Any experience of the Squarial Flat Plate Antenna?

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Dallas

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Does any have any experience, good or bad, of the "SQUARIAL FLAT PLATE" ANTENNA. I live in a B Listed building and I had a 60cm dish patio mounted in the garden to receive Sky and it looked awful :( Couldn't successfully hide the bugger and the neighbour about had a heart attack when he seen it. So, I was thinking about giving the 54cm Flat Plate a go without the patio mount and trying some of mother natures camouflage aka potted plants :)
 
rolfw

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Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
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[updated:LAST EDITED ON 01-May-02 AT 10:21 PM (GMT)]The Squarial as it was known was the old BSB antenna, now defunct and next to useless. There are a number of compact flat face antenna around, but beware that camoflaging the face may severely affect the performance, they receive signal through the dish surface, not reflected off it like the standard dish.

Ther are some other compact dishes around such as the Arcon Sweety and I guess that you could camoflage that. There's nothing to stop you painting a standard minidish, I've done some and they can be concealed very well.

Rolf
 
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Dallas

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Thanks. The Squarial I was thinking about ordering to get Sky is
http://www.satalogue.com/section4/page0.htm. Any comments?
 
rolfw

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Hmmm, £125, that's a lot of money for a dish, but it is quite cute. Interesting to know what type of paint you can use for the camoflage, it obviously can't be metal based. I would still look at a second hand minidish, it would probably be just as discreet as that one.

Rolf
 
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Dallas

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Hi Rolf, thanks for all the advice :) I agree £125 is a lot of money for a dish but I don't think I have a choice, primarily because of my location. I live in Edinburgh, Scotland and I've been told that the Sky mini dish won't cut it north of the border. What I need is the smallest dish possible which can receive Sky. I know I'm going to have to pay a premium. Do you think the ARCON SWEETY 43 would be good enough or do you have any other suggestions? Maybe I should just try a second hand mini dish and see how it goes? -- Dallas.
 
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The signal in scotland is excluding the upper most highlands generally 52 db on Astra 2A,B,C, just the same as the rest of the UK.

Do you have any signal obstuctions in the path?

You can also check the satdox web site - check around your local area for standard sky dishes.?
If you wish you can also use the satmaster software (you can down load a copy) to check out the C/N Ratio with the flat plate.

The old BSB dishes also had a typical 1.1 -1.3 db lnb not the best when you are trying to recieve on a small dish! the other problem is they do not cover the Astra 28.2 east sky digital frequency range from 10.90MHZ through 12.480MHZ.

The 54cm Flat Plate with the conditions that you have are excluding the cost perhaps the best and safest option. but check out the roofs off others local first.

old satellite
 
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