I have posted this on another forum but it is relevant to this thread as well.
As many of you will have read I struggled with a Fortecstar 2.4 m dish for over four years now. Here in Valencia the best reception I could get from it was to hold onto ITV3 until about 9:30pm and BBC3 until about 8:15. However every time there was a decent wind the dish would change shape or get out of alignment and the reception would fall so I had to go up on the roof with a TV and digibox and readjust for max signal quality. Over the past 12 months I got so fed up of this I did nothing to correct the dish after high winds and by earlier this year was losing even ITV3 at 6:30pm.
Of course I have been contemplating upgrading the dish for ages but finances and lack of will stopped it happening – that is until the gales earlier on this year tore the dish from its mounts and trashed it. A new dish therefore became essential. But which one and what size?
After getting much very good and helpful advice and guidance from many people on this and other forums (many thanks folks) I have a new one piece dish – again 2.4m but now very very firmly attached to a huge block of concrete but in exactly the same location as the old Fortecstar. I must say it certainly looks neater and much more substantial than the old dish but the real question is “Is its performance that much better”? And the answer to that is a resounding YES:
In fact it is so different it’s almost unbelievable. For the first time ever since I have been in Spain I appear to have virtual 24 hour coverage of ALL the Freesat channels including the so called difficult ones such as BBC 2,3 & 4; & ITV 2,3 &4. Even in dark heavy cloud and with very heavy rain I only lost a little quality for Cbeebies for about 10 minutes or so but it did not collapse but did pixelate a little. At midnight yesterday I could not find any Freesat channel that dropped out or failed. And when I connected up my Humax Freesat box in non-freesat mode it managed to find over 800 channels!!! – I will have to sort them out later.
So now my basic setup is the new 2.4 dish, and Invacom quad LNB, Pace C2600 - the Humax will come back out again once I get a TV capable of HD.
Just as an indication of how much improvement I have had, here are a few quality readings taken on the Pace 2600 on average reception days on both the dishes
On Sky default transponder
Fortecstar daytime 60% night 40%
New dish daytime 80% night 60%
12129 (Suggested default for Spain but I don’t actually use this)
Fortecstar daytime 60% night 40%
New dish daytime 100% night 70%
10906V ( ITV3 - ITV3+1)
Fortecstar Daytime 50% night 0 to 20% (dep on weather)
New dish Datime 90% night 60%
10773H For BBC2,3 & 4
Fortecstar daytime 50% night 0%
New dish daytime 90% night 60%
11224V Movies for Men
Fortecstar daytime 50% night 0%
New dish daytime 90% night 60%
Now if anyone asks about a Fortecstar dish for use in this area – I will tell them - DON’T DO IT. Spend a bit more and save yourself a load of grief and frustration.
Also use the forums to get advice – and remember not all what you read is true – notr is all you get told by the installers - especially when it comes to dish types and their properties. Yes cheap dishes are to be avoided BUT the Famaval is not the only decent 2.4 out there. Ask around and ask to see what you are being offered. The time taken will pay you in the end.
..BBC2 just lasted 25min ,BBC1 more then 1hour
