Newbie Dish & LNB Questions for Multiple Satellites

garym71

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You'll have to excuse my ignorance as I'm a complete novice when it comes to satellite systems/equipment but I have what is probabaly a some very straight forward questions which will probably be a doddle for the experts to answer.

I currently have standard Sky installed in my house (not Sky+) which has a 53cm x 43cm minidish mounted on the outside of the house with one single-feed LNB attached.

What I now want is to also be able to receive Russian TV channels (ones listed in this link). For now I'm not worried about the actual reciever equipment which I will worry about later but what I need to try and work out is what Dish and LNB setup I need.

I don't really want 2 dishes on my house so I would like to use a single dish. I know from research that the Sky dish is really too small so I will need to replace it with something larger. So the initial questions I have...
  1. Can I receive Sky (on Astra 28.2E?) and also the main Russian channels (on Hotbird 13E) using a single fixed dish?
  2. If the answer is yes to the first question then for additional Russian channels broadcast on Sirus 5E could I still use the same fixed dish?
  3. If I will be able to utilise a single dish for either of the first 2 questions then would an 80cm one most likely be sufficient for my needs? (location-wise I'm based just south of Oxford if it makes much difference)
  4. For receiving signals from multiple satellites on a single fixed dish can I use a multi-feed LNB (dual, quad etc.) for the individual satellite feeds or will I need a separate LNB for each satellite feed?
Any help/advice on this would be greatly appreciated :)
 

rolfw

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With a Raven Gemini 90cm dish and multiple LNBs, you may just about do it , but may be a little weak on 5E.
 

garym71

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Pace TDS470N Sky+ Receiver, Technomate TM-5400CI+ FTA Receiver, Raven Gemini 70cm Mesh Dish with East & West offset LNB brackets, 2 x Inverto Black Ultra Single LNBs, Inverto Black Premium Quad LNB, Eurostar 4x1 DiSEqC Switch, Webro WF100 Cable
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Thanks for the reply.

OK...so I could use a single dish on Astra and Hotbird without issues but trying to also receive a signal from Sirus on the same dish if it's fixed could pose a problem.

When you say "multiple LNBs" do you mean I would need 3 single LNB's mounted on the dish (one for each of the 3 satellites) or are you saying that I could use a single multiple-input LNB (i.e. a quad one) which has multiple inputs (i.e. 4 inputs, one for each of the 3 satellites with one input left spare)?

As I understand it (maybe I'm wrong), a quad LNB is like 4 separate LNB's mounted inside a single housing. Is this correct or not?
 

rolfw

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You would need three single LNBs on two offset brackets (one East, one West).

A quad LNB is four outputs from the same satellite, there are multisat LNBs, they are called monobloc and normally see two satellites, 3 or 6 degrees apart.
 

garym71

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Pace TDS470N Sky+ Receiver, Technomate TM-5400CI+ FTA Receiver, Raven Gemini 70cm Mesh Dish with East & West offset LNB brackets, 2 x Inverto Black Ultra Single LNBs, Inverto Black Premium Quad LNB, Eurostar 4x1 DiSEqC Switch, Webro WF100 Cable
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I did wonder what monobloc LNB was. Thanks for explaining it properly...at least I now know what both monobloc and multi-output LNB's actually are :)

Sorry if this sounds a stupid question but why would I need an East and a West offset bracket for the 3 separate LNB's? Would I not just need and East facing dish / brackets?

Astra = 28.2E
Hotbird = 13E
Sirius = 5E

Does the "E" on the end not mean East? :confused
 

rolfw

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Yes it does, but East of South.

Satellite positions are stated as either East or West of 0 degrees (the Greenwich meridian).

A dish with multiple LNBs has a central focus on one satellite, let's say 13E, so you would use an Eastern satellites bracket to mount your LNB for Astra 28.2 East and a Western satellites bracket for 5 East as it is further West than 13 East.

To confuse things even more, the Eastern satellites bracket, is to the West of the central LNB, as everything is reflected in the dish. :)
 

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How far apart can LNBs be on the same dish, say for example an 80cm for satellites with a good UK footprints?.. I am intersted in a diseqc LNB switching setup.. maybe 8 or 16 LNBs with perhaps 2 or 3 dishes so that someone can use them without needing to know or wait for stations on different satellites.
 

garym71

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Pace TDS470N Sky+ Receiver, Technomate TM-5400CI+ FTA Receiver, Raven Gemini 70cm Mesh Dish with East & West offset LNB brackets, 2 x Inverto Black Ultra Single LNBs, Inverto Black Premium Quad LNB, Eurostar 4x1 DiSEqC Switch, Webro WF100 Cable
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South Oxfordshire, UK
Got it :-righton

So I need a setup similar to this (although mine would be mounted to the front of my house, not on a stand)...

View attachment 12173

With the dish facing directly at one of the satellites (13E using your example), I take it the actual position/location of each LNB on the bracket is critical in order to pick up the correct satellite?

Normally for a dish with just a single LNB, the whole dish would be turned so the LNB faces the correct satellite but with a more than one LNB attached I can see the only way is to move each individual LNB round to it's correct satellite pickup location. Am I correct?

EDIT: Sorry...was posting at the same time you were. Thanks for the picture...makes it much clearer :)
 

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rolfw

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My Satellite Setup
Technomate 5402 HD M2 Ci, DM7000s, Transparent 80cm Dish, Moteck SG2100 DiseqC motor, lots of legacy gear. Meters: Satlook Digital NIT, Promax HD Ranger+ spectrum analyser.
My Location
Berkshire
@ pedro2000uk. 6 degrees is the normal acceptable separation, but it is slightly smaller on a Torroidal dish like the wave frontier (do a search on the forum for that), you can cascade DiseqC switches, but it does become complex and the more switches, the more insertion loss and chances for errors in switching occurring.
 
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