Installing Dishes In Spain for 2E Chit-Chat

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Simbad,
I'm based near Santander and I managed to get some of those sets of channels (10729 TP seems the strongest one) with my motorised 100 cm dish. I get a very weak and pixelated signal from 5 to 8 PM where before i couldn't get any signal at all. I think either the power has gone up or the atmospheric conditions have temporarily improved (not a cloud in the sky) I'm thinking about upgrading my configuration form 100 to 135 cms and see if I manage to get a stable signal for longer hours.

Txops.
20 Kms east of Santander
100 cm motorised dish
 
Brian, here are some pictures to make you laugh.

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For us lesser mortals - where should they be?
 
Heh, well the rubber grommets should be between the LNB support arms and the dish rather than between the bolts and the LNB support arms. No waterproofing on the F connectors either but I've seen far, far, worse installs than this.
 
Captain Jack said:
the rubber grommets should be between the LNB support arms and the dish rather than between the bolts and the LNB support arms.
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No. They go between the dish face and the back mount to allow for imperfections in the shape of the back mount. If you leave them out the dish face gets bent.
 
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Huevos said:
No. They go between the dish face and the back mount to allow for imperfections in the shape of the back mount. If you leave them out the dish face gets bent.
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The Famaval come with 6 to go between the face and mount. The GI (Famaval made) version come with 9, 6 for the face to mount and 3 for the lnb support arms. To the dish, not the LNB holder.

The 3 are not that important, but the 6 for the face are very important
 
Captain Jack said:
Heh, well the rubber grommets should be between the LNB support arms and the dish rather than between the bolts and the LNB support arms. No waterproofing on the F connectors either but I've seen far, far, worse installs than this.
Click to expand...

Most (decent) F type connectors have internal rubber "O" ring to stop water penetration, at least the ones I buy do (other than the odd one from the bazar chino for an odd size cable). That said, I would slide down the weather protector as well, look close on Huevos´s picture one! (standard GI multi LN:cool:
 
Fitted an LH 110 in Quesada (Rojales) today. Would not normally do this as I currently recommend 1.37 for this area, but it was a second hand dish and the person was on a small budget. Was very surprised to get all sd off 2e and bbc1, bbc2 ch4 and itv in HD as well. Sig varied across txps but was peaking at 8.4 on 10773V. Much better than I expected

Signal has improved more here than expected, ref 2e seasonal thread.
 
Huevos said:
8.9dB here today.
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How does that compare with mid June? I tried to get a 110 working 500m from where I was today and could not see anything from 2f or 2e, that said it was in a courtyard so may have been suffering from reflected signals
 
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Here are the two 1.8 primes I bought today, Famaval with microelectronics twin and Maffara with invacom quad. The Famaval is on the stand at the moment.

Did a quick test between the two dishes (with the help of SWMBO to swap them over)

Both gave approx the same result on 10773 for bbc2 (only test I had time for)

Maffara with invacom 12.4db

Famaval with me 12.2 db

Will test more over the next few days, ie change lnb from one to other etc. Test was rough, did not tighten any locking bolts or feedhorn screws too much as wanted to do quick comparison

As a guide, my 1.5 FTE was recording 10.1 at the same time.

At least I have something to do over the weekend ( to get out of doing the gardening! )
 
Ran some more tests this morning to compare the two 1.8 dishes and my FTE 1.5

1st thing I noticed, before any changes were made, was that the signal was 0.8 dB c/n down on test yesterday evening.
Using Fam dish with ME twin LNB received 11.4 compared with 12.2 yesterday evening. ( All tests done on 10773 )

Swapped ME twin for Invacom quad and gained 1.1 dB c/n, so conclude Invacom LNB is better than ME ( no surprise there )
I would also assume from this, that had I swapped the Invacom to the Famaval dish yesterday evening, I would have received approx 13.3 dB, thus meaning the Famaval out performs the Maffara by about 0.9 dB but this is only conjecture at this time.

Then I decided to compare the Famaval with Invacom against my FTE with Goobay quad. Again using 10773

FTE signal strength -38dBm, c/n 8.9dB, vBer 5E-8
Fam signal strength -47dBm, c/n 12.1dB, vBer <1E-8

Interesting to note that signal strength on the Fam is lower, but c/n is much better and error rate lower. I assume this is to do with the amplification of noise by the FTE/Goobay set up being higher. Sagemcom receiver confirmed results with signal strength being lower from the Fam, but quality much higher.

One strange thing I did notice is that the Famaval is picking up 10773 better than 10818 by about 1dB c/n despite spending a few minutes adjusting skew, focus and alignment. Cannot work that one out at the moment as FTE shows 10818 as stronger which is normally the case in this area
 
10773 being stronger on a 1.8m is normal. Are you just changing the lnb or the feed as well.
 
Huevos said:
10773 being stronger on a 1.8m is normal. Are you just changing the lnb or the feed as well.
Click to expand...

I changed the feed from sweetcorn to peas and carrots, but no change!

Both feedhorns are identical on invacom and me!

And when I posted that I did mean invacom LNB and microelctronics LNB, not me personally
 
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Brian have you got a picture of the feedhorn?
 
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