Dish identification please

[DishDick]

Sorry longpost,


A friend was sold this dish a number of years ago by some well known local rogues. I wonder if anyone has seen this dish type before?

Is it

A known make?
An early Laminas?
A knock off Laminas?
Some defunct make?

I spent two days trying to optimise the signal. First I noticed at the end of the day (after cooking in the sun) the gap between the two halves of the dish was quite large (between the bolts holding the halves together), therefore when dish was cool, I drilled and fitted two extra bolts between each existing bolts. I loosened the dish from the back bracket and packed it out where necessary as dish seemed to be slightly twisted. I was not able to refit the right hand middle support as the hole did not line up properly. It was possible to see a split in the dish where the bolt had previously been forced in.

I fitted an Invacom Black Ultra quad LNB and re aligned dish with my Rover STC. I got a good signal on the ITVs on 2D. Channel 4 and the BBCs were still terrible (BBC Scotland is apparently watchable 90% of the time), (CH4 not a problem as he has a HD box and gets CH4HD well). Surprisingly he now gets alot of the hard to get Eurobird stations such as True Movies and Racing UK (which he likes). He tells me he now has more channels than ever before and that the main channels BBC etc are the best they have been (four other fitters have tried before).

My questions are, does anyone know the potential performance of these dishes (ie in relation to the same size Laminas Dish) and do they have any fine tuning tips for these.

The dish it seems was assembled on site, then the holes for joining the two halves were made (as the residue from the drilling was there and had to be cleaned out by me to make a better join) also the metal bracket for the lnb where it joins the dish, it’s fitting was also drilled out, but I think they may have put the dish on upside down, as the dimples showing were the holes should be drilled are on the top of the dish. Either the manufacturer put marks top and bottom or this dish is upside down. If so would anything be gained in removing and placing the other way up?

Finally, I find the best way to get the most channels is to align onto CH4 at 10714 and when maximised adjust the arm slightly higher than the manufacturers position, this slightly reduces the signal on 2D but brings in the difficult to get Eurobird stations. As this dish gets these Eurobird stations, I wanted to try this in reverse, but there is no obvious way to adjust the arm down, any ideas anyone? Would like to get BBC and Filmfour etc better.

Thanks for any comments.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Looks better than a Laminas to be honest

Is it 2.4m in width, or bigger ?

 

[DishDick]

Hi its a 2.7m. Laminas make good dishes for the price, a 2.7 Laminas correctly installed gives much stronger signal than a 2.4m Channel Master.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Hi its a 2.6m. Laminas make good dishes for the price, a 2.6 Laminas correctly installed gives much stronger signal than a 2.4m Channel Master.

The first statement I would agree with. Anyhow the last Laminas I set up had the reflector split horizontally, rather than vertically, but I believe it was a 3m or 3.1m.

There was a time, long, long ago where a manufacturer supplied a rather well known wholesaler over here, number of two piece antennas of a similar design in a crate, but did not identify which reflector side went with which. As a result a number of customers received two left hand sides, and a similar number received two right hand sides. As you have redrilled to fit, could this be the issue ?

 

[sonnetpete]

It looks very similar to the Laminas 2.7M dish, which as CH has pointed out is split horizontally. You can have a look at the assembly manual here :

_http://www.laminas.com.pl/manuals/as2700mt_en.htm

If you look at the dish on their main site there's a view from the rear of the dish and it looks identical to me. I do think that the Laminas dishes are good value for money, certainly I'm pleased with mine. However, they aren't in the same league as Channel Master, Prodelin etc.

 

[DishDick]

Hi CH,

All Laminas Dishes I have seen of this size (meant to say 2.7) are split horizontally. I have only seen one other of this type and its on the local shopping centre roof which I cannot get access to, so do not know which bar it is feeding. With regard to your theory about the unlabelled dish halves, there are four dimples for the LNB arm, two on each half, so it is either upside down or it has dimples pressed top and bottom.

With regard to the other point, I do not know any 2.4m CM dish here that work on BBC and ITV (2D) at night with slightly bad weather, where as a well installed Laminas works with reasonably heavy rain (not bad downpours!). So for a dish that costs about 2 thirds or less of the CM thats pretty good.

Will probably be academic next year with 1N. Still internet speeds are increasing here so I will still have my UK TV, Astra 1N or not. There is a new company here streaming, with an excellent interface. The live pictures are great, the EPG is absolutely first class and it implements the catch up services seamlessly. I think the way things are going our hobby will be gone in 5 to 10 years (apart from the feed hunters). Whether we like it or not I think internet TV will be the way forward.

 

[smiffie]

Will probably be academic next year with 1N.

Might be worth investing in a "Klaus Schumacher's 8M Dish"