Advice Needed 13E, 19.2E and 28.2E on a Zone 2 or Triax 80cm

Currently I have a 1.2m channel master motorised dish installed about 13 years ago, however tree's are now too tall and block everything from 53E to 1.9E during the summer. In the winter I get 28.2E, 13E, 9E, 4.8E and some of 19.2E back, most of the others are still missing or very very weak still.

So I also have a Zone 2 mini dish, with a universal multi-lnb holder, trying to get 13E (unsuccessfully), 19.2E (great) and 28.2E (not perfect but good enough except in heavy rain) with an Inverto Black Ultra Twin (13E), Golden Media 202 (19.2E) and a Dur-line UK 124L3 (28.2E) and it's this I need some advice with.

No matter what I do, I can't get 13E with this setup, it seems to pickup 13E, 10E and 9E (weak signals on all 3, 13E is the worst) with the Black Ultra, which I assume is because I can't get the lnb close enough to 19.2E (dish is pointed at 19.2E), and being a multi-focal dish this just makes the problem worse.


I do also have an 80cm Triax doing nothing with a Triax Multiblock lnb holder, when I used this, I could get 13E and 19.2E without issue but 28.2E wasn't good, it seemed like I could either have the UK beam or the Europe beam but getting both wasn't really happening.

So I am wondering if I might have more luck using a triple monoblock lnb, re-align the Zone 2 dish on 16E and gain an extra sat out of it, but not sure if the multi-focal dish would still be an issue in this scenario, though in theory (in my head atleast) it should be less of an issue as the triple monoblock will only be offset by 3° each side of 16E.

Thoughts and advice please on the best way to get this setup.

I've used one of these for a customer and received good results on 13, 19 and 28 degrees East MULTYTENNE QUATTROSAT , but this is in Central South, I've used a Zone 1 mini for 19.2 and 28.2, but three sats would be a push, even on the zone two, depends where you are. The old Raven 70cm was a good dish for tha, but the best was the T90 Torridal dish, unfortunately they are pretty heavy and need a good solid mounting location.
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A rough calculation for London gives multifeed rail skew -15 degrees (did you take that skew into account?),
and multifeed distance 13-19E about 4 cm for a zone 2 dish (using these specs: Just Sharing This - Calculation of the focal length of an offset satellite dish antenna, Revisited )

So the 4 cm might only be reachable with 23mm neck LNBs.
You might use a monoblock or triple LNB, but I guess the triple LNB is designed for about 80cm width dishes? So I don't know how it would fit a zone 2 dish.
It would work with a 4cm distance monoblock, I would think.

A zone 2 dish, though wider than high, is not a multi-focus dish, if I'm informed correctly.

I don't have specs for the 80cm Triax I'm afraid, so I cannot calculate on that.

greetz,
A33

Try peaking it on 13E and offset the other two LNBs on one side only.

If it is a later design Zone 2, use the elliptical matched LNBFs.

13/19.2/28.2°E is possible on a Zone 2 if you use 40mm LNBs with small feeds like the Inverto Eco:

It is a Mk4 Zone 2, 56cm x 76cm iirc when I measured it before putting it up a few weeks back (sold as a triax, but couldn't see any branding on the dish when it arrived, other than Sky2 on the lnb arm).

The Triax 80cm was 79cm x 71cm iirc.

a33 said:

A rough calculation for London gives multifeed rail skew -15 degrees (did you take that skew into account?),
and multifeed distance 13-19E about 4 cm for a zone 2 dish (using these specs: Just Sharing This - Calculation of the focal length of an offset satellite dish antenna, Revisited )

So the 4 cm might only be reachable with 23mm neck LNBs.
You might use a monoblock or triple LNB, but I guess the triple LNB is designed for about 80cm width dishes? So I don't know how it would fit a zone 2 dish.
It would work with a 4cm distance monoblock, I would think.

A zone 2 dish, though wider than high, is not a multi-focus dish, if I'm informed correctly.

I don't have specs for the 80cm Triax I'm afraid, so I cannot calculate on that.

greetz,
A33

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Yes I took the skew into account and tried the suggested skew for my location, and also tried various other skew settings on all 3 lnb's.

Channel Hopper said:

Try peaking it on 13E and offset the other two LNBs on one side only.

If it is a later design Zone 2, use the elliptical matched LNBFs.

Click to expand...

I did think about that, but can't see how it would work any better tbh as 13E and 19.2E would still need to be pushed as close together as possible, and wouldn't it just make 28.2E almost impossible to get decent signal on again ?

ozumo said:

13/19.2/28.2°E is possible on a Zone 2 if you use 40mm LNBs with small feeds like the Inverto Eco:

View attachment 155328
View attachment 155327

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Yeh I did see those, but seem to be discontinued and ideally need twin output anyway.

rolfw said:

I've used one of these for a customer and received good results on 13, 19 and 28 degrees East MULTYTENNE QUATTROSAT , but this is in Central South, I've used a Zone 1 mini for 19.2 and 28.2, but three sats would be a push, even on the zone two, depends where you are. The old Raven 70cm was a good dish for tha, but the best was the T90 Torridal dish, unfortunately they are pretty heavy and need a good solid mounting location.
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Click to expand...

Sorry forgot to reply to you.

I don't really want to buy another dish, already bought 2 to try and get this setup working, and that Technisat dish isn't cheap iirc.

I looked at the T90 but seems they are expensive and a pain in the a** to setup and i'd have to change the pole and mount for that, and tbh if I was going to go to that effort, it would make more sense to just motorise the Triax 80 and put the minidish above / below it on the pole fixed on 28.2E.

A number of years back I set up a 13/19/28 tri-lnb on a Zone 2 dish that worked okay, but did struggle on 13E on some of the weaker transponders (this was with a setup centred on 19E)- I'd expect that to be less of an issue in somewhere like SE England compared to where I am. @ozumo is right though in getting some narrow-headed LNBs especially as 13E & 19E will be touching each other (less of an issue on 28E) - I haven't seen those Inverto Eco green LNBs on sale for a while but they were good for this purpose - otherwise it might be worthwhile looking for some Zinwell Sky Mk4 dish LNBs as they have a similar narrow profile (you can use some insulating tape to bring the LNB diameter up from 37mm to fit a 40mm clamp if necessary. Overall it can be done, but will need a little patience as adding a second LNB is easy enough, but a third LNB is where things can get tricky as a simple linear bracket can't accommodate for the curve of the arc in the sky - best to leave the LNB for 28E to last IMO if you can.

cokeaddict said:

I did think about that, but can't see how it would work any better tbh as 13E and 19.2E would still need to be pushed as close together as possible, and wouldn't it just make 28.2E almost impossible to get decent signal on again ?

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13E (if it is important) will have the majority of weaker channels at your location.
19E can be accomodated quite easily on a Zone 2 with the elliptical LNB since the feeds are narrower than the standard affair.
28E will be accessible if you use the two 6mm threaded bolts on the back plate of the modern Zone 2 to skew the whole dish to cover the Eastern arc.

Channel Hopper said:

13E (if it is important) will have the majority of weaker channels at your location.
19E can be accomodated quite easily on a Zone 2 with the elliptical LNB since the feeds are narrower than the standard affair.
28E will be accessible if you use the two 6mm threaded bolts on the back plate of the modern Zone 2 to skew the whole dish to cover the Eastern arc.

Click to expand...

I don't recall seeing any bolts to adjust the skew of the dish.

4 to mount the dish face to the back plate, 2 to hold the backplate to the mounting bracket and 2 to adjust elevation, 1 to hold the lnb arm in place and then 2 U bolts to mount it on the pole.

That LNB holder bar looks too horizontal, the Western mounted LNB (for Astra 28.2) looks like it should be higher to reflect downwards, then the Eastern mounted LNB will be lower and point slightly upwards in reflection to get a better signal on Hotbird. So I would get a perfect signal on Astra 19.2 first then, work on the outer LNBs tuning in height outward distance and extra or less skew, best to do Astra 28.2 first, as it's an easier find.

Here's one from a long time back that I installed on a Raven 70cm.

rolfw said:

That LNB holder bar looks too horizontal, the Western mounted LNB (for Astra 28.2) looks like it should be higher to reflect downwards, then the Eastern mounted LNB will be lower and point slightly upwards in reflection to get a better signal on Hotbird. So I would get a perfect signal on Astra 19.2 first then, work on the outer LNBs tuning in height outward distance and extra or less skew, best to do Astra 28.2 first, as it's an easier find.

Click to expand...

The picture is a little misleading, the bar has a fair amount of tilt on it, but the dish is well above the gutter level and the picture was taken from the ground at a distance.

Dish was aligned on 19.2E, so signal there is all good, then tried to get 13E and as no luck with that (in the picture 13E has been abandoned, was in 2 minds about leaving it connected or removing it, but figured if it was left up there, then I don't need to leave the 2 cables hanging about or remove them again), then peaked 28.2E

Just been looking on the net and found this on another board, so as I already have the multiblock from the Triax, maybe this is my best option.

cokeaddict said:

I don't recall seeing any bolts to adjust the skew of the dish.

4 to mount the dish face to the back plate, 2 to hold the backplate to the mounting bracket and 2 to adjust elevation, 1 to hold the lnb arm in place and then 2 U bolts to mount it on the pole.View attachment 155340

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OK, with that mount you may need to move the bracketry to offset the pole from vertical

When I had my multisat setup I found that the Triax lnb 'bar' was the worst. It's impossible to flex and has very little adjustability. You'd be better off with an OEM product.

The best holder ever

The triax lnb holder bar is only decent for 28 23 19 13
I could never get it level with Thor and 13/19 on a 80cm.

Ditched it a long time ago.