ncorrare
Member
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2013
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 21
- Points
- 3
- My Satellite Setup
-
WaveFrontier T90.
SelfSat 50 with HH90 rotor
Linux / TVHeadEnd
2x TBS6981
2x Cine S2
- My Location
- CM23
Hey all,
After two/three days work (being postponed for weeks as I just moved into a new house, and there were other priorities like not having my clothes on the floor), my brand new WaveFrontier T90 is up and ready.
This was an interesting project, as the first time I saw this dish I absolutely fell in love, but I haven't seen many of those around the South East of England. According to my understanding it is right on the limit of what Councils will permit (1 cubic meter) without planning permission. Still try to hide it from your neighbours, as you probably want to avoid the pain of a non-dish friendly one.
This is a dish I can't recommend enough, even early in my usage. Pointing the dish is not hard, using the calculator in SatLex Digital :: Home it took me all of 2 minutes to get it aligned to the first satellite once it was up, and then it was simply a matter of sliding LNB's through the guide to get the signal from satellites. Still there was a fair amount of previous research involved, and there are always a large amount of questions in terms of "will this fit" (specially with online shopping!).
A bit of generic advice to start:
- This project is a procrastinator dream. It is so complex that it probably can't be done in a day. Split objectives and get it done, otherwise you'll have an ugly mast or half assembled dish in your roof with no use for a while. In my case, stages were:
- Ground assembly of the dish (takes about 2 hours)
- Mount/Mast installation (another couple of hours)
- Mount the dish into the mast. In my case I first mounted the dish and then the reflector due to weigh/ladder/operating at heights concerns
- Initial Alignment (minutes)
- Further alignments (half an hour)
- Cabling (6 hours!)
- Weather is your enemy, besides the usual rain I did this on the week of Storm Ophelia. Not nice to hold a 1 meter dish at 3 meters height on a ladder with strong winds
- I installed countless VSATs back in the day, and I know install the off dish. This is most definitely *not* your first dish to install. Get a friend that has done this before if you haven't
- While this project looks fun, it easily becomes tedious, as in my case I was using 4 Quattro LNBs to start so everything you do once with a normal dish, gets multiplied by 16 outputs. So I ended up running 20 cables (16 from the dish to the multiswitch, 4 to the PC running TVHeadend), crimping 40 connectors, etc ...
- Invest on a label machine and coloured tape. You'll need to individually identify 16 cables if you're going for the quattro setup (High Horizontal, High Vertical, Low Horizontal, Low Vertical times four satellites)
So let's start with sourcing.
- Whatever amount of cable you think you'll need, you will be probably short. And considering that I didn't find any local supplier for Webro cable, I'd advice you to buy a lot. I ended up using 200 mts of cable for an install that was basically set in my garage. Webro WF100 is generally the way to to avoid loss. Available on EBay.
- Mounts are slightly complicated to source. You can get the normal Wavefrontier wall mount (if you're doing it on a wall), but I was going above the roof with a mast (which by the way, I wouldn't recommend it as first option after seeing how it reacts to the stronger winds I've ever seen in SE England). The Wavefrontier T90 needs a 60mm pole, and the best brackets I could find where Konig galvanised ones. Whatever you chose a 60mm pole is not super standard so make sure you find the right ones.
- The mast is the other key element here. I ended up sourcing a 60mm galvanised steel tube, cut to order from Key Clamp Store. They do next day delivery and it's not super expensive. Don't underestimate the mast length, specially if you're going over the roof. Consider that from the antenna head where the mast goes in, the antenna will go down about 15 inches (or 75 centimetres), so you definitely need to raise it. Also consider that depending on what satellites you're looking to hit, the skew angle will make one side of the antenna go considerably lower, so you might need even more clearance. Measure twice, cut once
- Crimping connectors. Went with Cablecon. Loved them!
- 4 Quattro Irdetto premium LNBs, also loved them! (Another another 3 single output later for the satellites I'm going to watch less often).
- EMP Centauri 17x4 Multiswitch (Ms17/4piu-6 V10)
- And lastly, my existing receiver setup. I use a linux box with three tuners, one quad and two double, with TVHeadEnd.
Hope this helps! If anyone has any kind of doubts please reach out and I'll be happy to assist!
After two/three days work (being postponed for weeks as I just moved into a new house, and there were other priorities like not having my clothes on the floor), my brand new WaveFrontier T90 is up and ready.
This was an interesting project, as the first time I saw this dish I absolutely fell in love, but I haven't seen many of those around the South East of England. According to my understanding it is right on the limit of what Councils will permit (1 cubic meter) without planning permission. Still try to hide it from your neighbours, as you probably want to avoid the pain of a non-dish friendly one.
This is a dish I can't recommend enough, even early in my usage. Pointing the dish is not hard, using the calculator in SatLex Digital :: Home it took me all of 2 minutes to get it aligned to the first satellite once it was up, and then it was simply a matter of sliding LNB's through the guide to get the signal from satellites. Still there was a fair amount of previous research involved, and there are always a large amount of questions in terms of "will this fit" (specially with online shopping!).
A bit of generic advice to start:
- This project is a procrastinator dream. It is so complex that it probably can't be done in a day. Split objectives and get it done, otherwise you'll have an ugly mast or half assembled dish in your roof with no use for a while. In my case, stages were:
- Ground assembly of the dish (takes about 2 hours)
- Mount/Mast installation (another couple of hours)
- Mount the dish into the mast. In my case I first mounted the dish and then the reflector due to weigh/ladder/operating at heights concerns
- Initial Alignment (minutes)
- Further alignments (half an hour)
- Cabling (6 hours!)
- Weather is your enemy, besides the usual rain I did this on the week of Storm Ophelia. Not nice to hold a 1 meter dish at 3 meters height on a ladder with strong winds
- I installed countless VSATs back in the day, and I know install the off dish. This is most definitely *not* your first dish to install. Get a friend that has done this before if you haven't
- While this project looks fun, it easily becomes tedious, as in my case I was using 4 Quattro LNBs to start so everything you do once with a normal dish, gets multiplied by 16 outputs. So I ended up running 20 cables (16 from the dish to the multiswitch, 4 to the PC running TVHeadend), crimping 40 connectors, etc ...
- Invest on a label machine and coloured tape. You'll need to individually identify 16 cables if you're going for the quattro setup (High Horizontal, High Vertical, Low Horizontal, Low Vertical times four satellites)
So let's start with sourcing.
- Whatever amount of cable you think you'll need, you will be probably short. And considering that I didn't find any local supplier for Webro cable, I'd advice you to buy a lot. I ended up using 200 mts of cable for an install that was basically set in my garage. Webro WF100 is generally the way to to avoid loss. Available on EBay.
- Mounts are slightly complicated to source. You can get the normal Wavefrontier wall mount (if you're doing it on a wall), but I was going above the roof with a mast (which by the way, I wouldn't recommend it as first option after seeing how it reacts to the stronger winds I've ever seen in SE England). The Wavefrontier T90 needs a 60mm pole, and the best brackets I could find where Konig galvanised ones. Whatever you chose a 60mm pole is not super standard so make sure you find the right ones.
- The mast is the other key element here. I ended up sourcing a 60mm galvanised steel tube, cut to order from Key Clamp Store. They do next day delivery and it's not super expensive. Don't underestimate the mast length, specially if you're going over the roof. Consider that from the antenna head where the mast goes in, the antenna will go down about 15 inches (or 75 centimetres), so you definitely need to raise it. Also consider that depending on what satellites you're looking to hit, the skew angle will make one side of the antenna go considerably lower, so you might need even more clearance. Measure twice, cut once
- Crimping connectors. Went with Cablecon. Loved them!
- 4 Quattro Irdetto premium LNBs, also loved them! (Another another 3 single output later for the satellites I'm going to watch less often).
- EMP Centauri 17x4 Multiswitch (Ms17/4piu-6 V10)
- And lastly, my existing receiver setup. I use a linux box with three tuners, one quad and two double, with TVHeadEnd.
Hope this helps! If anyone has any kind of doubts please reach out and I'll be happy to assist!