Dish upgrade?

Captain Jack

Retired human
My Satellite Setup
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My Location
North Somerset
Hello,

I currently have a Penta 85 dish with which I am very happy with. However, I do have problems obtaining some of the weaker satellites, namely Amos 4W, 16E, some HD channels on 1W and occasionally 5E. Amos is barely visible with occasional blips of colours on some Ukrainian channel. 16E is OK but some channels break up even in good weather. Viasat on 5E is good the majority of the time, unless it's raining quite hard, when some horizontal channels may break up occasionally. I'd go as far as to say that 5E is stronger than 16E at my location, but I am not too bothered about that at the moment, because a) a new satellite is going up there and b) I think my satellite list is set to drive the dish to 16E rather than 15.8E - haven't played with this. On 1W, I have issues with some HD channels, such as Canal+ First HD, which is unwatchable most of the time.

The Penta is aligned spot on - no amount of tweaking results in a better signal on 1W.

Sooooo, I am wondering if I can just upgrade my dish to something more potent. I think a 1.2m dish is far to big to go in my garden corner and the dishes over 1m are rather expensive. I used to have a 1.25m Gibby which was the best dish I've had, but wondered whether the likes of 1m Gibby or perhaps a TD110 will improve matters over Penta 85?

My biggest interest is Amos for Ukrainian channels but that may be pushing it with a 1m dish as it was almost on the limit with my old Gibby 1.25m in West Wiltshire, which is further east and south than my current location...

Anyone have any direct experiences of comparison between Penta 85 and Gibby 1m/TD110?
 
Captain Jack said:
...I think my satellite list is set to drive the dish to 16E rather than 15.8E - haven't played with this.


You can change the satellite location so it drives to 15.8e, this may improve signal.

The Gibertini will perform excellent with a decent LNb and spot on alignment.
 
I bought a TD110 recently to receive the weaker Astra 3A transponders on 23.5E, everyone said I needed a 1.2M but so far its working ok so I was surprised and it seems to perform very well for the money (mine was about £60 from memory from online shop).
 
Guys,

Can I use a "hard core" DiSEqC motor to drive a Channel Master 1.2m dish or is it too heavy? It's impractical for me to run another cable to drive a Jack motor...

If not, what about a 1m one?

CJ
 
you cant use a diseqc motor to run a channel master. they are not compatible. the triax td110 will be ok though
 
My diseqc motor copes ok with the Laminas 1.2M but as yet, it seems there isn't a UK distributor. Easily available in France though.
 
Just wondering whether it's physically possible to attach to something like a Stab HH120 motor... with the mounting hole being at the bottom on CM dishes.
 
Go for a cheap channel master of ebay some come with mount motor etc full setup can get one for 100 pounds 1.2 channel master
 
The problem is running the 36V cable rather than anything else (+ the expense of the VBox)
 
16E should improve in the next few weeks as the new W3C is put into service, and W2M / EB166A & the useless Sesat 1 are redeployed elsewhere..
 
Captain Jack said:
The problem is running the 36V cable rather than anything else (+ the expense of the VBox)

It be worth it mate but if dont go for it get a triax 1.1
 
My 1metre channel master gets 16east very well the tring tp comes in over 90% signal here
 
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