Astra 2F: Iberia & Balearics Discussion

[Analoguesat]

Its unlikely a 1.3m dish will be big enough for 2F in the Granada area. That whole area seems to be in a deep null as far as 2F UK beam signal strengths are concerned. Unfortunately there havent been enough reports for the Granada area for us to advise with any certainty atm.

 

[Pedro0102]

Acuario, what feed horn are you using? There are a few different ones for that dish and some are a lot better than others. The adjustable ones are about the worst in my experience, and the latest Famaval one about the best.

Is it the same for the dish with the extension petals?
I thought that the Invacom would work better in that case. The F/D ratio decreases when the petals are installed and the Famaval feedhorn is the same as for the 2.3m case. So, I suppose it is not anymore adapted to the antenna.
I'm thinking to upgrade to a 3.1m Famaval dish to try my luck in Lisbon with the 2F. I was thinking to buy the Invacom feedhorn but if you tell that the original Famaval is giving better results I will stick to that one...

 

[robt23]

I arrived in Loja about 38km west of Granada Southern Spain .yesterday with my shiny new Satcatcher Mk4 Nit,
Set up the Gibbertini 1.25 no signal on the foxsats from 2f,
I tested with the meter today dBuv of 62.5 but no quality, cber, vber or c/n, so I put up the Gibbertini !.5 this improved 1n channels but virtually the same on 2f both with Inverto Black Pro Octo this is about 5 years old.

I also tested on my small motorised 1 mtrwith new Black Ultra Quad same result apart from dBuv increased to 70.

I will over the next few days try the Ultra on the large dishes and report back.

Nml

Hi Nml,

I am very curious as to find out the results of your test with the 1.25 ( in particular ) using that Black Ultra Quad. That setup is practically the ame as mine , minus the Gibertini. Your location is very close to mine as I am in Granada itself.

On the install try locking on 1N and then moving the setup 0.06 degrees west and lower very , very slightly the inclination. I don`t have an exact figure for the lowering as I heard this from a source - worth a try !

Thanks.

 

[Analoguesat]

The inclination thing is a dead herring. Lowering a dish will only make matters WORSE on weak signals!

An inclined satellite wobbles up and down off the satellite arc in an elongated figure-8 over 24 hours. Look at this extreme example of AMC-14 which is 15 degrees inclined and used for USA war machine comms in Afghanistan and the Gulf

www.n2yo.com/?s=32708

The mid point where the paths cross is the main orbital arc.

Astra 2F being new is not inclined at all.

 

[robt23]

The possibility still exists for the 0.06 degree very slight shift to the west.

I am so very impatient as to how Nml is doing with that inverto and his Gibertini .

It`s like waiting for the lottery numbers or when you were a youngster the night before christmas ! :-bigsmile

 

[Analoguesat]

Your average hobby level dish cannot possibly be set up to an accuracy of 0.06 degrees. It will probably flex more than that in a good gale....

And chances are it'll move about that amount just when you tighten the bolts up

Easy way to try it anyway - just stick you fingers behind the west edge of the dish and push gently to move it east.

 

[robt23]

Yep, you are right on that. I am grasping at straws here . I think that is something most of us can try assuming easy access to the dish, which I have ( It`s in my garden ).

 

[Huevos]

Hi Nml,

I am very curious as to find out the results of your test with the 1.25 ( in particular ) using that Black Ultra Quad. That setup is practically the ame as mine , minus the Gibertini. Your location is very close to mine as I am in Granada itself.

On the install try locking on 1N and then moving the setup 0.06 degrees west and lower very , very slightly the inclination. I don`t have an exact figure for the lowering as I heard this from a source - worth a try !

Thanks.

The possibility still exists for the 0.06 degree very slight shift to the west.

I am so very impatient as to how Nml is doing with that inverto and his Gibertini .

Can we try to keep this thread factual, not fantasy. Changing an LNB or realigning a small dish is not going to pick up the 1m or so of extra dish face that is going to be required for reception in that location.

 

[Analoguesat]

To be honest I think a considerably bigger dish is the answer. Just how big is hard to say, 1.5 or 1.8m maybe??? However in extreme fringe reception cases things can change over a few km so even if place a gets a signal on a particular dish / receiver setup theres no guarantee it will work in the next town over with exactly the same set up.

You could try adjusting the lnb, but I very much doubt it will have any effect as theres just not enough signal there in the first place.

 

[Huevos]

The F/D ratio decreases when the petals are installed and the Famaval feedhorn is the same as for the 2.3m case.

All that stuff is just icing. If you can't get the signal up the feed horn due to bore size, adjusting the scalar ring depth isn't going to help. My guess is the Famaval feedhorn has been designed with a bias to lower frequencies.

 

[Nagusia]

Hi Nagusia,

As you may have seen from my previous posting I'm also in the San Sebastian area and completely lucked out with the 80cm dish. So, if you do change to a larger dish can you be so kind as to post what (minimum?) works for you. I REALLY do not want to go back to watching Spanish/Basque TV more than I have to, ie once a month, once the BBC changes sat. Ta.

Located in the Basque Country just south of San Sebastian @ 43.186929, -2.052548, yesterday I installed a new 1 metre dish (ALCAD PF-100 (100x110) with an Inverto single black ultra LNB. With cloudless skies I got the following results as measured on a a program called ProgFinder using a Tevii S660 USB receiver plugged into a PC.

S Q
10964H 84 42%
10994V 84 34%
11023H 0 0
11052H 84 45%
11126V 82 40%

Five and C4 HD and the ITV channels all worked fine when watched using ProgDVB, a PC based program. The not-so-good news is that no channel was watchable using my Freesat box, despite showing 40% quality on the diagnostics screen. However, this morning (again cloudless skies) these F2 channels are all working fine with 50% quality on the Freesat box. I use a Satlook Lite device to align the dish, For the 10964H transponder I get 9.2dB for signal noise ratio and 7.2e-05 (i.e. about 50%) for bit error rate. For 11126V I get 8.9dB and 7.6e-05. Both readings done inside the house with a about 20 metres of cable from the dish.

To be honest, I was in a bit of a rush and might possibly be able to fine-tune the alignment a bit. That said, the Freesat box doesn't seem to be as sensitive as the USB Tevii device which is a bit disappointing. I think that the 110 offset dish is about a far as I can go for a rooftop installation, and in any case, up here in the north of Spain it seems quite difficult to get hold of anything bigger.

I am a bit puzzled why I can't lock onto the BBC HD test channels on 11023H. The Satook Lite shows that there is something there on the spectrum but won't lock onto the signal because it's not DVB-S2 prepared. The Tevii is, but I'm not getting anything on ProgFinder, or progDVB (both to be recommended BTW although I find Windows 7 Media Center works perfectly, which is just as well as perhaps in the future I will have to go back to using it).

 

[davidcmadrid]

Nagusia TDTprofessional .com in the south seem reasonable and the shipping on larger dishes is quite cheap.

 

[Nagusia]

Nagusia TDTprofessional .com in the south seem reasonable and the shipping on larger dishes is quite cheap.

Thanks for that. I've checked it out and a 125 cm Gibertini would cost about 200 euros all in. As others in the north have discovered there is considerable drop off in signal quality in the afternoon. It goes down to about 32% - the FOXSAT HDR won't even lock on to that though I can still get channel five on the Tevii. Not sure why this should happen - I've read there can be a slight figure-of-eight effect because the satellite isn't exactly over the equator. Hopefully a bit a tweaking might fix this - if not I'll probably wait to see what happens with Astra 2E reception before forking out on a Gibertini.

 

[Analoguesat]

I've read there can be a slight figure-of-eight effect because the satellite isn't exactly over the equator.

The figure of 8 only really applies to old satellites that are operating in what is called inclined orbit - the north/south station keeping is stopped and the bird starts drifting north south in a gradually increasing figure 8.

Astra 2F is a new bird and is as close to stable as any satellite will be.

However all geostationary satellites will drift a little - they wander around due to gravitational effects in in a box about 50 miles square and every few days a puff of fuel will send them back towards the centre of their operational box.

 

[davidcmadrid]

Thanks for that. I've checked it out and a 125 cm Gibertini would cost about 200 euros all in.

For the same more or less you can get the FTE 150 steel dish its actually 160 x 150 , provided you can mount a good support its a good solid dish , i bought one and we tested the focus etc on it , the installer a professional here in Madrid reckoned it had a sharper focus point than the 125 Gib. He claimed with that particular gibertini you could pull or push the lnb by a few cms without noting a change in the dbs. I think the attraction of the Gibertini is its weight for motorizing but a fixed dish i guess weight doesnt matter so much , but I am blending what two long term installers here in Madrid have said both in forums and to me in person whilst i was finalizing the equipment which i bought from TDT ( who were professional at all times )

 

[nml]

Can you post a spectrum image from the Satcatcher showing both satellites. Even just a grab with a mobile phone camera would be good.

Satcatcher shows C/N down to about 3dB so well below what is required for lock if not showing anything.

Hi Huevos sorry for the delay in reply, had to go away for a few days. I have attached 2 spectrum photographs sorry for the quality because of reflecton, that's the problem with bright sunshine late afternoon.
I have attached them anyway and will take some better quality within the next couple of days, I will also change the lnb because last time I had the 1.5 up I was getting 100% signal and quality on the foxsat now only getting 85% signal

 

[Andy_Madrid]

@ davidcmadrid

FYI / Records ('cos you sound interested in this sort of stuff)

a new neighbour of mine (fellow brit from Newcastle, taking the toll of brits to 3 out of 20 - like eldorado) has moved into our urbanizacion, and i noticed he was putting his dish up (corner house). he has a Tecatel 120 offset (or 110 correct measurement?) and this was mounted on a wall, using a large L bracket, with the dish touching the wall on its edge it was so close. it looks far to close, but he is adament it will be OK - he says he used it in his old house in Paracuellos (10km away) and it worked day and night.

so, this would be a positive reading for a 110 or 120 (whatever we call them) in Madrid.

 

[davidcmadrid]

Andy ,

My 160x150 is a few cms from the wall as I had to turn it off center , id say it has 4cms clearance. I had a bigger bracket but the installer insists its not important and the proximity has no bearing on Performance. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1quJ4hEtvw1YVZFWE1xclozZXc/edit

edited : sorry to post off topic ,back to my best behaviour

 

[Analoguesat]

The Lisbon report from last week is now negative for a 2.3m dish.

 

[Huevos]

@Davidcmadrid
As long as it is pointing away from the wall it doesn't matter how close it is. The only time it is a problem is if part of the dish can't see the satellite because the wall is in the way.

@nml
Put the Black Ultra on the 1.5m and spend some time getting it right. 10773 H is a good transponder to align on because it has signal either side from 30.5E and 26E. Once you get the best C/N possible aligning the dish spend some time playing with the skew and LNB depth. On mine I put a stainless steel stressor down to the LNB arm and it picked up a lot of signal (dish is pretty flexible). Once you have it as near to perfect as you can, make a note of the C/N. Now go back to the spectrum screen and make a note of the signal level on 10773H and 10964H. With those 3 numbers you can easily work out what dish size you need for 2F.