Fisty McB
Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2012
- Messages
- 434
- Reaction score
- 635
- Points
- 93
- My Satellite Setup
- See my signature...
- My Location
- County Tyrone, N. Ireland
I've decided to try and change a few things around in my back garden regarding satellite reception. The 97cm dish that was originally on the Dark Motor has been swapped around with the 80cm dish that had a multi lnb set up. Strictly speaking the 97cm dish is 88x97cm and the 80cm dish 72x79cm.
Before swapping them about I had got my hands on three Alps single lnb's to see if it was possible to get 13E, 16E and 19E on the same dish but the results were not that great, so that was the imputes for the swap. The current work-in-progress in the photos shows an 8 lnb set up.
View attachment 81329
From left to right: 5W, 5E, 9E, 13E, 16E (centre), 19.2E, 23.5E, 28.2E
The 9E LNB still suffers from post-rain drops on the LNB affecting reception of the French stations aimed at Swiss Romande. The 5W LNB, as can be seen, is hanging off the end of the bar secured by just one screw! Nevertheless is pretty secure and can pick up the France Televisions stations though little else from that position.
For 28.2 east, the worst reception from this position is on channels on the 2G Europe beam, but in dry conditions all channels still have an SNR of at least 10db. I have a spare Inverto Black Ultra single LNB ready to see if that might improve the margin a little bit. Compared to the Zone 2 Sky dish below the 1 metre dish, the SNR difference between the two dishes is somewhere between 1.4-3.0db.
So what are my plans? Well first I've got a new 1.2 metre dish that I intend to fix on the Dark Motor. It's a perforated dish measuring 106x118cm. Given the motor is on a patio mount pole and that it has varying degrees of shelter from all directions (south-west is well sheltered) then it should be OK with the 1.2 metre. I'm limited to an arc at the current mount position from 52E to 34.5W but I've no plans to move the flag stone which the mount is on again, besides there tends not to be a huge amount of interest beyond 34.5W especially from broadcast channels. The larger dish should help reception on some locations, primarily feeds on 7E, 10E & 23.5E, more reliable reception from Badr 4 at 26E and maybe I might get a sniff of something at 7.3W
The 1 metre dish, I plan to see how low it can go down the washing line pole before the dish can't see above the oil tank guard just in front of it. At its current position I'm pretty sure it could go down another few centimetres at least.
The 80cm dish currently on the motor I plan to reposition where the Zone 2 dish currently is for a small multi-LNB set up looking at far-eastern satellites; 42E, 46E & 52E with the centre on 46E that should hopefully bring the strong 45E in as well. If space allows I might try and fit 39E as well, but that's not crucial.
Then a possible plan with the Zone 2 dish might be to reposition it to being above the 1m dish focusing on satellites to the south & SSW, probably 5W, 15W & 22W, centred on 15W with the 5W lnb moved from the 1M dish - I reckon 5W should potentially perform better on this dish as opposed to the 1 metre.
Progress will depend a lot on the weather, at the moment it's typical for the time of year, sunshine with short periods of moderate to heavy showers for a few minutes before clearing. Not ideal when you're hoping to using a spare receiver & display to help you with alignment to try and suddenly bring it back indoors once the rain starts to spit. The forecasts for here is giving more of the same for the next few days.
If things get tricky and the neighbours don't get too hung up on the additional amount of ironmongery appearing (I plan to paint the dishes in sympathetic colours) then I have a spare Sky Zone 1 dish in the cupboard under the stairs, as well as the old Zone 2 dish still affixed high up the side wall from the previous residents. Other than that, I might have to look at upgrading the Diseqc switch, possibly to a 16/1 if the current switch (1.1 10/1) doesn't allow uncommitted pass through to an extra 1.0 switch.
Before swapping them about I had got my hands on three Alps single lnb's to see if it was possible to get 13E, 16E and 19E on the same dish but the results were not that great, so that was the imputes for the swap. The current work-in-progress in the photos shows an 8 lnb set up.
View attachment 81329
From left to right: 5W, 5E, 9E, 13E, 16E (centre), 19.2E, 23.5E, 28.2E
The 9E LNB still suffers from post-rain drops on the LNB affecting reception of the French stations aimed at Swiss Romande. The 5W LNB, as can be seen, is hanging off the end of the bar secured by just one screw! Nevertheless is pretty secure and can pick up the France Televisions stations though little else from that position.
For 28.2 east, the worst reception from this position is on channels on the 2G Europe beam, but in dry conditions all channels still have an SNR of at least 10db. I have a spare Inverto Black Ultra single LNB ready to see if that might improve the margin a little bit. Compared to the Zone 2 Sky dish below the 1 metre dish, the SNR difference between the two dishes is somewhere between 1.4-3.0db.
So what are my plans? Well first I've got a new 1.2 metre dish that I intend to fix on the Dark Motor. It's a perforated dish measuring 106x118cm. Given the motor is on a patio mount pole and that it has varying degrees of shelter from all directions (south-west is well sheltered) then it should be OK with the 1.2 metre. I'm limited to an arc at the current mount position from 52E to 34.5W but I've no plans to move the flag stone which the mount is on again, besides there tends not to be a huge amount of interest beyond 34.5W especially from broadcast channels. The larger dish should help reception on some locations, primarily feeds on 7E, 10E & 23.5E, more reliable reception from Badr 4 at 26E and maybe I might get a sniff of something at 7.3W
The 1 metre dish, I plan to see how low it can go down the washing line pole before the dish can't see above the oil tank guard just in front of it. At its current position I'm pretty sure it could go down another few centimetres at least.
The 80cm dish currently on the motor I plan to reposition where the Zone 2 dish currently is for a small multi-LNB set up looking at far-eastern satellites; 42E, 46E & 52E with the centre on 46E that should hopefully bring the strong 45E in as well. If space allows I might try and fit 39E as well, but that's not crucial.
Then a possible plan with the Zone 2 dish might be to reposition it to being above the 1m dish focusing on satellites to the south & SSW, probably 5W, 15W & 22W, centred on 15W with the 5W lnb moved from the 1M dish - I reckon 5W should potentially perform better on this dish as opposed to the 1 metre.
Progress will depend a lot on the weather, at the moment it's typical for the time of year, sunshine with short periods of moderate to heavy showers for a few minutes before clearing. Not ideal when you're hoping to using a spare receiver & display to help you with alignment to try and suddenly bring it back indoors once the rain starts to spit. The forecasts for here is giving more of the same for the next few days.
If things get tricky and the neighbours don't get too hung up on the additional amount of ironmongery appearing (I plan to paint the dishes in sympathetic colours) then I have a spare Sky Zone 1 dish in the cupboard under the stairs, as well as the old Zone 2 dish still affixed high up the side wall from the previous residents. Other than that, I might have to look at upgrading the Diseqc switch, possibly to a 16/1 if the current switch (1.1 10/1) doesn't allow uncommitted pass through to an extra 1.0 switch.