timo_w2s
Retired moderator
- My Satellite Setup
- Vu+ Duo 4K SE
Dr.HD F15
- My Location
- Maidenhead, UK & Helsinki, Finland
For 5 years I'd had set up a "temporary" spare TD65 dish aligned to 28.2°E for Sky in Lapland at our holiday cottage but it was really too small and would only get the Astra 2A/2B north beam plus some of the Eutelsat 28A S1 beam channels.
Last week I finally got round to installing a Triax TD88 for Sky and moved the original TD65 to Canal Digital at 1°W. Ideally the dish should be much bigger for Sky (and soon silly sizes thanks to 2E/2F/2G) but the TD88 seemed a reasonable compromised between cost/size/easy of transport for a dish that only gets used a few weeks a year for a few bonus channels.
Being so far north and east right on the Russian border the elevation is quite low so I had to carefully align the dishes between trees. Luckily in Lapland things grow very slowly and the trees never get as high as they down in the south due to the short summers and extreme winters.
It's a pleasure installing dishes on a wooden log cabin rather than the usual brick or concrete, no drill required! After some careful tweaking and fine tuning I managed to get the dish aligned spot on to 28.2°E. I was absolutely amazed that I was able to pick up the majority of the Astra 2A and 2B southern beam channels on an 85cm dish (although not much room for rain/snow fade). In fact some south channels where stronger than what I could pick up in Helsinki on a similar setup!! I was really not expecting anything from the south beams so far up north and east so that was pretty exciting. Of course the north beam channels boom in (as they did on the 65cm dish too) and most of the Eutelsat 28A channels where also pretty strong too now. I had to compromise on some of the Eutelsat channels due to the skew for Astra 2A and 2B to get the southern channels but once Astra 2A and 2B retire I shall tweak the LNB for Eutelsat 28A since I doubt I'll even get a sniff of the newer satellites judging from the published footprints.
The weather was warm and very calm and as a result my legs got eaten alive while installing the dishes thanks to the local mosquitoes and midges. Even some reindeer came to see what I was up to...
I was planning on adding an extra LNB for 19.2°E in the future but I might need to do some pruning of the trees.
So in summery I have the TD88 with a Inverto Black Ultra on 28°E with almost all transponders except Astra 1N and a couple of the high band horizontal channels on Eurobird 28A feeding a Pace 2600C1 and the TD65 with a white Sharp LNB on 1°W with most channels very strong from Thor 5/6 with just a few transponders missing from Intelsat 1002 connected to an old Technomate box. Very happy with the results. Just a shame I think we'll lose a lot when Astra 2F comes along.
Last week I finally got round to installing a Triax TD88 for Sky and moved the original TD65 to Canal Digital at 1°W. Ideally the dish should be much bigger for Sky (and soon silly sizes thanks to 2E/2F/2G) but the TD88 seemed a reasonable compromised between cost/size/easy of transport for a dish that only gets used a few weeks a year for a few bonus channels.
Being so far north and east right on the Russian border the elevation is quite low so I had to carefully align the dishes between trees. Luckily in Lapland things grow very slowly and the trees never get as high as they down in the south due to the short summers and extreme winters.
It's a pleasure installing dishes on a wooden log cabin rather than the usual brick or concrete, no drill required! After some careful tweaking and fine tuning I managed to get the dish aligned spot on to 28.2°E. I was absolutely amazed that I was able to pick up the majority of the Astra 2A and 2B southern beam channels on an 85cm dish (although not much room for rain/snow fade). In fact some south channels where stronger than what I could pick up in Helsinki on a similar setup!! I was really not expecting anything from the south beams so far up north and east so that was pretty exciting. Of course the north beam channels boom in (as they did on the 65cm dish too) and most of the Eutelsat 28A channels where also pretty strong too now. I had to compromise on some of the Eutelsat channels due to the skew for Astra 2A and 2B to get the southern channels but once Astra 2A and 2B retire I shall tweak the LNB for Eutelsat 28A since I doubt I'll even get a sniff of the newer satellites judging from the published footprints.
The weather was warm and very calm and as a result my legs got eaten alive while installing the dishes thanks to the local mosquitoes and midges. Even some reindeer came to see what I was up to...
I was planning on adding an extra LNB for 19.2°E in the future but I might need to do some pruning of the trees.
So in summery I have the TD88 with a Inverto Black Ultra on 28°E with almost all transponders except Astra 1N and a couple of the high band horizontal channels on Eurobird 28A feeding a Pace 2600C1 and the TD65 with a white Sharp LNB on 1°W with most channels very strong from Thor 5/6 with just a few transponders missing from Intelsat 1002 connected to an old Technomate box. Very happy with the results. Just a shame I think we'll lose a lot when Astra 2F comes along.
