflector.
Some satellites limit the beam to avoid rights issues for transmission of tv.
A French operator sending tv to French subscribers may require the satellite to mechanically narrow the beam to make the signal very weak outside France.
Same thing happens to Freesat / Sky for the signal outside the UK.
This is why we foreigners have monster dishes to receive UK tv.
I'm sure there are beam-shaping tutorials out there somewhere on the net.
To receive signals from more than one satellite, you ideally need multiple antenna systems, pointing at each of the satellites you wish to receive.
That's a lot of antennas.
Instead, a good compromise is one antenna system that can be rotated along the same axis as the geo-stationary orbit, allowing the antenna to be "pointed" selectively at each sat along the path.
The downside of this is the time required to physically move the antenna system.
An alternative is to use a multi-focus dish.
This support multiple LNBs, so that many different sat positions (e.g. up to 4 or 8) can be received.
As the LNBs are fixed, switching between them are almost instantaneously.
The trick of multi-focus dishes is to focus the amplification of the reflector in a horizontal lines, instead of a point.
This allows the LNB to be positioned along this horizontal line, so that multiple satellite positions can be received.
But the trick also means that a 90cm multi-focus does not focus as well as a 90cm single focus.
So the benefit of instant switching comes at the price of less amplification.
I'm sure there are more multi-focus tutorials out there.
You can even wrangle multiple LNBs onto a single-focus dish, such as the Gibertinis.
Any parabolic reflector still provide some amplification even if the LNB is out of focus.
The problem is that the focal point has turned into a diffuse focal cloud.
Only strong signals can come through, especially the further you move a side-mounted LNB away from the focus of the antenna system.
So a single Gibertini will NOT provide you with a wide view of the Geo-stationary arc.
--- end of Quick intro ---
Recommendation:
- If you want it for free you have to do it yourself. This is not something to blag on a sunday afternoon - this requires new skills and experimentation to get right.
- As you clearly have no clue of what you would like to receive, you should take this as a journey, not as a wham-bam-thank-you-mam installation. Start simple, you can always expand.
- Start with a cheap multi-focus dish, and try aligning it for 13E, 19.2E, 26E. This is likely to give you thousands and thousands of channels, in English, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Farsi and many other languages
- If you want full British tv, forget it on normal sized antenna reflectors. You will need 4m+ sizes. Cheaper to go IPTV.
- Realistically, you coud get very far with a multifocus dish such as a T-90 w. 8 LNBs + a 8-1 DiSEqC switch. Later you can add a single, large, motorised dish (say, a 150cm), if you really want to play around.
If this all still leaves you quizzed, consider picking up playing chess.
Will be a lot easier to get started on, and will require less cash.
, laminas do dish and polar mount
