Astra 2D Reception: Dish Size Survey

[oldfart]

I'm in Adeje, Tenerife using a 2.7 Laminas offset dish, a 3B Electronics quad LNB (don't blame me - it came with the dish) and a Humax Foxsat PVR. Have received a good range of freesat channels 24/7 over the past eight months or so but been having problems from about 21:30 for the past 4 weeks or so when signal quality drops to zero (except sometimes for Meridian South which remains just about watchable).

Here are some readings from the Humax taken today at 13:00.

Channel Strength % Quality %
BBC1 London 90 70
Channel 4 85 70
Meridian South 90 70
Five 85 70
ITV 4+1 90 70
More 4+1 85 70

Will be fitting a new quad LNB (Invacom C120 QDF-031) in the next couple of weeks to see if performance is improved.

I am just down the road from you - where did u get the dish??

 

[FRINGE]

Hi oldfart. The dish was supplied and installed by a local dealer in Las Americas (Miller Rental). You can contact them on XXXXXXXXX - ask for Mat. They did a good job for me and I have no complaints about their after sales service. If you want to install your own then I think that the dish came from Via Satelite S.L. in Los Cristianos. Maria there speaks good English. You can contact her on XXXXXXXXX. Hope this helps.


[fieldset=Admin]Telephone numbers removed for the owners protection[/fieldset]

 

[DishDick]

Would love to know what happened with the experiment Fringe was doing with a Laminas feedhorn and invacom LNB. Anyone got a Laminas with a Laminas Feedhorn? Big improvements?

 

[Auria]

Hi, I have little time here and I love your forum, here you have shown below the reception of Astra 2D 28.2 ° from Spain, I must say that the reception in Spain is "a mystery" because it does not correspond to the official map for Astra 2D 28.2 °, as well we can find a micro beam that is not official by Astra .

> Northern Spain (Cantabria Oriental, western Asturias, La Rioja and northeastern part of Castile and Leon) at least 90 cm dish.
> Northeast of Spain (Catalonia, Basque Country, Navarra, Aragon, Northern and Central) minimum 80cm dish.
North West of Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Castilla y León northwest) at least 100cm dish.
> Central Spain 1 (South Castilla y León, Aragón and southern Castilla La Mancha) minimum dish 1.35cm
> Central Spain 2 (Madrid and the provinces of Ávila, Segovia, west of Guadalajara, Cuenca and Toledo) minimum of 1.70 cm dish.
> West of Spain (Extremadura) 1.80cm dish minimum.
> East of Spain (Spanish Levante and Murcia) minimum dish 1.35cm
> Southern Spain 1 (Andalusia Cordoba, Seville and Cadiz west and east of Almería) minimum of 1.25 cm dish.
> Southern Spain 2 (east and west of Almería Cádiz) minimum 80cm dish. (In GIBRALTAR (UK) is a micro beam of Astra 2D 28.2 ° for the territory).
South West of Spain (Huelva) minimum of 1.35 cm dish.
South East of Spain (Almería, Granada and Jaen) from 130cm.


# Islands:
> Canary Islands good size from 250-300cm.
Balearic Islands from 100cm dish.

# Autonomous cities (in Morocco):
> Ceuta minimum of 1.20 cm dish.
> Melilla minimum dish 1.80cm

> For the British territory of Gibraltar, 80cm dish

# NOTE: Possibly, but certainly not , in bad weather or at night, the TP's Channel 4 and BBC4 may have pixellation that will be fixed by increasing the size dish.

A cordial greeting from Galicia, hope you liked this truthful information by me and sorry for my English.
Written by Auria.

 

[FRINGE]

Sorry to you all but got distracted on other things and never posted an update but here goes. Got the Invacom quad LNB (and the new feed horn from Laminas) about 12 months ago. Fitted both and had the dish alignment checked/adjusted by the original installation company at the same time. The results were excellent, even the chap doing the alignment said that he was amazed at the improvements. Compared to the original signal strength/quality readings in my earlier post, signal strength has remained much the same over the year but the quality readings have increased significantly and now match signal strength in the majority of cases. I know that these results/readings are relative to my setup and my components but is has proven to me that the money and time spent on upgrading the LNB and feed horn was well worth it. We now enjoy good UK Freesat TV 24/7. The late night loss/deterioration of signal quality at this time of year is still there but, because of the overall improvements, it has not interfered with our viewing and so far we have only seen pixilation during very bad weather (rain) and that’s not often in Tenerife, although it is throwing it down now as I write this!! So, as for the dish, LNB, feedhorn and Humax, I would recommend them all. Hope this helps.