Fringe Reception - Definition(s) ?

[John]

@John how do you switch between CBAND and KU (and KA?). on your PF dish?

Like this .... My 2.2 mtr Elite Antennas reflector was originally just a dedicated tuned for max performance Cband only job but i was lacking some Ka and fringe Ku signals from my 1.2mtr Gibby antenna so i reluctantly fitted side saddle Ka & Ku lnb's onto the motorised scalar ring to optomise their performance but it does slightly knock the edge off the Cband performance by about 1/2 dB.
The pic to illustrate is a grab off the cctv dish cam so is a bit rough but you get the idea.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

[Captain Jack]

ah yes - i see now - 70w - 3711 V "locked and displayed"
"only" 37% signal though on a 2.2m - i wouldnt be bothering on a 1.8m.
maybe a 2.4....

Sorry but if everyone had that mindset, we wouldn't be viewing anything other than 28.2e...

All I want to see is whether I can get the tiniest of sniffs from analogue TPs there.

 

[Captain Jack]

>> any chance you can take a picture of your dish looking at 58W and 70W just so I can see what the differences are? <<
From the side do you mean CJ ?....... can do. Bare in mind that i'm using a 2.2 mtr Prime Focus dish and not an Off-Set so i don't have the clearance problem at the bottom of the dish like an Off-Set does.
Bare with me

Thanks John. The clearance at the bottom is not so much of a problem - I can remove the fence temporarily. I am more interested in the mount itself and what the clearances are there.

 

[John]

Thanks John. The clearance at the bottom is not so much of a problem - I can remove the fence temporarily. I am more interested in the mount itself and what the clearances are there.

I'll take some daylight pics of my home brew polor mount in the morning CJ , i deliberately made my dish stand away from mount bracket so as to help with clearance issues

 

[Manikm909]

let me know if you need anything from me @Captain Jack - im gonna have another sniff today at 58w....might even try and get the polariser barrel working, instead of T Plate....i think its going to rain though today.

 

[Captain Jack]

58w's easiest transponder is the NHK one, owing to its high FEC of 1/2. It's a linear polarity satellite so no need for depolarisers there.

 

[Manikm909]

Like this .... My 2.2 mtr Elite Antennas reflector was originally just a dedicated tuned for max performance Cband only job but i was lacking some Ka and fringe Ku signals from my 1.2mtr Gibby antenna so i reluctantly fitted side saddle Ka & Ku lnb's onto the motorised scalar ring to optomise their performance but it does slightly knock the edge off the Cband performance by about 1/2 dB.
The pic to illustrate is a grab off the cctv dish cam so is a bit rough but you get the idea.
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
View attachment 146765

man - thats like a lunar landing! great work.

 

[John]

I'll take some daylight pics of my home brew polor mount in the morning CJ , i deliberately made my dish stand away from mount bracket so as to help with clearance issues

Not exactly sure what you want to look at CJ - here's a couple at it looking at 70West & does not look too much different when at 58West. Educate me for a different view if iv'e got it wrong . And yes, she needs a bit of tidying up lol
.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

[Captain Jack]

Thanks John. Looks like you have a sizeable gap between the dish and the mount.

Have you got any similar pictures of it looking at 58w? Not to worry if not. I'll give it a shot tomorrow anyway, so it will either work or not!

Also looked at the mount today in more detail and it's possible that I can remove the angle iron on the west side and the dish *shouldn't* fall off. Will save me the grinding!

Will take pictures etc...

 

[Manikm909]

Thanks John. Looks like you have a sizeable gap between the dish and the mount.

Have you got any similar pictures of it looking at 58w? Not to worry if not. I'll give it a shot tomorrow anyway, so it will either work or not!

Also looked at the mount today in more detail and it's possible that I can remove the angle iron on the west side and the dish *shouldn't* fall off. Will save me the grinding!

Will take pictures etc...

good luck today! hope the weather stays fine.

 

[Captain Jack]

A quick one... A more detailed summary later.

Echostar's LTE is absolute magic.

 

[Captain Jack]

good luck today! hope the weather stays fine.

It did not - awful wind with showery sideways rain, which means I had to leave the majority of equipment inside the house.

I wanted to see how far I could get with the current setup without hacking anything. 58W was a given since I originally tuned the positioning of the jack arm and its holder to swing between 58W and 55E. There's also the limit of the 24" jack.

I knew that 63W had some data streams available in Ku so I went on the hunt and bingo!



The jack was fully compressed at this point and a couple of clicks away from running into its own limit so that had to be relocated.



Thankfully the picket fence looked like it wasn't going to get in the way, so nothing to do there.

After drilling another hole in the jack arm er... arm and hacking away part of the PM's frame with the grinder, I set about hunting.



First I needed to find approximately where 70W was and I had no idea whether I had clearance, uninterrupted lined of sight or any signal. I parked the dish on 63W and moved it as far west from there as it would go. After a lot of huffing and puffing, I found what I thought was some signal fumes on my F15 from 70W.



A few transponders were showing signs of life, so I connected the LT8700 receiver.

Nothing. At. All.

After about an hour of huffing and puffing, I thought I'd check the LNB output on the receiver with a multimeter. Both polarities were showing 18V So I was stuck with horizontals. I knew that the tuner was OK, since it works with HackTV.

I checked the LNB settings and found that "C" LNB was set to 18V on input A and 13V on input and some odd LO. It was obviously used on a fancy setup back in the day. After correcting the errors of my ways, I saw some signs of life on analogue transponders. It was hard to see whether it was noise/interference from mobile networks or actual signal but cranking up LT to max suddenly revealed a watchable picture! Jackpot!

I managed to get a video from quite a few transponders but the low elevation of the satellite was an issue as I had some visible interference and the picture kept disappearing for fractions of seconds - almost like LT dropped out. This was especially evident in the low 3700 range.

I am sure there's more signal to be eeked out as I didn't play much with the LNB other than screwing it to the dish! And I don't have John's NASA level adjustments to skew, LNB position, feedhorn etc. etc. Not to mention the awful weather (though C band is less affected by rain). The LNB itself is also not in focus - it's sitting above the Ku LNB and I use the declination jack to compensate. I would like to see if I can sniff out a digital transponder as well.

For anyone who wants to try it - do. There's no way in the world I should be able to receive this satellite in the UK. The 1.8m dish is far too small but with Echostar's magical threshold extension, it's just about possible. I suspect without LTE, it would probably require a 3m dish to get a watchable picture.

@moonbase - can I join the floater 3 brigade?

Here's a clip of the ANALOGUE scan on 70W - 11 years since I last did it in the wild! I used my CRT monitor as the LCD one kept blanking out bad signal. Not sure why it's B&W here...

 

[John]

It did not - awful wind with showery sideways rain, which means I had to leave the majority of equipment inside the house.

I wanted to see how far I could get with the current setup without hacking anything. 58W was a given since I originally tuned the positioning of the jack arm and its holder to swing between 58W and 55E. There's also the limit of the 24" jack.

I knew that 63W had some data streams available in Ku so I went on the hunt and bingo!

View attachment 146795

The jack was fully compressed at this point and a couple of clicks away from running into its own limit so that had to be relocated.

View attachment 146796

Thankfully the picket fence looked like it wasn't going to get in the way, so nothing to do there.

After drilling another hole in the jack arm er... arm and hacking away part of the PM's frame with the grinder, I set about hunting.

View attachment 146797

First I needed to find approximately where 70W was and I had no idea whether I had clearance, uninterrupted lined of sight or any signal. I parked the dish on 63W and moved it as far west from there as it would go. After a lot of huffing and puffing, I found what I thought was some signal fumes on my F15 from 70W.

View attachment 146798

A few transponders were showing signs of life, so I connected the LT8700 receiver.

Nothing. At. All.

After about an hour of huffing and puffing, I thought I'd check the LNB output on the receiver with a multimeter. Both polarities were showing 18V So I was stuck with horizontals. I knew that the tuner was OK, since it works with HackTV.

I checked the LNB settings and found that "C" LNB was set to 18V on input A and 13V on input and some odd LO. It was obviously used on a fancy setup back in the day. After correcting the errors of my ways, I saw some signs of life on analogue transponders. It was hard to see whether it was noise/interference from mobile networks or actual signal but cranking up LT to max suddenly revealed a watchable picture! Jackpot!

I managed to get a video from quite a few transponders but the low elevation of the satellite was an issue as I had some visible interference and the picture kept disappearing for fractions of seconds - almost like LT dropped out. This was especially evident in the low 3700 range.

I am sure there's more signal to be eeked out as I didn't play much with the LNB other than screwing it to the dish! And I don't have John's NASA level adjustments to skew, LNB position, feedhorn etc. etc. Not to mention the awful weather (though C band is less affected by rain). The LNB itself is also not in focus - it's sitting above the Ku LNB and I use the declination jack to compensate. I would like to see if I can sniff out a digital transponder as well.

For anyone who wants to try it - do. There's no way in the world I should be able to receive this satellite in the UK. The 1.8m dish is far too small but with Echostar's magical threshold extension, it's just about possible. I suspect without LTE, it would probably require a 3m dish to get a watchable picture.

@moonbase - can I join the floater 3 brigade?

Here's a clip of the ANALOGUE scan on 70W - 11 years since I last did it in the wild! I used my CRT monitor as the LCD one kept blanking out bad signal. Not sure why it's B&W here...

Absolutely well done you little tinker ..... I always say - where there's a will there's a way.
Just to add - when you get down to the 3.700 GHz area and below that's when you might get the dreaded 5G interference causing havoc. Iv'e got a 5G tower very close to me and it does cause me problems.

 

[John]

As a matter of interest CJ what was your deviation set on - i have to run at !6MHz to get a viewable picture, any higher makes things worse.

 

[Captain Jack]

Just to add - when you get down to the 3.700 GHz area and below that's when you might get the dreaded 5G interference causing havoc. Iv'e got a 5G tower very close to me and it does cause me problems.

Yes, this is what I get on 3720H - an otherwise perfectly watchable picture completely ruined by interference. Is there a way to filter it?

I don't have this issue above 3800-ish.

As a matter of interest CJ what was your deviation set on - i have to run at !6MHz to get a viewable picture, any higher makes things worse.

It was actually set to 21MHz - changing it to 16MHz does brighten up the picture.

 

[John]

Yes, this is what I get on 3720H - an otherwise perfectly watchable picture completely ruined by interference. Is there a way to filter it?

I don't have this issue above 3800-ish.



It was actually set to 21MHz - changing it to 16MHz does brighten up the picture.

When i first dabbled with the reception i got quite bad, and still do, 5G interference knackering things up - i installed a AliExpress external 5G ilter before the lnb, that helped me get more stable watchable pictures and was also helping me grab & lock some digital channels as well from 70West - the snag with that set-up though was the fact that the external 5G filter was only factory usable up to 4.2GHz and rolled off and attenuated very quick afterwards which meant i couldn't use my Norsat 8000RI 3.6 to 4.8GHz lnb ., so now i'm running without the filter and not getting the best results possible on the PAL analogue stuff

 

[Captain Jack]

When i first dabbled with the reception i got quite bad, and still do, 5G interference knackering things up - i installed a AliExpress external 5G ilter before the lnb, that helped me get more stable watchable pictures and was also helping me grab & lock some digital channels as well from 70West - the snag with that set-up though was the fact that the external 5G filter was only factory usable up to 4.2GHz and rolled off and attenuated very quick afterwards which meant i couldn't use my Norsat 8000RI 3.6 to 4.8GHz lnb ., so now i'm running without the filter and not getting the best results possible on the PAL analogue stuff

I am a pleb so only bog standard LNBs here.

Do you have a link to this filter?

 

[John]

Here's the link - bare in mind i use different types on lnb on my system so this filter will not fit on your lnbf. You can get Cband lnbf,s like yours that have the 5G filtering built in but not sure how effective they are in real life

59.29￡ |Receive Bandpass Filter | Filter Radio Band Pass | Audio Band Pass Filter - C Band - Aliexpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

www.aliexpress.com

 

[Manikm909]

I have a tit for sale if interested

 

[Captain Jack]

Thanks John, I'll take a look. The bottom end of the range on this satellite is definitely stronger than the top end. There's some more tinkering to be had but with the amount of pulsing I see on analogue, I don't see how digital would lock with any sort of reliability.

Back on topic, I did manage to lock 72.1e when there were some transmissions a few years ago - just 0.6 degrees above horizon. This was on the 85cm Penta at my old flat.

Intelsat 22 @ 72.1E

Anyone receiving anything from there in UK? Not at home right now to try but it's only 0.7 degrees above horizon where I am so not sure if it's doable on a Penta! Had a lock from 70.5E in the past, so I guess 72.1E isn't undoable... -http://www.flysat.com/is22.php

www.satellites.co.uk