Wavefrontier and stress in the reflector

[lloyd21]

Quality, Price, Performance....Pick 2

We're living in the world of convenience guys....As convenience goes up quality/durability usually goes down.
Fast food
Fast women
Cheap antennas...Same thing

...Pick 2

 

[SMRGroup]

New poster, be gentle. ;)

I've just got one of these toroidal dishes, it looks similar to the one pictured with the new elevation mount at the back, but it's branded "Force", which I guess might be a little different? Anyway, mine is going on to a flat roof, it took my father and I to get it up there, each on a different ladder sharing the weight, and that was without any LNBs or switches. One man can lift it, but it would be a real struggle to get it up a ladder and onto a poll.

What's bugging me right now is that there are no elevation markings on the dish or mount, how is anyone supposed to know what part of the dish is intended to be horizontal in order to set the correct elevation?

 

[Lancelot]

Morning ! and welcome to the forum.

I think the easiest way would be to treat it like a conventional offset dish to begin with .
So the primary reflector will be almost vertical ( in this country at least).
Pick yourself a strong transponder on the centre satellite of your chosen group and use that for the initial elevation setting.

Let us know how it is going.



L.

 

[Likvid]

Toroidal is easy to setup, takes about 10 minutes and then you have peaked all satellites.

You need a inclinometer to measure the angle, they have removed the scale to save production costs, blink blink!

Force is the same shit as Wavefrontier, same shit as Maximum, they are all coming from the same Taiwanese factory, they just put another label on them and if you buy 50 or more you can get your own label.

Installation is straightforward, put a LNB in the middle, mark the middle position with a pen so you get the maximum out of the reflector and adjust the dish skew for the most western or eastern satellite.

 

[SMRGroup]

So the primary reflector will be almost vertical ( in this country at least). Pick yourself a strong transponder on the centre satellite of your chosen group and use that for the initial elevation setting.

Many thanks for the welcome and pointers. It was too darn hot to mess around with the dish this afternoon, but I'll start the adjustments this evening.

Looking at the pictures here it seems the dish is pointing downwards in many installations, that goes against the usual method of getting the face of the dish horizontal then facing it upwards, so that's saved some time.

To answer Likvid's points, I do have an inclinometer but without knowing which part of the dish is the horizontal reference, it's not much use. There's a small picture in the manual of an inclinometer resting on the top part of the reflector mount, so I'm guessing its angle is supposed to be the same as the elevation.

I've had lots of dishes and the Wave Frontier, in my opinion at least, isn't anywhere as bad as Likvid is painting it to be, but I haven't got any broken bolts or seen any problems with the reflector support, in fact based on my dish I don't know how the reflector could be made to ripple like that unless something was seriously misaligned during construction (not that I'm saying this is your fault, it could just be a bad dish).

Of course, I haven't actually received anything on mine yet, so my opinion might change. ;)

 

[Likvid]

I've had lots of dishes and the Wave Frontier, in my opinion at least, isn't anywhere as bad as Likvid is painting it to be, but I haven't got any broken bolts or seen any problems with the reflector support, in fact based on my dish I don't know how the reflector could be made to ripple like that unless something was seriously misaligned during construction (not that I'm saying this is your fault, it could just be a bad dish).

Well, guess twice how the dish can actually warp? TENSION!

Most often due to bad design, low QC, bad materials, Wavefrontier use the cheapest materials found on the market.

Ii have tried more dishes in my profession than most people on this forum from Andrew 4.50m to Winegard 3.0M mesh dishes so i can actually tell what's quality or not.

Consumer dishes are mostly low quality these days, Gibertini seems to have some good dishes, no personal experience with those, some of the Triax seems good also.

 

[SMRGroup]

Well, guess twice how the dish can actually warp? TENSION!

Due to what, overtightened bolts or poorly aligned fixings? I put mine together with a torque wrench and all I can say is that there are no ripples and it's a rigid as can be, nor did I shear off any bolts. Maybe there are good and bad examples as your rippling seems to be unique.

The construction could be better, but you said yourself this is par for the course for consumer dishes these days. I used to own a Triax, it wasn't noticeably better but that was some years ago.

 

[SMRGroup]

Let us know how it is going.

Err... OK I guess... The top of the rear bracket seems to be where to measure the elevation angle from so I guessed and used that.

I'm only a few miles from Manchester, a guide for which is in the manual, but the satellite locations they give are some way off, they have Sirius 2/3 at about 176.6° when it's actually 170.16° in my location, so I've had to adjust all the calculations accordingly. The skew seems to be the opposite of what I'd expect, probably because (from behind) the right of the dish receives satellites that are to the left of the arc, so I think it has to be lower, but I'm getting decent signals already without any LNB tweaking on most of the usual suspects such as Hotbird and Astra at 19.2E°, even though the latter is nearly at the edge of the available arc (I have the centre pointing to 172.5° as that gives the largest number of satellites I can see from my location, Astra 1D at 24.2° is not visible from the dish location).

 

[Likvid]

I used to own a Triax, it wasn't noticeably better but that was some years ago.

Most Triax dishes and also Gibertini use aluminium as reflector material, it's a high quality material compared to steel.

Wavefrontier and cheap dishes uses galvanized steel that rust with time, it's cheap to produce....

 

[Likvid]

The construction could be better, but you said yourself this is par for the course for consumer dishes these days. I used to own a Triax, it wasn't noticeably better but that was some years ago.

How does your Wavefrontier reflector surface feel when touching with the hand? is it a rough surface or does if feel smooth and soft as the Triax dishes do?

 

[SMRGroup]

How does your Wavefrontier reflector surface feel when touching with the hand? is it a rough surface or does if feel smooth and soft as the Triax dishes do?

It's smooth, far more so than the dish I replaced, but I wouldn't describe it as "soft", I'd try to find something else to blow my nose on.

 

[Likvid]

Bumping thread.

I have now purchased a brand new 1st generation T90 after looking for a long time, some guy had it laying in his garage for over a year as he couldn't install it as his wife didn't allow him so i got a pretty sweet deal for it as it was brand new and everything.

This 1st generation is much much better constructed and it's the original T90 Wavefrontier.

I can confirm that the reflector is very nice and the whole construction is more sturdy than 2nd clone generation.

On the subreflector it says "Manufactured by Wavefrontier"

Will post pictures later on as i will install it soon on my balcony....

 

[digidude]

i fitted one when they were first available from my supplier in the uk, the first one they sent me was badly damaged in transit so was sent back, but when i recieved the replacement i have to say i was impressed

i fitted it myself, above a roofline, complete with 3 twin output lnbs, a quad lnb and 2 4 way switches, and thought i was going to die.

the thing weighed an absolute ton, and was in no way whatsoever a one man job, this thing was as solid as a rock

 

[Likvid]

i fitted one when they were first available from my supplier in the uk, the first one they sent me was badly damaged in transit so was sent back, but when i recieved the replacement i have to say i was impressed

i fitted it myself, above a roofline, complete with 3 twin output lnbs, a quad lnb and 2 4 way switches, and thought i was going to die.

the thing weighed an absolute ton, and was in no way whatsoever a one man job, this thing was as solid as a rock

Yeah it's a bit tough fitting it on a slope roof

Surprised it could get damaged in transport because the dish is very tough and made of thick steel.

I got it in my livingroom right now on the floor, too lazy to get the thing installed as i am pretty happy with my tweaked Fibo i am running now.

I tried to look if i could fit both the Fibo and T90 on my balcony but it's so tight....

 

[tighbuidhe]

I have asked them if they will release a 120cm T120 Toroidal soon.

The T90 is too small for some parts in Europe, a T120 would solve the BBC receptions problems for me anyway.

...did you ever get a reply to this???
a T120 would certainly be of interest to me

regards

 

[Likvid]

...did you ever get a reply to this???
a T120 would certainly be of interest to me

regards

Yes i did and their answer was no.

 

[politby]

Toroidal is easy to setup, takes about 10 minutes and then you have peaked all satellites.

You need a inclinometer to measure the angle, they have removed the scale to save production costs, blink blink!

Force is the same shit as Wavefrontier, same shit as Maximum, they are all coming from the same Taiwanese factory, they just put another label on them and if you buy 50 or more you can get your own label.

Installation is straightforward, put a LNB in the middle, mark the middle position with a pen so you get the maximum out of the reflector and adjust the dish skew for the most western or eastern satellite.

Likvid, is there any way to send a PM to you on this forum? I have some questions for you regarding Sky/Astra 2 reception on my T90. I live in the same area as you.

 

[steffan_st]

Likvid, is there any way to send a PM to you on this forum? I have some questions for you regarding Sky/Astra 2 reception on my T90. I live in the same area as you.

Why don't you post your questions here at the forum instead,may be useful for others as well!

 

[rolfw]

Likvid, is there any way to send a PM to you on this forum? I have some questions for you regarding Sky/Astra 2 reception on my T90. I live in the same area as you.

Unfortunately Likvid doesn't come here any more, so you can't send him a PM.

 

[CROSSBONES]

Unfortunately Likvid doesn't come here any more, so you can't send him a PM.

:-nuts:-part3