Where can I get a cheap LNB

ProDave

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I presently have an old Sky analogue system at 19.2 degrees for the few English channels left there and the German music channels, with an 80cm dish.

I have recently been given a second old Sky analogue receiver, so what I want to do is put a second LNB on this dish for hotbird at 13 degrees mainly for BBC World.

So all I need is a plain simple LNB, it doesn't even need a to be a modern universal one. It's the sort of thing that people all over the place are throwing away as worthless (I know because I saw a complete old dish and LNB in a Skip recently. Unfortunately I didn't have the second receiver then, so didn't bother taking it. Wish I had now.)

So does any one know where I can get such a redundant unwanted old LNB for next to nothing or if you are about to throw one away I will pay your postage plus a bit to send it to me.

Thanks.

BTW I live near Oxford.
 
H

harmio

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hey.... the best place ive found to get 60cm dishes complete with LNB;s is my local scrap yard thingy.. like the council run one, where you go to take old furniture and stuff. there was hundreds of them. I couldnt belive it, offer them a fiver and they,ll give you the whole thing. Or LNB's are really cheap nowadays.. you can get a universal brand new one for £14-15 if you shop around. Although I dont even have that much money ... !
 

rolfw

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[updated:LAST EDITED ON 11-Jan-02 AT 07:42 PM (GMT)]Yep, the tip, a car boot sale or scout around the neighbourhood, there's sure to be someone with a redundant dish. I don't think I'd be prepared to pay a fiver at the tip though, the LNB may not work.

If you go to your local satellite/aerial installer he'll probably sell you a cheap working one that he's taken off someone's wall.


Rolf

PS. If you get really stuck PM me and I'll send you one. (It'll be an old one though}
 

ProDave

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Okay, onother question.

I installed the second LNB on my dish on Saturday. I took the receiver and a portable TV outside, and started off just holding the LNB in front of the dish to find out where it needs to be mounted. When I found the correct position, I set out to make a bracked to mount it permanently.

It was actually very easy, a standard plastic waste pipe clamp fits the 40mm collar nicely, and a couple of spacers and a few nuts and bolds and one sturdy and neat mounting bracket.

It ends up with the second LNB being just to the right of the original one (looking into the dish) and very slightly lower than it. I also rotared the new lnb for best signal, though it appears not to need any skew.

The feedhorn of both LNB's are almost touching, which means 6 degrees apart is the minimum you can do like this. If the two satellites you wanted were ledd than 6 degrees apart, the LNB's would have to overlap each other which of course would not be posible.

Now my question.

I am a bit dissapointed with reception quality. There is a huge variation in signal strengths over the different channels (I can receive all 19 analogue channels listed on Lyngsat) Some (e.g TBN) are near perfect, while a couple are very poor indeed. The main one I am interested in, BBC world is watchable, but has some sparklies, and I can't improve any more, this is the one I was watching when I aligned the lnb.

So is this what I would expect with an 80cm dish looking at 19.2 degrees, and an offset LNB for 13 degrees? Obviously if using an offset lnb like this will give worse results than a dedicated dish, but is what I am getting as good as I can expect for this setup?
 

Channel Hopper

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It could be that the second LNB is not perfect, first tey swopping them over in the clamps. If the picture does not improve then its the signal coming in from the satellite.

I would stongly suggest anyway to take the dish down and move the arm over to the other side, then realign the dish onto 13 East with the side LNB on Astra

That way the LNBs will be better set up for the varying signal strengths from the two slots
 

rolfw

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As Channel Hopper says. Dave, the better arrangement is for 13E (the weaker signal) to be on the main focus LNB, the secondary must also be set up so that the focus is in the centre of the dish, this is quite difficult with a non-standard bracket, it can be quite possible to set it so that it can receive some channels well, while the weaker ones are below threshold.
 

ProDave

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Hi Guys

Thanks for all your help. I have been away for a couple of days so haven't had chance to repply earlier.

It looks like you have confirmed two things, firstly that 13E is a weaker signal to start with, and secondly that I would be better swapping things around with 13E as the main LNB etc.

However I will leave things as they are for the time being, mainly because at some point I may put a third LNB on the dish for Sky Digital from 28E (this would allow me to take down my seperate minidish, and use that as a portable dish for my caravan) and I don't think that would work too well if the main focus of the dish was looking at 13E.

Re the mounting of the LNB. Yes I know my home made bracket doesn't have as much adjustment as a commercial side arm, but I took a lot of time finding out where it needed to mount for best signal. I optimised the LNB position for best signal on BBC World, so it may well be that others are not so good because of this, but the foreign ones don't interest me much anyway.

As I said BBC World is quite watchable as it is, it's just not quite perfect, so it will do for me.

Thanks again for your help.
 
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