Newbie please help! twin lnb setup

lazarus79

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hi,

I live in gloucester. is it possible to have an 80cm orbital dish with twin lnb's 1 pointing at 28.2 astra for freesat and 1 towards hotbird 13e or is the gap too large? also in the case of this and others (astra1 and hotbird) i understand in a simple system you then wire the 2 lnbs to a diseqc switch and then your 1 wire to your freesat box. my question is this: does that 1 wire simply go into the freesat box with diseqc protocol which then tunes both lnbs in through menu system? if this is the case does the end user then just flick through the channels in order, with the box automatically switching lnbs? Again, this being the case if i wanted twin feed freesat boxes for recording in say 4 bedrooms, do i get 2x oct lnb's with a diseqc switch 16 to 8 and then wire each box 2 feeds? im confused! please help as i said im new so go easy on the english ! :-rofl2
thankyou!
 

lazarus79

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hi,

I live in gloucester. is it possible to have an 80cm orbital dish with twin lnb's 1 pointing at 28.2 astra for freesat and 1 towards hotbird 13e or is the gap too large? also in the case of this and others (astra1 and hotbird) i understand in a simple system you then wire the 2 lnbs to a diseqc switch and then your 1 wire to your freesat box. my question is this: does that 1 wire simply go into the freesat box with diseqc protocol which then tunes both lnbs in through menu system? if this is the case does the end user then just flick through the channels in order, with the box automatically switching lnbs? Again, this being the case if i wanted twin feed freesat boxes for recording in say 4 bedrooms, do i get 2x oct lnb's with a diseqc switch 16 to 8 and then wire each box 2 feeds? im confused! please help as i said im new so go easy on the english ! :-rofl2
thankyou!
 

Lazarus

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lazarus79 said:
hi,

I live in gloucester. is it possible to have an 80cm orbital dish with twin lnb's 1 pointing at 28.2 astra for freesat and 1 towards hotbird 13e or is the gap too large? also in the case of this and others (astra1 and hotbird) i understand in a simple system you then wire the 2 lnbs to a diseqc switch and then your 1 wire to your freesat box. my question is this: does that 1 wire simply go into the freesat box with diseqc protocol which then tunes both lnbs in through menu system? if this is the case does the end user then just flick through the channels in order, with the box automatically switching lnbs? Again, this being the case if i wanted twin feed freesat boxes for recording in say 4 bedrooms, do i get 2x oct lnb's with a diseqc switch 16 to 8 and then wire each box 2 feeds? im confused! please help as i said im new so go easy on the english ! :-rofl2
thankyou!

That may well be possible, but you'd probably need to align the Dish to an arbitrary focal point somewhere around 20-21 deg East and have both LNBs offset for best results.

Your assumptions over DiSEqC switching etc are correct!

As for the channel changing, what you suggest is true in non-Freesat mode, so you might find it easier to keep a 28E channel list in non-Freesat mode.

The problem is that for full-feature EPG based Recording, you need to be in Freesat mode. You simply can't have everything, I'm afraid.

But there is a lot to answer in your Post, so I'll leave the rest for others to chip in :)
 

Lazarus

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lazarus79 said:
hi,

I live in gloucester. is it possible to have an 80cm orbital dish with twin lnb's 1 pointing at 28.2 astra for freesat and 1 towards hotbird 13e or is the gap too large? also in the case of this and others (astra1 and hotbird) i understand in a simple system you then wire the 2 lnbs to a diseqc switch and then your 1 wire to your freesat box. my question is this: does that 1 wire simply go into the freesat box with diseqc protocol which then tunes both lnbs in through menu system? if this is the case does the end user then just flick through the channels in order, with the box automatically switching lnbs? Again, this being the case if i wanted twin feed freesat boxes for recording in say 4 bedrooms, do i get 2x oct lnb's with a diseqc switch 16 to 8 and then wire each box 2 feeds? im confused! please help as i said im new so go easy on the english ! :-rofl2
thankyou!

That may well be possible, but you'd probably need to align the Dish to an arbitrary focal point somewhere around 20-21 deg East and have both LNBs offset for best results.

Your assumptions over DiSEqC switching etc are correct!

As for the channel changing, what you suggest is true in non-Freesat mode, so you might find it easier to keep a 28E channel list in non-Freesat mode.

The problem is that for full-feature EPG based Recording, you need to be in Freesat mode. You simply can't have everything, I'm afraid.

But there is a lot to answer in your Post, so I'll leave the rest for others to chip in :)
 

lazarus79

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many thanks for your reply, its a big help it seems im not so dumb after all! I take it on a diseqc protocol box you have a choice of freesat and non freesat modes? do they really make a 16 to 8 diseqc switch? lol!
 

lazarus79

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many thanks for your reply, its a big help it seems im not so dumb after all! I take it on a diseqc protocol box you have a choice of freesat and non freesat modes? do they really make a 16 to 8 diseqc switch? lol!
 

Lazarus

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lazarus79 said:
many thanks for your reply, its a big help it seems im not so dumb after all! I take it on a diseqc protocol box you have a choice of freesat and non freesat modes? do they really make a 16 to 8 diseqc switch? lol!

Sorry, I was referring to the basic principle of selecting a channel and the correct LNB automatically being selected.

DiSEqC only applies in non-Freesat mode as in Freesat mode. Port A (or Port 1) is default.

DiSEqC switches are ignorant of Freesat and non-Freesat Receiver modes as they are designed to a DVB-S related set of protocols, not to Platform Applications.

I didn't answer the bits about how you might cope with all those potential boxes as others here are better equipped to advise you. That said, DiSEqC switches can be cascaded, so there is scope and flexibility in their application. However, friends here might suggest other means such as Quattro LNBs and Multi-switches as opposed to Quads and DiSEqC switches (And, to complicate matters, some Quads will work with Multi-switches ...... but we'll leave that one for now!).
 

Lazarus

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lazarus79 said:
many thanks for your reply, its a big help it seems im not so dumb after all! I take it on a diseqc protocol box you have a choice of freesat and non freesat modes? do they really make a 16 to 8 diseqc switch? lol!

Sorry, I was referring to the basic principle of selecting a channel and the correct LNB automatically being selected.

DiSEqC only applies in non-Freesat mode as in Freesat mode. Port A (or Port 1) is default.

DiSEqC switches are ignorant of Freesat and non-Freesat Receiver modes as they are designed to a DVB-S related set of protocols, not to Platform Applications.

I didn't answer the bits about how you might cope with all those potential boxes as others here are better equipped to advise you. That said, DiSEqC switches can be cascaded, so there is scope and flexibility in their application. However, friends here might suggest other means such as Quattro LNBs and Multi-switches as opposed to Quads and DiSEqC switches (And, to complicate matters, some Quads will work with Multi-switches ...... but we'll leave that one for now!).
 

davemurgtroyd

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The best way would be 2 quattro lnbs (NOT quads) feeding a 9 into 8 multiswitch. The multiswitch would perform as the 8 seperate DiSEqC switches you would otherwise require, the 9th input is for a terrestrial aerial and would also then feed this to each room. If more rooms are required then there are 9 into 12 and 16 multiswitches. If more satellites are required then 13 input multiswitches exist to use with 3 quattros. Note with using multiswitches a larger than standard dish is required to make up for its inherent signal losses so I would suggest an 1metre dish.
 

davemurgtroyd

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The best way would be 2 quattro lnbs (NOT quads) feeding a 9 into 8 multiswitch. The multiswitch would perform as the 8 seperate DiSEqC switches you would otherwise require, the 9th input is for a terrestrial aerial and would also then feed this to each room. If more rooms are required then there are 9 into 12 and 16 multiswitches. If more satellites are required then 13 input multiswitches exist to use with 3 quattros. Note with using multiswitches a larger than standard dish is required to make up for its inherent signal losses so I would suggest an 1metre dish.
 
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