Project Fibo

[Captain Jack]

Thanks nelson_b. Saves me the trouble of climbing the roof...

 

[cat010]

captain jack i pretty sure the satellite superstore (google will bring up the website) has 3 inch poles for salew give them a try

 

[Captain Jack]

Thanks cat but no need for one any more... at least for now. Plus with the prices SSS charge, it would probably be easier and less painful to cut off my own leg and use that as a pole...

 

[Captain Jack]

Oh, now what?

Seems all satellites across the arc have gone down in strength by between 2 and 5dB. This seems to have happened in the past few days and only today I checked that it has indeed gone down. It could be something as simple as a spider between the LNB and the sub-reflector but not sure. Weather has been fine here so I don't think it went out of alignment.

I noticed in the past that condensation occurs inside the feedhorn cap as there's a small hole at the bottom of it for the water to drip out. Maybe a small bug/insect crawled inside it? Dunno...

*sigh*

Another day on the roof tomorrow. Really tempted to put the Channel Master back on. Shouldn't be too hard a job really as I don't need to touch the PM, except adjust the declination screw.

 

[Captain Jack]

Fixed! Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what the problem was? The clues are in this thread...

 

[Vipersan]

My first guess would be moisture build up due to condensation..
Certainly if there was enough of a gap to let an arachnid take up residence..

 

[Captain Jack]

That's what I thought but no. The issue was the bloody plastic film on the LNB! I've no idea what happened to it but it somehow misted up - I couldn't see through it. I thought it might have been condensation but it turned out to be the adhesive on the back of it somehow melting and turning into goo. So I removed it now!

While I was up there and the weather was nice, I decided to put my Channel Master on for comparison. The results are fairly conclusive. In most cases the Channel Master gave readings between 1 and 1.5dB lower than the Fibo, which is a lot when feed-hunting. I tried the CM with its proper feedhorn and the Black Pro C120 as well as with the Black Ultra. BU gave slightly better performance overall but the feedhorn looks better

I put the Fibo back on and realigned it on the arc again. Used reference points of 37.5W (Dove Vision 9.3d, 31.5W (ORTM 7.2d, 30W (Al Jaz 17.1d, 22W (Beach Cams 16.3d, 5W (Canal Algerie 9.2d and 36E Sub Saharan beam (12245H - 6.8dB but occasionally goes over 7d.

With the Channel Master, I couldn't get much above 6dB on 36E, Beach Cams on 22W were low to mid 15dB and Canal Algerie on 5W I could not get about 8dB.

Was a bit of a pain as every time I tightened up the bolts the dish went off alignment. So a bit of trial and error and a lot of luck was necessary.

So there you have it. The Fibo really does have the edge over Channel Master. I am sure with more tweaking, I could have squeezed maybe a bit more out of the CM but it was becoming hard work.

 

[digi247]

Hi CJ

I am surprised at the Black Ultra beating the Black Pro C120 on the CM as i have just switched from the Invacom on my Gibby to the Black pro and putting it on the meter i have gained between 1-1.5db on weaker signals and some midrange, The stronger ones have obviously been unchanged. the reason i ask is that according to Inverto's website both the BU and BP are nigh on identical apart from the Conversion gain and Phase control which goes in favour of the Black pro, Personally i can only do tests here but have had the BU on my Gibby un-modified of course and it was only slightly better than the Invacom C120 where as the BP is better again.

Regards

 

[Captain Jack]

My tests weren't thorough as the dish was nowhere near what you'd call aligned. However, when trying to peak on weaker signals I just couldn't get decent results (compared to BU). Although the BP was at an optimal position, being attached to a matched feedhorn, there was more in the way of adjustment I could do with the BU - so maybe that matters? Not sure...

 

[nelson_b]

That's what I thought but no. The issue was the bloody plastic film on the LNB! I've no idea what happened to it but it somehow misted up - I couldn't see through it. I thought it might have been condensation but it turned out to be the adhesive on the back of it somehow melting and turning into goo. So I removed it now!

While I was up there and the weather was nice, I decided to put my Channel Master on for comparison. The results are fairly conclusive. In most cases the Channel Master gave readings between 1 and 1.5dB lower than the Fibo, which is a lot when feed-hunting. I tried the CM with its proper feedhorn and the Black Pro C120 as well as with the Black Ultra. BU gave slightly better performance overall but the feedhorn looks better

hi - Captain Jack -
good to hear that you got the problem sorted -- i,v had a few c120 inverto l.n.b,s (mainly white tech)
but never had that happen with them -- even though i gained nothing removing the plastic film on my black pro C120 the other week -- i will always remove the film now in future just in case

interesting to hear you test result/comparison --
i,v compare the black ultra and darkgold l.n.b.,s - against a C120 white tech+ c.m. feed on the 1.2 channel master in the past, and the black ultra and darkgold were on the whole slightly better on weak signals than the white tech on that dish--- i have a Smart Titanium Twin, C120 conversion with c.m. feedhorn on there at the moment -- giving best results so far -

the 1.8 is a different story and best results with that dish are C120 black pro + c.m. feed --

regards nelson.b.

 

[Captain Jack]

A bit of an update. I had a forum member here Trust1 (Trust on Fibo Owners foums) make me a custom modification to Black Ultra. Custom in that I needed it converted to a C120 type as there was no way I could remove the C120 flange from the inside the FIbo feedhorn - it's just stuck solid in there.

Received it last week and tried it out today in favour of the Black Pro. The results were promising. On most channels on most satellites there was an improvement of between 0.4dB and 1.4dB as read on F15, so it's definitely better! Some channels had little or no improvement and some were MUCH better.

MBC on 7W Atlantic Bird (or whatever it's called these days) went from 10.5dB to 11dB. C More HD channels on 1W on 10934H went from 10.7dB to 12.8db! With the same LNB I had around 11.6dB on the 1.2m Channel Master.

10722H on 4W went from around 7dB to 8.2dB. Sadly, the transponders I wanted on 11258H remain generally out of reach, only with an occasional lock.

I've attached some pictures - you can see that I can adjust the skew as well as focal point to some extent.

 

[Captain Jack]

Managed to lock a new transponder on Amos 3 - 11222H. Quite unstable with many, many freezes but... it's there

 

[Captain Jack]

Amos 3 quite strong today.

 

[Captain Jack]

For the first time ever, I am locking 11389H frequency on Amos 3 with the Fibo and Channel Master. Very watchable with the Fibo at 4.9-5.0dB but a lot of breakup with the CM, showing around 4.6dB.
View attachment 62159