My tiny Hispa dish (through window!)

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Well spotted! It's still around, just out of shot. I've been playing around with a signal meter so took the step of moving it off the window sill.

The meter seems pretty good on Hispasat but it gets overloaded on the eastern satellites. It can sniff out a signal on Hotbird even when you think you're on Sirius and when it peaks on 8w you have to move it away from the strongest signal or you get 5w swamping it!

I get the feeling these aren't meant for fine tuning!

kamaleon

indeed, the best is to use them along a laptop with a skystar usb like I

spiney

Well, my dish is through window too, but only 40cm Sky minidish with standard lnb, so mainly astra2/1 Hotbird, can get a few transponders other sats too ...... but I've got enough to watch already, and there's also lots of trees, so I don't bother much.

Window glass is a supercooled liquid, with no crystalline or other "long range" structure, so in theory ought to pass everything up to about 25 Ghz with no problems. But actual results vary, presumably due to various impurities added for all sorts of different reasons.

I've got a choice of 2 windows. One is 50 years old, a single pane with added "secondary glazing", results are poor on that with hi band attenuation. The other window is a modern sealed unit, which is fine. Could it be that older type window glass is usually worse, for some reason?

kamaleon

Say skip, do you think a multifeed on a 45cm technisat like yours would be any good? I've seen some around on Ebay, i wonder how they perform...

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Well, I'm in impressed with the results I get with the dish upside down and looking through double glazing! I'd imagine the reception outside and right-way-up would be pretty amazing. Over the summer I might try it out at my parents' place as they have a nice south facing garden and are used to my dish exploits!

I know the dish is up to doing a good job, and I know my Smart Titanium LNB is doing a grand job, but - I have no idea what Technisat's Multytenne LNB is like. Although obviously it's designed for the dish whereas my LNB isn't.

It would be good if someone in the UK or outside of Germany gave it a go and could share with us their findings but I guess most of these sell in and around Germany because of the choice of Astra 3 as one of the four satellites.

Back to the dish itself, mine is currently pointing at 13e and is getting most transponders with ease. All the TPS ones are good ATM, Sky Italia are all nice and strong (shame I can only watch the FTA!) but about 5 not coming in at all and a further 5-10 breaking up or coming in only at certain times.

kamaleon

Great report skip

i've checked better and indeed those multifeed lnb are proprietary and i don't really know if one could get multifeed with regular lnbs on that dish

so do you reckon it performs a lot better than the porty? They're supposed to be both 45cm though. what do you reckon?

Skip Channel

It definately performs better than the Porty, but it is definately bigger. I think the width and height are about the same but the Technisat is nearly square so diagonal to diagonal is obviously gonna be bigger. The Porty also has either the LNB arm obscuring the bottom part of the dish or part of the bottom not illunminating the LNB. On the Technisat the arm is seperate from the dish.

marcaaron20

I am moving house and the property iIm moving into will only allow me 2 have 1 SKY minidish installed outside for my SKY Digital receiver which my Dad is subscribed to... I have an 80cm dish, a Technomate receiver and a Porty receiver (with a 30cm dish), my room window will be facing south (if I have me barings right), will I be able to have either 1 of me dishes facing through the window??

If its possible.. will It be possible to receive Astra satellites and/or Hotbird??

kamaleon

Bollox! i justed waisted an opportunity to score a cheap 45cm technisat yesterday on Ebay should have consulted Skip earlier

kamaleon

Could you post the exact measures skip? Are you shure this dish has a broader reflecting surface/higher gain than the porty? could you explain why you reckon the porty's arm darkens the reception?

Skip Channel

45.5cm (width) x 48.5cm (height) and 55cm (diagonal)

I'd say they're pretty much right. I measured from the front of the dish and only the parts illuminating the LNB (ie not the flared bits around the edge - if you know what I mean!)

I'm guessing that the Porty's arm darkens reception as the are comes out of the dish face, whereas the Technisat's arm isn't attached to the dish face at all (it's well and truly underneath).

Skip Channel

Who knows!

Is there an existing Sky minidish at the new place? Have they (whoever it is whose rules you have to follow) explicitedly said that you can only have a Sky minidish? Could you not put up a 60cm dish instead? They're not all that much bigger and in my neck of the woods and with decent LNBs you'd easily get 13e, 19e and 28e.

PS try not to use 2 as a replacement for 'to' as it just confuses things. Remember not everyone speaks english as a first language.

kamaleon

right, i understand now.
So overall higher gain for the digi?
What i really *love* about the porty is it's easy bolt adjustment... you just can't get anything simpler to tweak and search for sats

Skip Channel

Yeah, the Porty is well designed for indoor reception - even if they never intended it to be used this way. And of course those of you that have balconies - which is kind of one of the things they were designed for!

Personally I don't like the Porty outside. I've set up my sister's one in their garden and I don't trust it to stay in one postition. The least bit of wind or the kids next door with their football and it'll have shifted (FWIW it's attached to a LARGE ceramic plant pot - ie the plant pot aint's going anywhere!)

Now, if they made the Porty a little bit bigger - and more squared it'd make a better indoor dish! They'd probably be a good market for them in a place like Iran - they have to hide their dishes there as it's illegal to own one!

kamaleon

Just a little hi to prevent a great thread from dying out and ask skip what he thinks of a digidish 33

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I'd love to try out a Digidish 33 (if I were given one!)

I don't think it'd be all that great indoors even with a quality LNB and expert alignment. Outdoors though, in southern England, I reckon they'd be pretty good reception on the usual suspects (19e, 28e, much of 13e, 5w etc).

Maybe if Technisat, Sateuropa, Wotsat or TeleSatellite want to give me a call!

kamaleon

there's currently a few ones on Ebay...

Skip Channel

I'm not spending another penny on non essentials at the moment - I would like to go on holiday this year!

kamaleon

i thought minidishes were a priority on your life (nah just kiddin - plannin to go somewhere nice?)

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I'm thinking about Madrid, Valencia and Seville although I really like the look of Bilbao (and wouldn't mind going to Lisbon again).

I'm thinking it's best if I stick to places with Castillian Spanish to help with the little Spanish I've been learning!

It's all got to be done with as little money as humanly possible In the mean time I can watch Hispasat! I wonder if RTP or SIC are gonna show any of the summer festivals, Rock in Rio - Lisboa looks like it'll be good.

Skip Channel

This little "Hispa" dish (with Smart Titanium LNB and spare Fortec Ultimate) accompanied me to my parents' this last week as it was simply too hot in my flat - no fan, no AC and no balcony and no garden!!!

I got great reception indoors with Hispa (the window is almost 30 degrees west!) but as there's not all that much on Hispa ATM I decided to swing 'round to Hotbird (I wanted to keep up with the situation in M.E.)

I soon found out that the dish would be at too much of an angle to get anything at 13e unless I put the dish outside. I didn't really want to attach it outside (even though I could) so I just opened the window! Even with the window open the sides of the dish clearly wouldn't be getting any signal as there's too much frame in the way but... I got all transponders perfectly bar one - the SCPC one with the 'm2' channel on it.

I'm guessing that with an LNB as good as the Titanium and a tuner as sensitive as the Ultimate's, a dish of 30cm could do a good enough job of picking up Hotbird (and on some transponders have a bit of rain margin!) in much of southern England.

FWIW, I won't be going to Spain now - I got cheap tickets to NYC (and accommodation at a friend's!!) so couldn't really afford to do both!