Just Sharing This AV-Comm Polariser + Zinwell lnbf

Trust

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Wow , John , very nice couple .
 

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Great job Johnny boy..I wish I was retired!,
 

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Great job Johnny boy..I wish I was retired!,

All good things come to those who wait Christopher 'me boy ... you ain't got that long to wait anyway lol.
 

moonbase

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I like the big'un, looks very classy, if it's big it must be good.
 

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I like the big'un, looks very classy, if it's big it must be good.


It needed to be done D, with the servo cables & trim pots coming out of the one side and 12 volt supply jack on the other side of the original etc it looked a bit untidy to the eye.
I was just browsing in our local Maplins when i spotted that case, so dismantled the original, re-located the pcb so that the trim pots were at the back of the case along with the lnb F socket, 12v supply jack & servo cable out, put a switch / led on the front to control the incoming 12volt supply.
Kept me busy for a day or so as boredom was beginning to set in due to the depressing state of the weather outdoors that was stopping activities out there lol.
 
Last edited:

s-band

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When I was playing with the Fortec 2.4, I had no success with the Zinwell LNB and couldn't work out why. I ran a few noise figure & gain tests with the Zinwell compared against a Tit, Norsat & Chaparral. The NF was better than the Tit but not as good as the Norsat or Chaparral. However, there was something a bit strange that I put down to local interference. So the next step was to check the phase noise. Hardly needed, I could see the problem feet away. The LO appears to be injection locking an oscillation in the front end or vice versa. Curiously, the local oscillator can be stopped altogether with some input terminations. It does it on V & H.

The attached shows the IF output with a strong input signal and the 5150ish muck that comes out of the input guide. It's ******. Not surprising that no TV transponders would lock whilst I could still see something from the beacons.
 

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John

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When I was playing with the Fortec 2.4, I had no success with the Zinwell LNB and couldn't work out why. I ran a few noise figure & gain tests with the Zinwell compared against a Tit, Norsat & Chaparral. The NF was better than the Tit but not as good as the Norsat or Chaparral. However, there was something a bit strange that I put down to local interference. So the next step was to check the phase noise. Hardly needed, I could see the problem feet away. The LO appears to be injection locking an oscillation in the front end or vice versa. Curiously, the local oscillator can be stopped altogether with some input terminations. It does it on V & H.

The attached shows the IF output with a strong input signal and the 5150ish muck that comes out of the input guide. It's ******. Not surprising that no TV transponders would lock whilst I could still see something from the beacons.



I'll stick to mending my little indicator lights i think G.:D
Are you saying the Zins got you beat G ? .... surely not.
Cast your mind back a bit, what Cband lnbf was that little pcb circuit you built that switched LOF's of 5150 to 5750 by either 11v or 18v ?, was it on the Zinwell ?, do you think anything like that could be implemented on a Zinwell ?.
 

s-band

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I'll stick to mending my little indicator lights i think G.:D
Are you saying the Zins got you beat G ? .... surely not.
Cast your mind back a bit, what Cband lnbf was that little pcb circuit you built that switched LOF's of 5150 to 5750 by either 11v or 18v ?, was it on the Zinwell ?, do you think anything like that could be implemented on a Zinwell ?.
It was DoA I guess they won't send a new one?
The PCB is part of a butchered Titanium. I suppose the Z could be modified to be an LNA and used with the down-converter from the Tit but it depends where the instability lies. I don't have the will to re-engineer it. Too many other things to do, both sat related and otherwise.
 

moonbase

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It was DoA I guess they won't send a new one...


s-band,

There's nothing to be lost in asking AV-COMM for a replacement, after all, we did purchase 5 of them between us and it was a reasonable size order. They probably hold them as a stock item.

If you want to borrow mine for a couple of weeks for testing then you are very welcome, let me know and I will stick it in the post? I tested it briefly on a dish several weeks back and it was getting signals OK although I did not use it much. In the preliminary tests I did, it performed a little better than a Titanium, both directly in the C Band LNB holder and not using the polariser barrel.


Rgds
 

John

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s-band,

There's nothing to be lost in asking AV-COMM for a replacement, after all, we did purchase 5 of them between us and it was a reasonable size order. They probably hold them as a stock item.

If you want to borrow mine for a couple of weeks for testing then you are very welcome, let me know and I will stick it in the post? I tested it briefly on a dish several weeks back and it was getting signals OK although I did not use it much. In the preliminary tests I did, it performed a little better than a Titanium, both directly in the C Band LNB holder and not using the polariser barrel.


Rgds



One of my jobs for today was to email Gary @ AV-Comm to see what we can do about it, will report back.
 

s-band

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MB, thanks. I think it may be a one off, there's no way that a LNB could be used for TV or much else in that condition. It would be interesting to try another one. The NF was OKish and as long as none of the spikes hit the measurement frequency the spurious shouldn't affect it too much.
Thanks also, John
PM sent.
 

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Are these Zinwells available from anywhere other than Australia?
 

moonbase

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Are these Zinwells available from anywhere other than Australia?


CJ,

They were listed on eBay from USA sellers last time I checked but the postage is often not cheap and you could get hit for taxes.

Rgds
 

John

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CJ,

They were listed on eBay from USA sellers last time I checked but the postage is often not cheap and you could get hit for taxes.

Rgds



That's correct MB, i had one from the States just after the one from Aus and it worked out more expensive.
Knowbody in Europe seems to sell them.
 

John

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One of my jobs for today was to email Gary @ AV-Comm to see what we can do about it, will report back.



... The ball is rolling
 

moonbase

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Here is the link to the eBay listing for the "Zinnies"
C Band Dual Polarity LNBF for Satellite TV Dish ZINWELL LNB | eBay
If anyone is interested in a spare, we could ask about a mini multi buy to see if it saves on postage?


Update:
I sent a message to the seller of the "Zinnies" via eBay asking about multiple purchases. They replied saying that as it was shipped via the Global Shipping program the quickest way to find out was to place a test order to get the cost and then cancel the order before payment.

For a test order of 5 "Zinnies" the costs were as listed below:
5 x LNB = $148.75
Shipping - $17.15
Import Tax = $37.75

Total cost of 5 "Zinnies" shipped to UK, import taxes paid = $202.65 or whatever that converts to GBP via the PayPal exchange rate. Its approximately £33 per unit.


Rgds
 

Channel Hopper

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If there is a multibuy going ahead, then for the price mentioned (+/-15% ) I would be interested in two of them.
 

moonbase

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If there is a multibuy going ahead, then for the price mentioned (+/-15% ) I would be interested in two of them.


CH,

I could do with one or two spare. I will give it a few days to see if any of the other "Barrel Men" want to add to the list then I will check the numbers and get a final price.


Any other "Barrel Men" want to add to the possibility of some spare "Zinnies"?


Rgds
 
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