digibox for other than 28,2

anton

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I don't know much about the technicalities of satellite reception hence my two maybe silly questions but help will be appreciated.

I only became interested in DSat to be able to receive English main terrestrial channels from my place (Central Europe).
For this I bought and installed a Pace digibox with an FTV card , a 90 cm dish and a single LNB, pointed it at 28,2 E and have been watching what's there for about 2 years now.
I now discovered that there are other things out there which I might like to watch, especially at 1W and 30W. After reading a little on this forum I discovered that the way to go about it is buy a twin (or quad LN:cool: (I don't want to go for motorised dish), further I found out that the satellites shouldn't be more than 45 degrees apart if to be caught on a single dish.
So I decided now to buy a second dish on which to watch these two (1W and 30W) (I will leave the first set-up untouched for 28,2)
Questions:
1)Can I get these two with another 90 cm dish and a twin LNB?
2) I noticed that the SR ( I have no idea what SR is but I know how to set it in Manual tuning option)for some of the channels I am after on the new satellites are e.g. 26 000 or 28 120 whereas my digibox only offers 22 500 or 27 500. Does this mean I cannot receive this on my digibox and would have to buy another digital receiver?

Thanks for any advice
 

Razor

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It might be best to leave your 28.2e setup alone.

Also a twin lnb on another dish will not pick up two birds, for that you need a monoblock lnb which will get two birds but only if they are 6degrees apart.IE. 19e+13e or 1w+7w. You can have two or more lnb's on one dish, have seen one 1m with 3 lnb's 13..19..28 and all seemed to work well.

Not too sure if you could get 1w plus 30w might need more than 90cm dish.
And as someone with more brains then me once said...It's over to you ROLFW.

BTW if the sr is other then 22000 or 27500 the digibox will not get it.
 

anton

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Thanks a lot Razor

Just as I feared about the SR, and I am not so keen to be buying another receiver.
-still , if I settled for getting only what comes with 22 or 27,5 can I connect the second dish to the digibox (how?) and will this work OK, without interference ?(and can I control it all through the digibox remote albeit cumbersome through Other Channels etc. ?)
(as I imagine now there would be two signals coming down to the box, possibly three if I put two single LNBs on the second dish ?)

-as for two (or more) LNBs on one dish, how does it work, are they to be positioned each at a different angle, pointing (with their back) at the respective satellites?
 

Razor

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Try this, a second dish pointed at, 13e and run the cable down but leave it hanging at the back of your digibox. When you want to see stuff from 13e just disconnect the 28e cable and plug in your 13e. You can then use the ADD channels to store up to 50 hotbird channels as most use 22000 27500. Look up Lyngsat to find all the frequencies and use your remote to put them manually. After a while you can always move this second dish to 19e or add a second lnb for 19e. Be careful if you get bitten by the sat bug you will end up buying a new receiver as the digibox just will not satisfy.
 

rolfw

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I think that you've covered all of the existing options Razor, an A+B switch could be used to switch between the two satellites. As you've said though, whilst the Sky Digibox is great for Sky, it behaves indifferently on any other satellites, with a tendency to lose saved transponder settings when reset.

I would be inclined to just do as Razor has suggested at the moment and set up a second dish with a switch between the two.

When you've got fed up with that, which you will, :) then you can look at a separate receiver for the other satellites and perhaps a small motor, they can be very unobtrusive and really make a big difference.
 

anton

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All right, thank you both, still, for a while Razor I thought you were trying to wind me up with that swapping of hanging cables idea- it just didn't sound the most high-tech of options.
The sat bug has been trying to bite me for some time now, but while I am interested in 30W for some of the FTA Spanish channels because I speak the language some (are they any good btw ?) I try to deliberately limit my options by avoiding the motor as I don't have that much time to watch TV anyway.
(We will see who wins (-|-))

Further, can you please educate me re my second question :
''as for two (or more) LNBs on one dish, how does it work, are they to be positioned each at a different angle, pointing (with their back) at the respective satellites?'' and can I pull in 1W and 30W this way ?
Thanks again
 

rolfw

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You can pull in 1W and 30W on one dish, but probably not on a standard dish, you will need something like the torroidal dish which is designed to pull in multiple satellites, they are quite expensive though.

For two fairly close together satellites, you can use an offset arm, but it reall only works for about 12 degrees difference.

With regard to the quality of the offerings FTA on Hispasat, they are pretty poor, but probably enough to hone language skills.
 

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I have a different problem now. As my second setup was meant to be with a large dish,
I have been trying to find a 3m dish to buy (prime focus) but while at it I ran into expressions like ‘feedhorn’ and ‘feed interface’
Now, I didn’t have to worry about these in my original setup- there was just the dish and the LNB, and as I understand it, feedhorn (as well as polarizer) were integrated in the LNB.
So is it the case with larger dishes that they come separately and is this an option or a must?
( and I am talking Ku-band all the time)

I planned to use for LNB the famous and recommended AP-8 TW but with it having no horn ’it has to be fitted to a C 120 flange feed horn’ (was quoting from somewhere)
So could I use the AP 8 –T2 with 40 mm neck (and which presumably contains the feed already) instead and make it simpler and cheaper for me?
Also, the dish I have my eye on gives among the specs data the following: feed interface WR 75
Does this relate to the C 120 flange in any way?
Thanks anybody
 

Razor

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Anton, your mad, a 3m dish, and only a digibox at the other of the cable. Take the money you might spend on this dish and buy yourself a nice secondhand receiver and a 90cm or 1m offset dish.

Keep it cheap and have fun for a while.

If you must however have this big dish, I'm sure Rolfw or CH will know about this feedhorn problem.
 

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anton said:
The sat bug has been trying to bite me for some time now, but while I am interested in 30W for some of the FTA Spanish channels because I speak the language some (are they any good btw ?)
You might be able to watch Euronews with a Spanish soundtrack using your existing set-up. Euronews from 28°E has multi-language audio. You just choose Spanish as your preferred language in the Digibox services set-up and it should switch automatically on Euronews. Channels without Spanish will default to English or whatever.
 

rolfw

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You would be wasting your time with the 3 metre dish if feeding it into a digibox as Razor says.

If you go the 3 metre route, you will only get proper results with a proper receiver and a matched feedhorn for your dish.

A good quality dish of that size is very expensive, but you could of course pick up some C-Band traffic as well (if C-Band LNB installed.
 

anton

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@Razor
''Anton, your mad, a 3m dish, and only a digibox at the other of the cable''
Well, my previous questions concerning 1w &30W were meant to find a new use for my current 90 cm dish, while the only really important question for me is: ''2D or not 2D? '' so do I really have an option...
And precisely because it looks like I will be spending my life savings on a 3m I would like to cut the cost elsewhere. At least I want to TRY the digibox first, then if has to be I will be back here asking you for suggestions for a proper receiver.

@easysat
Thanks for the Spanish audio on Euronews tip

@rolfw
''If you go the 3 metre route, you will only get proper results with a proper receiver and a matched feedhorn for your dish.''
Ok , I do want to get proper results, but I was surprised to see that a matched feedhorn was much more expensive than complete LNBs I had known before (and which contained the feedhorn already as I understand it)
Maybe I am getting it wrong so if you could teach me re my previous questions
i.e. these:
I planned to use for LNB the famous and recommended AP-8 TW but with it having no horn ’it has to be fitted to a C 120 flange feed horn’ (was quoting from somewhere)
So could I use the AP 8 –T2 with 40 mm neck (and which presumably contains the feed already) instead and make it simpler and cheaper for me?
Also, the dish I have my eye on gives among the specs data the following: feed interface WR 75
Does this relate to the C 120 flange in any way?

Or point me to somewhere I can read up on the subject
Thanks
 

rolfw

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The WR 75 uses a slightly different interface, but there are converters available, so that you can use the C120 LNB. The LNBF (the one with integral feed) would work, just not anywhere near as well as the dedicated feed.

Have you got a link or spec for the dish, it would be interesting to see
 

anton

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rolfw said:
The LNBF (the one with integral feed) would work, just not anywhere near as well as the dedicated feed.

Is it always the rule?
To the dedicated feed (ADL) I was planning to buy the MTI AP8-TW anyway
(everybody going on about how it is the best for fringe reception)
and now I found two other LNBFs -AP8 TWF resp. AP8 T2 FE which are both dedicated in a way (in that they are both proclaimed as PRIME FOCUS)
Pricewise the LNBFs work out better than a separate feed + LNB, moreover logic tells they eliminate the risk of bad feed/LNB compatibility.

Or should I (as an amateur) try not to be clever about it, forget the cost side of it (performance being paramount) and get a dedicated feed AND a 'dedicated' LNB (if such exists)

And where is the polarizer in this? - I hope already in one of the two- so it doesn't get even more complicated.
Cheers
 

rolfw

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Forget the polariser, the Universal LNb body will have its own.

On any dish over say 1.2 metres, the dedicated feed, the one designed to achieve the very best dish illumination by the maunufacturer, will outperform a non dedicated LNBF on every occasion.

There really is no point in spending hundreds of pounds on a big dish and then using an incompatible feed.

The MTI and Invacom are both available as C120 versions, but also bear in mind that some digiboxes are better than others for fringe reception.
 
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