Advice Needed Motorised System for Feed Hunting

I think an 80cm dish is a little small for feed hunting to be honest. Some of the higher powered sats such as 23E, 8W, 15W may be OK, but feeds on the likes of 16E and 10E need at least a 100cm. Have you considered the Triax TD 110cm? Got one here , they perform well and is good value for money.
 
Agree, the TD110 is a reasonable dish at a reasonable price and if in sheltered location, is fine on a good DiSEqC motor.
 
Jamie A said:
I think an 80cm dish is a little small for feed hunting to be honest. Some of the higher powered sats such as 23E, 8W, 15W may be OK, but feeds on the likes of 16E and 10E need at least a 100cm. Have you considered the Triax TD 110cm? Got one here , they perform well and is good value for money.
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rolfw said:
Agree, the TD110 is a reasonable dish at a reasonable price and if in sheltered location, is fine on a good DiSEqC motor.
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So the TD78 is definitely going... It's just too small. Just checked the dimensions of a TD110 and I'll be over the legal limit, so that's out unfortunately. So it leaves me with either the TD88, Gibertini OP85 or a PENTA 85cm.

I've been looking at gain figures, by they all quote different frequencies, so it's a nightmare to compare them 'on paper'. The TD88 will give me nearly an extra 2dB on the TD78 (which should be enough to get lock on some of those feeds I would of thought). The TD88 seems to be have marginally better gain than the OP85 and the PENTA just looks cool. Although, it seems to have some impressive figures for it's size.

Anyway, this is all well and good looking at them on paper. Was hoping you guys could give me some real experiences with them. I'm off this week from work so hoping to get it ordered, fitted and realigned!
 
The TD110 is a 1m dish and is slightly over in the vertical measurement, but not enough for anyone to complain, just tell them it's a 1m, it is in the horizontal. If you are still unsure, then either of the dishes you mention above are good, I probably prefer the Fracarro.
 
rolfw said:
The TD110 is a 1m dish and is slightly over in the vertical measurement, but not enough for anyone to complain, just tell them it's a 1m, it is in the horizontal. If you are still unsure, then either of the dishes you mention above are good, I probably prefer the Fracarro.
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There's a TD110 on Gumtree just down the road for £30... Believe me I'm tempted! I've just measured it though against the dish out there. It really is ****ing enormous!!! An extra 26cm on height and width. TD88 dimensions seems just about sensible.
 
I'd go for the Fracarro penta 85 in preference to a TD88, but would buy the TD110 anyway and see what it looks like, it isn't as if it's up on a wall.
 
rolfw said:
I'd go for the Fracarro penta 85 in preference to a TD88, but would buy the TD110 anyway and see what it looks like, it isn't as if it's up on a wall.
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Okay... Okay... I'll ring the guy (I assume it's a guy) and see if he's still got it! When the neighbours complain I'm telling them you made me do it.
 
LOL, well the worst that can happen is that you have to resell it.:)
 
Yes get the TD 110, i recall from my reading they can be a little difficult to setup, but a few peeps here have them and will guide you in the right direction if you get stuck :).

daaahhnuh said:
I've just measured it though against the dish out there. It really is ****ing enormous!!!
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Wait while your installing one of these if you think that's big :).
DSCN5607.webp
 
Like Martin says, the TD 110 is somewhat awkward to set up. This is primarily due to the design of the elevation adjuster... Once up and running though, it'll provide good results.

If the worst comes to the worst and you can't keep it, just stick it in the classifieds section on this site and I'm sure you'll be able to recoup some, if not all of your money back.
 
Okay. So I'm now the (not so) proud owner of what I thought was a TD110 but is actually a TD115 which measures in at 115cm tall. It's ****ing huge... I'm amazed it fitted in the car on reflection. Although, it's not as big as Martin's. So yeah that's not going up. Damn.
 
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Here is Trust1 modification, very easy to make and i guess effective :), thanks to Trust1 for this design and pictures :)
elev-adjustm-laminas-120-jpg.73611


fine-elevation-adjuster-jpg.73630
 
That's genius! Yes I found the TD78 a bit clunky to fine tune the elevation... It seemed to jerk about. I imagine it's a right pain with a bigger version and up a ladder! I'm going to order a new dish (anyone want a 1.1m dish?) and will have a look out for those bolts at B&Q. Thanks all.
 
For a temporary fix I use a turnbuckle, one end one a u-clamp on the pole and the other end keeping the dish from falling down. When I'm done I remove it and use it on another dish.
 
Of course, elevation adjusting mechanism can be different depending on the dish mount. I exercised making small tools for elevation couple of times. One is more sophisticated another one was pretty easy, but both worked OK.
talreps120back.webp P1240264 (Large).webp P1240261 (Large).webp
 
daaahhnuh said:
Okay. So I'm now the (not so) proud owner of what I thought was a TD110 but is actually a TD115 which measures in at 115cm tall. It's ****ing huge... I'm amazed it fitted in the car on reflection. Although, it's not as big as Martin's. So yeah that's not going up. Damn.
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Ahem...
The 110 is what can be termed a moderately sized dish.
Easily explained away to the main from the council as a 100 cm dish.
It will fit your sat-hunting-on-a-normal-DiSEqC-motor-needs well (and is probably the smallest you would want). == Don't sell just yet!

Much better is a CM120 or a Gibby 125 (which is a 120, really). But they do require heavier hardware (polar mounts + actuators + controllers).
A little harder to explain the the man from the council. But still do-able.

The CM180 as Martin has is "a fairly large dish", requiring special mounts, and not to speak of heavy-duty polar mounts, if you can find one.
Fairly hard to explain to the main from the council, although @martin-f seems to have gotten away with it.

A F***ing huge dish for feed-hunting is the CM240 on a polar mount. Don't have one; don't suspect I will have one just in the near future...

IMG_4426.webp

Very hard to explain to the man-from-the-council, unless the explanation involves little brown envelopes with something in them 8-)
 
New dish arrives tomorrow! I went out and set up the mount again earlier as I suspected it wasn't quite tracking the arc properly on the fringes. I'm now pulling in beIN Sports HD on 7.3W with 7/7.5dB and 0 BER. Just wondering how reasonable this is for 80cm dish and can I fine tune any further?

Now tomorrow will I simply need to take the old dish off and literally just adjust dish inclination on the new one? As in theory the motor is lined up with south and the elevation appears to set correctly? Or is start from scratch again?

Edit: Just done a full scan of 7W and it has found 524 services. The Dreambox stayed on the Nilesat TPs a good while before deciding to give up and move onto the next transponder... It knew something was there!!
 

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