Linking Dishes?

[devonbrown]

Can dishes be linked? In Southern Spain and Portugal there are dozens of expats in close proximity to one another. All have 1.2 to 1.5 meter dishes pointed at 28.2. If it was possible to link the dishes would the combined surface area act as say a 2.5 to 3 meter dish? If this was possible say with quatro lnbs all the contributors could possible get BBC and ITV etc back again. A daft question perhaps but my brain hurts at times and comes up with daft questions.

 

[Lazarus]

No, not at Domestic level.

Vast amounts of hugely expensive electronics and computing power would need to be brought to bear to ensure the signals were aggregated perfectly in phase.

 

[RimaNTSS]

I think this is question everyone of us questioned at least ourselves, and it was always disappointment to hear answer: Yes, it is possible but cost will be unbelievably high (by now, till some smart future solutions to do it).

 

[Analoguesat]

Theoretically its perfectly possible - its exactly what radio telescopes do but at longer wavelengths.

Practically its a no go unless you have the budget of the military in a small African nation!

 

[rolfw]

An oft' asked and discussed question, but as Tivu says, although theoretically possible, it is way beyond the financial and technical capability of the man in the street. Another option would be a big dish feeding several satellite to ip receivers like this one, effectively operating a local area network, either wirelessly or hard wired. http://www.triax.com/FindProduct/ProductDetails?product={A157E356-951B-4864-866D-C8DADE9AEA2B} This one serves four computers or devices.

 

[Terryl]

There is one way to do this, you need a rubidium or cesium time standard to synchronize the LO frequencies on all the LNB's to within .01 ppm, this way the IF frequencies from the LNB's can be combined without serious phase cancellation.

On the big deep space multiple dish arrays, the main signal is fed down multiple wave guides into a waveguide combiner, then to a single receiver, (a bit more complicated then this, but this explination will do) to do this for multiple kU band satellites it would cost about the price of a 5 bedroom home somewhere in lest say down town London or NYC.

 

[bema]

Or use a diversity receiver with MRC. The combination will be done in the digital domain which is much easier. Diversity receivers for DVB-S/S2 are not so common but for DVB-T/T2 they exist. A perfect "do it yourself" project. The algorithms for MRC are well known. The dishes should be close to each other otherwise you have to transfer the base band signal via internet (which is not impossible). Every doubling of dishes (with the same size) gives theoretically 3 dB if they are perfectly aligned to the satellite.

 

[devonbrown]

Ah well back to the old solution of solving a brain hurt. Anyone got a hammer?

 

[Terryl]

If you need more gain, use a bigger dish, if you need more satellites then a T90 or a very large elliptical dish like the T90 may do the job.

 

[hairybadger]

Ah well back to the old solution of solving a brain hurt. Anyone got a hammer?

diagnostic? Have worn mine out....

 

[Analoguesat]

If you need more gain, use a bigger dish, if you need more satellites then a T90 or a very large elliptical dish like the T90 may do the job.

They are after the 2E UK spotbeam BBC & ITV channels Down the south of Spain & Portugal they are under a very deep null & theres bugger all signal to start with. In some areas theres no signal on a 4m dish!