HTPC & other sats

syboit

Hi,

I'm about to buy a hauppauge dvd-s2, hd ready card for my pc so I can watch the freeview sat stuff in another room and also get the free to air HD channels such as bbc & ch4 HD. This feed will come from a spare port on a quad lnb from the sky dish.
I have a second, older , sky dish so I was wondering if I buy one of those mono-block lnbs and put it on the sky dish ( and point it towards 13/19e )can I also run it into the dvd card ? Can I use a diseqc switch to send the feed from 2 dishs (3 lnbs) into the pc ?

any help appreciated.

Pal

sky dish probably too small.

watty

You need 80cm for multiLNB.. Mmaybe older Sky Anlogue dish, so big enough.

Avoid Monobloc. They are designed for Germany and specific dishes and only allow 2 LNBs as Diseqc is internal.

You can put 13 & 19 on second dish and even if it 65cm, as long as it is not for Sky also and pointed at 13E and 19E LNB ofset (maybe even with a bent piece of metal, the "official" bracket adaptor needed for 3 or 4 LNBs). You may lose some weaker channels in rain.

Then add 4 way Diseqc switch with (1) fed from a spare outlet on Quad. (2) from 19E and (3) from 13E.

You can a 4th LNB later for 16E, 5W etc depending on arrangements of dishs. You can always replace both dishes with a Wavefrontier T90 (about 1/2 the price in Germany as Dublin or UK) which allows 3 degree spacing and 45 degree spread.

syboit

thanks for the replies, watty very informative as usual. The wavefrontier does look very nice allright. Looking at some pics on the web with one guy having around 12lnbs on it.
Might have to rethink the whole setup.

Pal

how many lnbs can you stick on a wavefrontier and disecq ?

syboit

Pal wrote: »

how many lnbs can you stick on a wavefrontier and disecq ?

http://www.wavefrontieruk.co.uk/products.html , says 16lnbs!! not sure about the diseqc switches though, taught they were a max of 4-1

syboit

watty wrote: »

You need 80cm for multiLNB.. Mmaybe older Sky Anlogue dish, so big enough.

Avoid Monobloc. They are designed for Germany and specific dishes and only allow 2 LNBs as Diseqc is internal.

You can put 13 & 19 on second dish and even if it 65cm, as long as it is not for Sky also and pointed at 13E and 19E LNB ofset (maybe even with a bent piece of metal, the "official" bracket adaptor needed for 3 or 4 LNBs). You may lose some weaker channels in rain.

Then add 4 way Diseqc switch with (1) fed from a spare outlet on Quad. (2) from 19E and (3) from 13E.

You can a 4th LNB later for 16E, 5W etc depending on arrangements of dishs. You can always replace both dishes with a Wavefrontier T90 (about 1/2 the price in Germany as Dublin or UK) which allows 3 degree spacing and 45 degree spread.

Forgot to ask, for a test using the older sky dish I have (with a single lnb), could I point that to 19e or 13e to see if I can pick up. Would that dish suffice ?

watty

You didn't say which Old Sky dish it is

You'll get many channels on 13E or 19E, with 65cm, but not all and not with good rain margin. It would be too small for Sky also. You can try 13E (more west and tilt back a bit).

The normal Diseqc is either up to 4 or Motorised.
There are two kinds of motorised, Stored position and GoToX.

You can cascade Diseqc switches too, but not many receivers support it.
So EMP Centauri have
http://www.emp-centauri.cz/products.php?menuId=13&nazev=P.168-W
This allows EIGHT LNBs but looks like a motorised system to a receiver, but the instant channel change. A real motorised system can be very slow.

Also you can use Quad LNBs or Quatto LNBs for up to four sets or a distribution system with more than four sets.

syboit

watty wrote: »

You didn't say which Old Sky dish it is

You'll get many channels on 13E or 19E, with 65cm, but not all and not with good rain margin. It would be too small for Sky also. You can try 13E (more west and tilt back a bit).

The normal Diseqc is either up to 4 or Motorised.
There are two kinds of motorised, Stored position and GoToX.

You can cascade Diseqc switches too, but not many receivers support it.
So EMP Centauri have
http://www.emp-centauri.cz/products.php?menuId=13&nazev=P.168-W
This allows EIGHT LNBs but looks like a motorised system to a receiver, but the instant channel change. A real motorised system can be very slow.

Also you can use Quad LNBs or Quatto LNBs for up to four sets or a distribution system with more than four sets.

Hi, thanks again for the info.

as to what type of dish I'm not really sure. Its about 5 years old and came from my buddies house, he had sky at the time and one of the grundig boxes. To be honest, looks very similar to the standard dish these days (only a bit battered looking ). I might just try setting that up and moving it towards 19/13 to see if a bigger project it called for.

My father-in-law does have an 80cm dish, I might feel a swap coming on.

kaisersose77

google that hauppage card before you go ahead and buy it, the last time I read about that it couldnt scan in dvb-s2 channels or something like that. Check it out anyways.

syboit

kaisersose77 wrote: »

google that hauppage card before you go ahead and buy it, the last time I read about that it couldnt scan in dvb-s2 channels or something like that. Check it out anyways.

Thanks for the heads up. Isint dvb-s2 so you can get the HD range of stuff ? bbc/c4 hd ?

watty

Yes. Though last time I looked at BBC HD it was using an ordinary transponder.

syboit

watty wrote: »

Yes. Though last time I looked at BBC HD it was using an ordinary transponder.

by ordinary transponder do you mean like dvb-s and not dvb-s2 ? Wouldnt this card do dvb-s aswell (according to manufacture it does)

I taught with this card I could pick up the free channels such as bbc/itv/cbeebies and then any of the free HD's been broadcasted aswell ?

thanks again.

kaisersose77

Yes BBC HD is using dvb-s still but will probably change over at some stage. ITV HD will probably use dvb-s2 and channel 4 are probably using it already (channel 4 might become FTA in a few months).I'd get a skystar HD/technotrend s2-3200 (same cards). You'd probably have to use some crappy hauppage software to use their card, while the two i mentioned work with the most popular satellite pc programs (dvbviewer,progdvb etc).

syboit

kaisersose77 wrote: »

Yes BBC HD is using dvb-s still but will probably change over at some stage. ITV HD will probably use dvb-s2 and channel 4 are probably using it already (channel 4 might become FTA in a few months).I'd get a skystar HD/technotrend s2-3200 (same cards). You'd probably have to use some crappy hauppage software to use their card, while the two i mentioned work with the most popular satellite pc programs (dvbviewer,progdvb etc).

cool thanks, checking out the software features was pretty low on my list. It just got elevated

watty

syboit wrote: »

by ordinary transponder do you mean like dvb-s and not dvb-s2 ? Wouldnt this card do dvb-s aswell (according to manufacture it does)

I taught with this card I could pick up the free channels such as bbc/itv/cbeebies and then any of the free HD's been broadcasted aswell ?

thanks again.

Yes I get all the regular channels and BBCHD. BBCHD is sharing a transponder with ordinary channels hence DVB-s. An Entire transponder is DVB-s or DVB-s2

syboit

watty wrote: »

Yes I get all the regular channels and BBCHD. BBCHD is sharing a transponder with ordinary channels hence DVB-s. An Entire transponder is DVB-s or DVB-s2

thanks for all the helpful replies guys