Astra 2D in Sicily?..not yet.... :( but Im not giving up!!!

[iceman]

Hi Tony
I do not belive any feed horn will give you 2D if your dish is not in perfect geometrical shape...make sure it is......Have you stringed it?

Installing a multi reflector dish of this size requires some level of experience+skill...if a little mistake is done or overseen in assembly stage,dish will not perform at its expected capacity,u might have to dissasemble a few times to get it right...do not give up cos this might hapen to even the most experienced.

One other thing...do not take manufacturers quoted F/D to be %100 correct.
give it a few cm's +/- either way when testing...test your signal from different focal distances to determine best F/D.I prefer to do this on a weak
but receivable transponder.

I belive your 3.8 Patriot is capable of delivering from your location if it was set up accuretly.

iceman

 

[Zorba]

Zorba,
I spoke with Patriot in Portugal, they told me that all of their customers use this Feedhorn.
The Feedhorn is ADL-KU-855 and the mounting ring is ADL-OP-120MR.
Here its raining for the moment so I cant do much.
would it be possible to see the feedhorn do you use?
Ciao for now
Tony

Hi Tony,sorry I took so long,first i had to wait for a sunny day for taking the photos and working out how to upload.hope they come out okay.This set up is on a 3.8m andersen prime focus dish(4 piece)we get excellent results on bbc and itv and even hallmark.a neighbour up the road has the same setup but with the 3m version.bbc itv good but hallmark weakish.
As you can see,theres a black plastic lnb holder which can be loosened a bit to allow the feedhorn to be adjusted by twisting for the skew and focal length by sliding up and down.and the f/d ratio can be altered by turning the scalar ring(threaded screw type),clever don't you think?I can't remember the exact focal length at the moment but you go by the book then play around a bit for maximum performance.This is a good dish and I have compared the 3m andersen to the 3m patriot(not in the same area) and the andersen is better in my opinion.Good luck with yours though,hope we are all helping you.
Yiasou for now.
Zorba

 

[iceman]

very nice jpg's zorba :chc
one question...how do you compare the "white" Quad Invacom to the earlier "grey" versions..do you see any difference apart from the casing colour?

iceman

 

[Zorba]

very nice jpg's zorba :chc
one question...how do you compare the "white" Quad Invacom to the earlier "grey" versions..do you see any difference apart from the casing colour?

iceman

Personally,I prefer the grey ones but since the grey ones stopped a while back i have forgotten how much difference there was,maybe the latest white ones are better now.Last year was a good year with pace 2600 digiboxes and grey lnb's,this year its 3.8m and 4.2m dishes :elf
Ps has bbc gone a bit weaker lately ?

 

[iceman]

I had not so good results from the first produced whites ones,avoided them till now...becuse a friend had found some old grey ones in Athens for me..been using them but i am on the last two...will have to switch over to the whites soon,hope they are as good...
I've been reading about a new 0.3dB MTI Blueline LNBF..i am hoping MTI produce a decent C120 version soon.

Not noticed any signal change on BBC...i installed a 4.2 few days a go,all wa normal.


iceman

 

[Grande_Assiette]

Dear Iceman,

re Jonsa 4.2m

I would like to talk to you but I don't know how to contact you in Girne..

Am I welcome for a coffee & a chat? I *think* I found your tel number on a "TRNC" villa owners page but it doesn't work :-((

GA

 

[iceman]

*GA
You are most welcome for a coffeee & a chat...tried to mail you but seems like you have disabled your email function on this forum.
If you provide me a mail addy,i can send you my contact details.

iceman

 

[Grande_Assiette]

Hi Iceman,


My options in control panel is set to allow emails from the aministrator and all users - strange, huh?

anyway grande_assiette*yahoo.co.uk will find me

GA

*GA
You are most welcome for a coffeee & a chat...tried to mail you but seems like you have disabled your email function on this forum.
If you provide me a mail addy,i can send you my contact details.

iceman

 

[ynot62]

Happy new year to the forum and especially to everybody who has been helping me in the last months.
I didnt give up,
I will start again from monday.
We just had a break for christmas holidays.
Talk to you soon
Tony

 

[Old Satellite]

Happy new Year to you also , and it is great to see that you are continuing your efforts.

Is there any one close that could help Tony?

Best Regards

Old Satellite

 

[ralphmagno]

Hi Guys,
I am back..
I finally bought a 3.8 meter Patriot dish AZ-EL. We just finished to set the whole dish, the feedhorn and LNB.....result?...NOTHING!!!! No bloody Astra 2D or Astra 2B north beam..
I dont wanna give up cause I think we didnt do everything properly:
First thing is: Do we have to set the dish for best signal on the 11778V transborder?( which is I guess where the Sky EPG is? )
I received a feedhorn which probably is not the right one for my dish: It is a dual feedhorn and for what I can understand is made for Horizontal and vertical reception cause at the beginning is square..so what we did is we rounded it to make it universal.
The feed plate says is a C feed plate instead of Ku feed plate, but it seems ok.
I have an Invacom twin 0.3 db C120 and to set it with the feedhorn we had only one option as the others holes didnt match at all.
My decoder is a Panasonic 30.
The result of all this work is that I get a signal of about 85 % setting on 11.7787 V transborder which actually is the result of what I already receive on my 1.5 meter offset dish...
It seems probably a bit confused what I tried to explane but if anybody can give me any advice, I will try to be more precise.
thanks
Tony

hi wonder if bbc 1 and 2 and disney can be received with a 3 meter dish
have any info
thanks
ralph

 

[dave branson]

hi wonder if bbc 1 and 2 and disney can be received with a 3 meter dish
have any info
thanks
ralph

There are no reports, of reception of BBC,south of Rome.(except one known
by Old Satellite).
You will proberbly have the same problems,as Tony is at the moment.
Keep watching this thread.

 

[ynot62]

Hi Guys,
we did another try today....
Nothing yet
I will keep on trying
Bye for now
Tony

 

[ynot62]

To all the friends I found here in the last year..
Unfortunally I have no improvement..still nothing from Astra 2D..
I really think to give up, especially cause I cant find anyone here in sicily who has a bit of experience about big sized dish.
I am still convinced we are not capable to align the dish properly.
If anybody knows someone who lives not far from Sicily or could come by accident to visit me..I will really appreciate it..
Ciao for now
Tony

 

[fawad]

Hi tony ,

i read your problem 3 weeks ago , i was thinking u got successful,…., did you check high power RF energy source in your near field i.e. 100 watt transmitter, I suffer with it……ur receiver sudden signal quality variation indicates this.

I am not happy with your LNB feed horn mounting it is very difficult this system to keep LNB in center focused while moving in/out, try threaded screw type single point feed sliding / moving system, moreover did you check assembled dish parabola curve accuracy at least at 8 point,

 

[ynot62]

Hi Fawad,
for what I know there is nothing like that near where I live;
Everybody here in the forum is not happy with my LNB feedhorn mounting, and I am very surprised cause this has been supplied directly from Patriot; and about the difficulty to keep the LNB center focused while moving in/out I am thinking about something else.
I am still convinced we are not able to align the dish to Astra 2D;
We have a good LNB, perfectly focused into the center of the dish;
The focal distance is excatly what supplied by Patriot USA, 156.9 cms( I even tried 157.22 cms which I was told by Patriot in Portugal);
The skew is - 16.04°( more or less like 10.55 clockwise if you look at the dish);
We checked the assembled dish parabola curve accuracy and it is ok;
We calculated the AZ/ El.
And the result is that this 3.8 mt dish is working more or less like my other 1.5 mt dish: so something must be wrong...)
Cause honestly I dont think that we are not able to receive Astra 2D here in Sicily.
We decided to start everything from the beginning and see what happens.
Ciao for now

Tony

Hi tony ,

i read your problem 3 weeks ago , i was thinking u got successful,…., did you check high power RF energy source in your near field i.e. 100 watt transmitter, I suffer with it……ur receiver sudden signal quality variation indicates this.

I am not happy with your LNB feed horn mounting it is very difficult this system to keep LNB in center focused while moving in/out, try threaded screw type single point feed sliding / moving system, moreover did you check assembled dish parabola curve accuracy at least at 8 point,

 

[Likvid]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your feedhorn combo.

It's original ADL Ku-band feed that is designed for the correct f/d your dish uses, Patriot hasn't done anything wrong.

If your dish is installed correctly and the petals aligned correctly and you still don't get the Astra 2D signal then you need a larger dish.....

I still don't think the guy you have used know what he is doing.

What spectrum analyzer do you have? what is the measured C/N on 2D?

Do you get any carrier on 2D, even as low as 0.5dB......

If you know the C/N you get, then you can start planning on what to do, if you get like 5-6dB only then a larger dish can be a smart move.

If you get like 1-2dB and the dish is correctly aligned and everything is perfect, then you have to forget about 2D and be happy with what you can receive.

Maybe you could get slightly higher signal with a Seavey feed, however they are extremely expensive.

That could be your last resort if you don't want a larger dish.

When i used to work with these things ages ago i always suggested to buy the largest dish the customer could afford if they lived in a situation like yours......

It would be very interesting if you could supply a log from the Spectrum analyzer so we can see the signal levels in C/N.

Hi Fawad,
for what I know there is nothing like that near where I live;
Everybody here in the forum is not happy with my LNB feedhorn mounting, and I am very surprised cause this has been supplied directly from Patriot; and about the difficulty to keep the LNB center focused while moving in/out I am thinking about something else.
I am still convinced we are not able to align the dish to Astra 2D;
We have a good LNB, perfectly focused into the center of the dish;
The focal distance is excatly what supplied by Patriot USA, 156.9 cms( I even tried 157.22 cms which I was told by Patriot in Portugal);
The skew is - 16.04°( more or less like 10.55 clockwise if you look at the dish);
We checked the assembled dish parabola curve accuracy and it is ok;
We calculated the AZ/ El.
And the result is that this 3.8 mt dish is working more or less like my other 1.5 mt dish: so something must be wrong...)
Cause honestly I dont think that we are not able to receive Astra 2D here in Sicily.
We decided to start everything from the beginning and see what happens.
Ciao for now

Tony

 

[Likvid]

You need a real installer that has experience with large dish based installations.

How come Patriot can't supply a real installer for you? they should have engineering teams that travel around the world doing custom installations, it might cost you a bit but you get the dish maximized.

And the result is that this 3.8 mt dish is working more or less like my other 1.5 mt dish: so something must be wrong...)
Tony

 

[iceman]

I still don't think the guy you have used know what he is doing.

I agree with Likvid %100!!
Large dish installations (specially petalised ones) do need some experience..

 

[ynot62]

Likvid,
Nobody here in Sicily has experience about large dish installation as normally you can get everything with a 1.5 mt dish.
The guy I use has a good knownledge about installing sat dishes but never installed such a big dish like the one I have;
When I decided to buy the dish, I thought that a 3.8 mt Patriot would have been big enough for getting Astra 2D here in Sicily, watching at the unofficial footprints about Astra 2D which say that a 3 mt dish should have been enough: I mean maybe the guy is doing a good job but the dish is not big enough.
Next time we try again I will get some pictures of the log from the Spectrum analyzer so we can see the signal levels in C/N( what does it mean C/N just to be sure?) and I will tell you what Spectrum analyzer we use.
I already get Astra 2A (north and south beam) and Astra 2B ( only north beam) with an offset 1.5 mt dish; ie: I always found very strange that I cant get Astra 2B north beam when the official footprint says I should get it with a 1.2 mt.
Just today I have got an Invacom quad, maybe it is better then the twin one.
I used the SatLex website to calculate Az/El and skew:
Following values have been calculated for my location:

Latitude: 37.85° N (37° 51' 0") Azimuth angle: 159.52°
Longitude: 15.29° E (15° 17' 23") Elevation angle: 44.13°
City: [Taormina] LNB tilt (Skew): -16.04°
Country: Italy
Distance to satellite: 37477.04 Km
ignal delay: 249.85 ms (Uplink + Downlink)

Declination angle: -5.95°
Polarmount hour angle: 165.37°
Angle setting on motor: 14.63° East
Satellite: Astra 2A/2B/2D (28.2° E = 331.8° W)

I think this is all for now
Ciao
Tony

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your feedhorn combo.

It's original ADL Ku-band feed that is designed for the correct f/d your dish uses, Patriot hasn't done anything wrong.

If your dish is installed correctly and the petals aligned correctly and you still don't get the Astra 2D signal then you need a larger dish.....

I still don't think the guy you have used know what he is doing.

What spectrum analyzer do you have? what is the measured C/N on 2D?

Do you get any carrier on 2D, even as low as 0.5dB......

If you know the C/N you get, then you can start planning on what to do, if you get like 5-6dB only then a larger dish can be a smart move.

If you get like 1-2dB and the dish is correctly aligned and everything is perfect, then you have to forget about 2D and be happy with what you can receive.

Maybe you could get slightly higher signal with a Seavey feed, however they are extremely expensive.

That could be your last resort if you don't want a larger dish.

When i used to work with these things ages ago i always suggested to buy the largest dish the customer could afford if they lived in a situation like yours......

It would be very interesting if you could supply a log from the Spectrum analyzer so we can see the signal levels in C/N.