My SAT-playground

RimaNTSS said:

OK, we've partied all day today View attachment 65193 . First of all ( I know many of you will hate this picture) we made fireplace for kids in guess out of what... View attachment 65191

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I almost crapped myself when I saw the fireplace... RimaNTSS you are in a league of your own!

look what I've got today:
-Manhattan stereo satellite receiver 7400 plus (not sure will I wish to use it);
-Dual band LNBF WP2353 for PFA;
- NTI AP8-TW Universal flange 0,6dB LNB for PFA;
- VECCOM C-band LNB LC1G9 17*k with pipe diameter only 50mm (inner);
- ALPS LNB single;
- some kind of electrical motor with reductor "д-12тф 2 серия", from soviet military times.

Did some wiring job over the weekend. First of all reconciled with fact that my balcony door will be opened all the times. For coaxial cable I could use (and I've already used them before) bendable coax-adapters, but there are no such things for power cable for antenna's motor. Secondly, I've got back my old good friend DM8k and I need more coax cables. Now there are 5 coax to feed twin tuner of GB_Quad and triple tuner of DM8k. Ind, I think there is going to be coax #6 for terrestrial antenna for DVB-T modules in both receivers.
T90 is more or less tuned to arc 31,5*E-8*W (not finished tuning) yet. Motorized one covering 31,5*E-12,58W.
With all that I would be able to watch something on TV screen and simultaneously record several channels and stream another ones. That is potentially, but, in reality, of cource, it is not the case.

RimaNTSS said:

Did some wiring job over the weekend. First of all reconciled with fact that my balcony door will be opened all the times. For coaxial cable I could use (and I've already used them before) bendable coax-adapters, but there are no such things for power cable for antenna's motor. Secondly, I've got back my old good friend DM8k and I need more coax cables. Now there are 5 coax to feed twin tuner of GB_Quad and triple tuner of DM8k. Ind, I think there is going to be coax #6 for terrestrial antenna for DVB-T modules in both receivers.
T90 is more or less tuned to arc 31,5*E-8*W (not finished tuning) yet. Motorized one covering 31,5*E-12,58W.
With all that I would be able to watch something on TV screen and simultaneously record several channels and stream another ones. That is potentially, but, in reality, of cource, it is not the case.

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I had a similar problem in my apartment in Helsinki but the (double) balcony door needs to shut in the winter! Luckily for me the frame is wooden so easy to drill through. Several coax cables for satellites, DVB-T, FM, plus web cams, thermometer and low power cables. I'm surprised the frame of my door hasn't fallen off with all the holes in it. ;)

Door is not mine, and real owner agreed that I drill only one hole, which is apparently not enough. Fortunately, winters are mild here and I can dust-tape gap from top to bottom even from both sides of the door, that should be enough, any way we need some ventilation

RimaNTSS said:

Door is not mine, and real owner agreed that I drill only one hole, which is apparently not enough. Fortunately, winters are mild here and I can dust-tape gap from top to bottom even from both sides of the door, that should be enough, any way we need some ventilation

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My balcony door is 22 floors up and facing the Baltic sea, so ventilation would be a problem when the autumn gales come in... Not sure the tape would hold if I had to do that. Even the small gaps between between the cables in the holes would sometimes whistle as the wind came in so I used bathroom silicon to make it air tight.

I finally got in touch with "my old good friend"- 1,8m Prodelin. Left it in this position and without LNB last November, what a shame!
Have idea to test on it subreflector from Gregorian-type antenna. I marked red place where focus of this antenna is located and green- approximate location of subreflector. Now my task is to move green dot and place over red. Ideally I should get better performance of system.

Will be very interesting to see what improvements you'll have out of this.

Got some INOX material today for making new feedarms for Prodelin. Those feedarms will be adjustable to hold single Ku or C-band LNB, multiply LNBs (multifeed) or to hold Gregory SUB.
And also, finally, original feedhorn married to new LNB.

Just an update on new, adjustable feedarms for Prodelin.

Picked up one dish today, it is 1,4m plastic one (on the ground). CJ will say: Penta! But it is not. Locally made. And they made them in sizes 90cm-1,2m-1,4m-1,6m-1,8m-and also bigger ones. Now I have first 3 models.

That's a very cool Mechano/Конструктор creation! Did you make it yourself?

Little by little and, of course, with some external help.

Installed new, adjustable feedarms. Found proper focus and tuned antenna to 28,2*E, this is with IBU (white label ). Also Fibo sub is ready to be installed, but will try it only next week. Going to scan all available frequencies from 28,2*E with IBU white and then red label, then will install original Prodelin feedhorn and again scan everything. At the very end will play with subreflector, and hopefully get better results.
CJ, idea is mine, material is partially mine, friend of mine did technical work.

Brilliant. Will be very interesting to see the results.

Hi!
Finally did some tests. However not so sure that all LNBs were adjusted perfectly to antenna (I think it is not possible at all, I mean, nothing is perfect). So, I used 7 LNBs:
- White-labeled IBU;
- Red-labeled IBU;
- Modified IBU, adopted to antenna with 70* illumination angle;
- Modified IBU, adopted to antenna with 90* illumination angle;
- "Gold" LNB, adopted to original Prodelin feedhorn;
- Invacom SNF-031 with Fibo feedhorn and subreflector;
- Octagon Twin with Fibo feedhorn and subreflector;
In parallel with my work on antenna, during last 3 days, guys were drilling 80m deep hole not far from antenna. I consider this activity as an obstacle. I've said them that I will not be angry if they break some apple tree but I will go bananas if they touch any of my dishes and they obeyed that. Another obstacle was my laptop, which started to bluescreen, annoying. Can use only Safe mode and Excel is not working.
So, I tuned antenna perfectly (I think) to 28,2* (not sure which exact position from 28,2* cluster, but I used frequency where they show Bloomberg. Then I put one by one LNBs in sequence I mentioned them. Not surprisingly, but it is not possible to fix LNB and get stable signal, usually it jumping up & down in margin of ~0,5 dB. Then I scanned all receivable frequencies, all 58 of them and put all data in spreadsheet, then calculated average signal in % to find out which LNB performs better. But my real goal was -install Fibo SUB to antenna and get positive results. Positive, in my case - better than usual offset antenna. By now I did not succeed as you can see from resulting table. Unfortunately I do not have available IBU adopted for Fibo feedhorn, if I had it, than results could be much better, I am positive about that.
But today winner is - Micro Twin LNB Gold Edition attached to original Prodelin feedhorn.
Will try to repeat all measurements by the end of July, if..... I have time.
That's all folks. Enjoying my vocation, working at home, drinking beer....
Rimants

That was actually what I suspected! Got IBU (red label) adopted to Fibo SUB, and results are much better than I had before on any of LNBs. Added last column to pdf file with new data. I will probably stick to this setup and try to tune to another satellites like 26*e and 7*w.
I think, now I can surely state that offset Prodelin performs better if SUB is added to it.

That... is amazing! Are sub reflector sizes the same for 90 and 120 versions? I don't want to take one off the 120 but when the time comes, one would be robbed from the 90 one.

CJ! As you probably know, there are some 90cm Fibos that have exactly the same subs 120cm Fibos have (usually with ears). And also there are 90cm Fibos that have little bit smaller subs, like this one I used those days. The hardest thing is to properly aline sub to not-fibo dish, ore you have weaker sighal.

RimaNTSS said:

That was actually what I suspected! Got IBU (red label) adopted to Fibo SUB, and results are much better than I had before on any of LNBs. Added last column to pdf file with new data. I will probably stick to this setup and try to tune to another satellites like 26*e and 7*w.
I think, now I can surely state that offset Prodelin performs better if SUB is added to it.
View attachment 66942 View attachment 66943

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Hmm, LNB pr0n.