aceb
Specialist Contributor
- My Satellite Setup
- TBS 6925
1.8m Precision + PLL Bullseye, motorised but probably siezed now.
2 x Sky Zone 2 for 28/19/13°E
- My Location
- Sussex
The much maligned Fortec Star, fit for nothing except the bin? So the facts are it's cheap, some of it like the base are nasty too. Many of them were bought in the UK by people trying to get free football from Middle East pointing sats on Ku so once you also factor in the 'throw it together' construction, probably drop a panel along the way and use an equally cheap LNB you end up with reports of these things are rubbish. Well they're not top quality that's for sure but pick one up at a reasonable price (mine was free to dismantle and take away) and you have a decent enough C-Band dish that does work, and as best as I can tell close to stated gain figures.
I constructed all this single handedly, first weighting down the base with some bags of ballast, bringing the elevation right up so it sat flat and then loosely attaching each petal individually. Once it was in one piece using a small shaped bit of wood each petal was aligned to the next one removing any differences in height, I've not been able to get one joint absolutely flat but it's within 1mm at the outer edge and fine in the centre. After that each petal was strung twice using cotton and with the help of good lady wife holding one side I removed the surprisingly small error and now all strings just touch in the middle.
Ditched the LNB bracket that ships with the Fortec and attach a spare scalar that came with the Titanium C1W, slide in the ESX241 and look for a signal! I've not done any fine tuning with fD or focal distances, the scalar is where it lands on the arms and the LNB slid in and out for maximum smoke.
The results so far speak for themselves, 15 transponders on 38E, 4 new ones on 8W, upto 9 now on 43W, 270 TV stations on 58W, 171 TV on 40.5W etc. Yesterday I managed to take some readings then swapped the ESX onto the 1.8 and re did the tests, signals are consistently 2-4dB stronger on the 2.4FS compared to the 1.8 Precision. Putting the C1W onto the FS produces almost identical results showing little difference in the performance of each LNB.
I guess the next step is to get the dish adapted to fit a polar mount so I'm looking out for something second hand I can refurbish over the winter then consider what to do with it. It's tempting to replace the Precision but as I sometimes use that for Ku it's not an easy decision.
I constructed all this single handedly, first weighting down the base with some bags of ballast, bringing the elevation right up so it sat flat and then loosely attaching each petal individually. Once it was in one piece using a small shaped bit of wood each petal was aligned to the next one removing any differences in height, I've not been able to get one joint absolutely flat but it's within 1mm at the outer edge and fine in the centre. After that each petal was strung twice using cotton and with the help of good lady wife holding one side I removed the surprisingly small error and now all strings just touch in the middle.
Ditched the LNB bracket that ships with the Fortec and attach a spare scalar that came with the Titanium C1W, slide in the ESX241 and look for a signal! I've not done any fine tuning with fD or focal distances, the scalar is where it lands on the arms and the LNB slid in and out for maximum smoke.
The results so far speak for themselves, 15 transponders on 38E, 4 new ones on 8W, upto 9 now on 43W, 270 TV stations on 58W, 171 TV on 40.5W etc. Yesterday I managed to take some readings then swapped the ESX onto the 1.8 and re did the tests, signals are consistently 2-4dB stronger on the 2.4FS compared to the 1.8 Precision. Putting the C1W onto the FS produces almost identical results showing little difference in the performance of each LNB.
I guess the next step is to get the dish adapted to fit a polar mount so I'm looking out for something second hand I can refurbish over the winter then consider what to do with it. It's tempting to replace the Precision but as I sometimes use that for Ku it's not an easy decision.
