NewBie Question / Dish Size ?

[scrambled2003]

Hi

Just about to put together a new system,presently its still on paper as i want to explore all my options and learn as much as possible.

But there can never be anything better than asking people who have been at this a long time what might seem simple question.

So to my question ?

I hope to put together a motorised system which could receive the majority of sats east to west if not the best of the bunch.

What i wanted to know is what would be the minimum dish size approx i could use.

I'm located on the south coast (uk) in sussex.

Thanks!!!!.....

 

[rolfw]

You can receive a fair amount with an 80cm dish, but if you wan't to have a crack at even more, then a 1.2 metre would really open up your options. Really depends on your aspirations.

 

[Mike Bradley]

I agree totally with the previous reply but I would add that planning permission is normally required for dishes larger than 90cm. Of course if it's out of sight then you won't need to worry about that! ;)

An ordinary dish motor can be quite noisy but the DisEqC ones are quiet.

There's a book about installing motorised systems here:
http://www.The-Cool-Book-Shop.com

As a beginner, you might find it quite useful - probably worth the £7 or so that they are asking for its download. You'll probably save more than that by avoiding mistakes that it tells you about. It helped me a year ago.

 

[scrambled2003]

Thanks for the replies chaps,this has to be one of the friendliest forums i've been to.

 

[vinceben]

I use the Triax 88cm dish (to keep within planning regs) and find that performance is very good. I set it up without using a signal strengh meter and get very good results on most sats from Turksat through to PAS at 45w. I can even get Nilesat (as long as it is not raining heavily) but that doesn't bother me as a dish of 1.2m is recomended.

I use the Technomate 5000 2CI receiver and I am based in South Wales.