Buying satellite dish in Limerick

Kris

Hi,
I live in Limerick - where can I buy 80cm satellite dish? Can be second-hand...

Thanks,
Kris

jeffred

The only place I bought one in Limerick is in Maplins - they have a 90cm Fortec Star dish,no 80cm that I know of.

old boy

pm watty

Sparky

Yeah Watty would have a good idea alright.

Aquos76

Including lnb and delivery Satellite.ie have one for €80

http://www.satellite.ie/acatalog/80cm_Dish_by_Andrews_.html

yop

What is the difference between a 0.3 and 0.2 LNB with that dish Aquos?

Aquos76

And now for the technical stuff

0.2dB LNB’s – are they different from 0.3 dB devices?

What is the reason to change your existing LNB? Does the new TV standard (HDTV) require this? ? What about DVB-S2? No, no, and no. None of these things reqOr perhaps the new compression method (MPEG-4) is the reasonuires you to change the LNB. You can enjoy watching HDTV compressed with MPEG-4 and modulated in accordance with DVB-S2 on the same existing device. Only your receiver must be replaced with its most modern successor.

So what makes LNB manufacturers think that people will replace their old LNB with new devices? Except for the hardware malfunctions, there is only one reason – new devices have lower noise figure.Every electronic device except for the function it is designed to do, introduces extra noise to the signal.

One cannot produce absolutely noiseless amplifierorfrequency converter. The new LNB’s are much better with respect to noise than the older devices. If you have read our previous test reports concerning 0.3dB LNB’s, you already know that there is a significantdifferencebetween0.8dB and 0.3 dB devices. But can we notice any difference between 0.3 dB and 0.2 dB?

When Max Communication supplied us with their new Chess Edition II LNB’s, we were very anxious. We got a complete set: single, twin, quatro and quad devices (models 1001, 1002, 1004 and 1004-S). Previously we tested their 0.3 dB LNB’s (Platinum Edition models). They performed quite well, and the difference between them and 0.8 dB unit was very distinctive.

So this time, we took the Platinum Edition Model 801 (single, NF=0.3 dB) as the benchmark. We used the transponder 11.766 GHz, SR 27500, ¾, Horizontal from Sirius 5° E as a test signal. Figure 1 presents the signal strength produced by different LNB’s at their outputs. The firstcolumncorresponds to the benchmark device.

Generally, the higher - the better. Although the channel power is not the most crucial parameter.

Time to show the noise related measurement results. Figure 2 shows, the so called MER (Modulation Error Rate). The higher it is, the bigger separation between the signal and noise.

As you can see, the best was twin LNB (model 1002). The single LNB was practically identical to the benchmark and 2 out

puts from the new quad device were even worse than the benchmark. Except for the MER, we also measured the CBER (Channel Bit Error Rate). It is a number which tells us how often an erroneous bit appears in a data stream due to noise. For example, if CBER is equal to 1 x 10 E-3, it means that on average, one false bit happens every 1,000 true bits. The lower the value the better. Figure 3 shows the measurement results of the CBER.

As expected, the LNB that had the best MER, had also the lowest CBER. The same applies to the worst one. As you can see, some of the new models were slightly better than the benchmark but some were somewhat poorer. However, we can say that statistically, the 0.2 dB LNB’s were slightly better than the 0.3 dB benchmark.

The problem with the commercial LNB’s is that their noise performance is specifiedas"typical"value. While this is very convenient for the marketing people, it is a nightmare for the engineers who are supposed to answer simple question: "Will I see a difference if I replace 0.3 dB with a 0.2 dB LNB?". The honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes not. Depending how lucky you are and what actual noise figureyou will get, and of course what the actual noise figureofyourexisting LNB is. Certainly, you should keep in mind that the difference will not be striking.

watty

In fact any good 0.7 dB NF LNB will do. Dish size and alignment is what matters. Tightning the last bolt can bmake 1dB difference.

dB is a log scale so 0.2dB to 0.7dB is 0.5dB which is really really tiny change.

Only dB steps more than 2dB are significant.


More important is ability of LNB to receive a WEAK signal beside a STRONG signal.

yop

so its a 0.2 then Thanks lads

kaisersose77

luckyjim=satworld

Anyways is 55 euros not robbery? were lidl not selling them a lot cheaper and corksat whereever that site disappeared to, had them much cheaper aswell.

TheDriver

From my experiences, you get what you pay for, 20 euro dish has plastic bits which wind will break them or won't stand up to the wind and goes out of allignment.

pjq

"From my experiences, you get what you pay for" ,,, imo you always get top price in this dear Republic of ours . For value try Germany

http://www.toci.de/xtcommerce/index.php

http://www.hm-sat.de/index2.html

even with high delivery costs it still makes sense .

PJQ

PS the Comag STB from Toci at €40- is a bargain

kramlq

I just bought one from Germany. Even with postage, it still works out cheaper than anything I saw in Limerick. But if you go this route, email to confirm they send dishes to Ireland first. Some dont, due to the possibility of damage en route.

Also, if you dont speak german it could be tricky (unless they can speak english of course). Especiallly if they only accept payment by bank transfer ("Uberweisung" or "Vorkasse"), because banks (Bank of Ireland anyway) need quite a few details to do a transfer to Germany (far more than required by someone in Germany), so a seller can sometimes be a little suspicious and reluctant to give you so many details.

Some useful words:
Sat Spiegel = dish (sometimes called a more understandable "Sat Antenna")
Uberweisung = bank transfer
Vorkasse = Payment in advance (typically via bank transfer)
Nachname = Payment on Delivery. May not be possible for Ireland, and expensive if it is.
Versand = delivery/postage
AGB = Terms and Conditions.

watty

I dealt with 4 German company & one Czech this year. They all had better English than some call centres.

kramlq

Yes, I've bought from shops in germany over the internet, and I also have been in several satellite shops while in Germany. Some are owned & run by turkish, east european or russian immigrants, so they wont all necessarily speak english. I've certainly dealt with some that didn't, so its better to check first.