Improving Sirius signal on an 88 cm dish

[Nickolai]

Hi,

having spent some time with my new system I started thinking about improving signal strength / quality. The specific need I have in mind - better reception of the Viasat broadcast from Sirius 3 at 4.8 E.
I live in Berkshire near Ascot, have an Echostar AD3000IP Viaccess receiver and a motorised 88 cm Triax dish. I tried an MTI 0.6db uni LNB and currently use another 0.6db one - Cambridge Platinum GE57, which I found marginally better. I can get reasonable signal (up to 44%) and acceptable picture in good weather till about 4:00pm in the afternoon, later it goes.

Can anyone recommend the LNB that is optimal for use with this particular Triax dish? I can not go above 90cm in dish size and I heard that Triax has better than eaverage gain for the size.
From what I read on the forum the expensive LNBs (Syntec 2000, Genesis) are not necessarily the best.

Also, can I put together an DIY reflector to increase the dish gain (i.e. I have got an old 60cm Mesh dish that I could use for the purpose.)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Nickolai :-)

 

[Old Satellite]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 18-Jun-02 AT 08:00 AM (GMT)]It is pretty diffcult to resolve you problem, without high costs, or a more simple and greater effective larger dish. as you are aware this is truly the most effective solution.

It is unlikely that you can modify or improve the perfomance of your current Triax dish to the required level of signal that will allow for the effects of rain attentuation etc.

You will improve marginally for example if you were to chose a Gegorian type dish (expensive) there is a 90 cm availible.
A 0.5db PLL (phase locked loop)lnb will also help in the quality of the recieved signal (expensive) they are better than the standard Dswitched lnb this can only be utilsied to full effect with a poloriser either mech or magnetic.

They will help possibly contrubuting

Triax to Gegorian 90cm = 0.3-0.5 db
LNB gain advantage = 0.1-0.3 db Lower generally across the whole frequency range
The additional skew benifits of the mechanical poloriser would potentially be lost as a result of the insertion of the device - 0.1 db

At best you may achieve an extra 0.5 db at a substantial cost + 250.00

Are you 100 % sure that you can not utilise a 1.2 mtr dish - can you install in your garden for example?
Which transponders on 5.2 east specifically are you looking to receive at your location ?

What is the current coax cable that you have used?
and how long is the cable ?

PS the Echostar 3000 has a reasonable digital level sensitivity and is not easily improved upon without once again high costs.

Old Satellite

 

[Channel Hopper]

A 1.2 does not look any bigger, when I increased the dish on the roof from 1.5 to 1.8m I simply cut another 20cms off the post to give the same sort of look to the overall height.*(thats why I then had trouble with the low elevation stuff until I cut away some of the tripod)

Camouflaging can also make a large difference to the impact of the dish - using matt paints and reducing the circular effect of the dish

Finally - you could move house, your user profile does not say where you are at present