Hispasat with a Sky minidish

T-E-E-N-A

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For ages I've been reading that a Sky minidish is useless if you want to pull in signals from Hispasat. Today I decided to try for myself, so I used my sister's minidish and pointed it at Hispasat and hooked it up to my GBsat 2CI digital receiver. There were all the TV Cabo channels loud and clear, now considering we live in Northern Ireland and it is an 80 cm minidish, I was very surprised. All she needs now is a motor and she is set, I know she can pick up Astra 1 and 2, I haven't tried any others at the moment, but I am delighted because I've been telling her to get another dish. It just shows you, you never know until you try.
 

rolfw

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The main reason why Sky minidishes are not so good for Hispasat, is not necessarily the size, more that the majority of the LNBs fitted to them have very limited skew adjustment and are fixed to the Eastern satellites. The Skywares LNBs have free rotation so do not have that problem.

The radiated power of the European beam provides some 50db to Southern UK and Ireland, so a zone 2 minidish is fine, I have recently installed a standard 45/50cm minidish in Souther England for Hispasat, as it had to go on a chimney and it works fine, apart from when there is very heavy rain.

PS. My first motorised dish was a zone 2 minidish on an SM2UNI motor, worked well. :)
 

closetosoton

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rock 'n roll, way to go t-e-e-n-a. i'm planning to mount a mindish (43cm) at hispasat soon. i've collected 3 of them recently. i'm still running 13e/19e off a 60cm dish which at least 80cm is normally recommended for - as rolf says, if you don't try..... actually i had a dream last night i was twizzling a dish around..... sad but true, i got turksat on a minidish and i was indoors, pointing through a wall.

-cts
 

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Well done teena - I struggled with a 60cm and an LNB of questionable quality/age/db. Your dish of a sister sounds just right.
 

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rolfw said:
The main reason why Sky minidishes are not so good for Hispasat, is not necessarily the size, more that the majority of the LNBs fitted to them have very limited skew adjustment and are fixed to the Eastern satellites. The Skywares LNBs have free rotation so do not have that problem."

Am I right please in thinking that because of the angled rotation of a motorised dish, there is no skew required and it should be set at zero. Currently I'm using a Raven Sky LNB, and I've pushed this as far as it can go skew wise to the horizontal, but maybe I should take the top off and mod the mount a bit! I appear to be tracking the satellites fine, using the set up procedures here, but the further west I go, the weaker the signal gets.

Edit: Actually, I think this may not help that much, will it! These Sky LNBS have a wierdly shaped casting, or the old one I'm looking at does, with a skewed horn casting, so as you deskew it, the oval end will become more and more of a mismatch to the dish.
 

T-E-E-N-A

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rolfw said:
I have recently installed a standard 45/50cm minidish in Souther England for Hispasat, as it had to go on a chimney and it works fine, apart from when there is very heavy rain.

PS. My first motorised dish was a zone 2 minidish on an SM2UNI motor, worked well. :)

When I adjusted her dish yesterday it was raining, but I suppose time will tell, it will do her for now, when she gets her motor I'll probably get her a dish like mine. Saying that I'll love to get a 1m dish and give her my 80cm, but I'm afraid my neighbours might have a conniption fit, LOL.
 

rolfw

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alterego said:
Am I right please in thinking that because of the angled rotation of a motorised dish, there is no skew required and it should be set at zero. Currently I'm using a Raven Sky LNB, and I've pushed this as far as it can go skew wise to the horizontal, but maybe I should take the top off and mod the mount a bit! I appear to be tracking the satellites fine, using the set up procedures here, but the further west I go, the weaker the signal gets.

Edit: Actually, I think this may not help that much, will it! These Sky LNBS have a wierdly shaped casting, or the old one I'm looking at does, with a skewed horn casting, so as you deskew it, the oval end will become more and more of a mismatch to the dish.

You can doctor the old Grundig LNBs to zero skew, just by cutting the case, but the Cambridge ones are not very flexible. You can buy the Skyware LNBs for very little on eBay though anyway.
 

alterego

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rolfw said:
You can doctor the old Grundig LNBs to zero skew, just by cutting the case, but the Cambridge ones are not very flexible. You can buy the Skyware LNBs for very little on eBay though anyway.
Yes it was a Cambridge one I was looking at. I take it from your comment that the Skyware LNB is symmetrical, is the same true of the interior of the Raven one?
 

rolfw

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It has little to do with the interior, it has to do with matching the vertical and horizontal planes on the LNB with those of the satellite, so all you need is an LNB which can be set to zero skew for your motorised setup.
 

alterego

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rolfw said:
It has little to do with the interior, it has to do with matching the vertical and horizontal planes on the LNB with those of the satellite, so all you need is an LNB which can be set to zero skew for your motorised setup.
Yes, but the Cambridge one I took the top off had an oval horn casting. To the rear of this was the waveguide containing the antenna etc. This was part of the same casting, but was itself skewed relative to the oval front. Thus it would be impossible to set a true zero skew on the assembly as a whole wouldn't it?
There are some pics of a sky lnb on the satcure site in the sky lnb technical section which show some of what I'm getting at:
http://www.satcure.co.uk/tech/page10.htm.
I must admit its a very long time since I did microwaves at University, and even then I concluded that they were based on witchcraft rather than physics!
 

rolfw

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That's why I wouldn't use the Cambridge one, the Skywares is perfect for the job.
 

alterego

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rolfw said:
That's why I wouldn't use the Cambridge one, the Skywares is perfect for the job.
OK, just found one on Ebay, so I've bought it! Thanks for your advice.
 
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