Sirius and Thor in the Southeast

billieuk

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I am looking to buy a new dish for sirius 2/3 and also thor 2/3. Particularily sirius.

Just wondered what size people have and what sort of signal quality they are getting from the channels.

See planning permission says you can only have a 90cm so I didnt want to go bigger, but on the other hand what satellite recommends a 120cm dish for Sirius.

The dish i was interested in getting was the Triax TD88 which is near enough 90cm.

Please let me know some kind of signal reports, particularily if you are in kent trying to view these sats.

Cheers

Damien
 

jeallen01

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Located in W.London.

Am using a pretty good 85cm dish & LNB setup and can only get S2/S3 during the day with my Echostar 3000Ip, non-Via, - from around 7pm the signal drops off noticeably and channel lock is gnerally lost. Everyone confirms that!

A 90cm dish would make a VERY slight improvement, but everyone with a 1.2m dish seems to have no problems much at all.

Got to be the "big" one I am afraid unless you have
- a extremely good dish (the one you mentioned is "nothing special", I am afraid) - the best ChannelMasters are supposed to punch above their weight but are difficult to get hold of (and not cheap); The "Gregorian" dishes (with the secondary reflector where the LNB normally fits are also supposed to be better than normal dishes.

AND/OR
- a receiver with a very low threshold tuner - the Xtreme Hornet tuner got a good write up in TeleSatellite International; the @sat9500 tuner is supposed to be good (Wot Sat); the Technomate 5500 tuner is supposed to be good according to Wot Sat, but these receivers have other problems (see the Den & Satdudez)

John A
 

billieuk

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I have a technomate reciever and it does seem to pick up stuff OK, not that I have any basis for comparison. But i can get all of turksat on my 60cm dish 24hrs so, this may or may not be good.

Just out of interest, what LNB do you have? I have a 0.6db so I am wondering if a 90cm dish and a 0.3db might pull it in just that little bit more.

I would get a bigger dish but they are just so damn ugly. I might just get one of those polycarbonate see through things at 85cms, though I dont know if they are any better/worse with signal.
 

jeallen01

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LNB's on steerable 85cm (13 year old NEC - but it's a "good 'un") and 90cm fixed Raven Gemnini (wider than it is tall - pretty good) dish for Sirius only (forgot that the first time) are both Sharp White 0.6dB - which is a pretty good LNB, and slightly better than an MTI Blueline on the Steerable Dish but needs VERY careful alignment to make that improvement.

From what I read, you may get an improvement with a 0.3 Invacom or a 0.3dB Golden Interstar (from Viking Sat & MUCH cheaper than the Invacom). However, again, I suspect that this will be marginal and that any overall "improvement" will be down to the way you fit and align it on the dish. THE LATTER IS CRITICAL - a well aligned 0.6 can easily be better than a poorly aligned 0.3.

John A
 

billieuk

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Probably best i do that in stages then, see what sort of signal I would get on a 90 then maybe move over the the lower noise lnb, if the signal is too weak, just to pull it in that little bit better.

BTW, I looked at satellite-superstore.com and it says that the gregorian dishes are disocntinued, which is annoying since i found another site that stated that they give at least 20% better signal. Oh well missed out on that one.

Damien
 

Stephen W

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I have a 80cm dish with a 0.3dB LNB connected to a Technomate 5500 DACI receiver and pick up Sirius really well here on the East coast 24/7.
 

waverider

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You could use a dish like I have which is oval! 90cm across 110 vertical....seems to by pass the planning red tape!
 

Rob

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It also depends on what channels you want to see on Sirius as some of the channels such as the Ukraine package need only a 70cm dish, were as some like NSAB need up to a 150cm dish.
Look in the "Guide To Digital Channels" in your What Sat mag page 156-157 and it will give you an idea of what you can expect to see.
I view Sirius quiet a lot with my little old 70cm dish from here just north of the Thames just across the river from you, but to see it all you need to go much bigger ! :cool:
 

waverider

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If your north of the Thames Rob you must be near me m8!....in fact I'm not far from West Hams training ground.
 

Rob

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Hi WR, not to far away, I'm about two miles north of Lakeside Shopping Centre.
:-cheers

PS. Didn't realized West Ham trained ! :D
 

waverider

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I take it you must live in Ock in then :D m8
 
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