Two dishes one receiver??

mossy464

Hi,

Basically, I have a sky dish on my house along with another dish which was pointed at astra 19.2 but is now out of alignment.

What I want to know is if i get a monobloc lnb for the second dish for astra and hotbird, could i connect this along with the sky dish to a diseqc switch?

These are the 3 satellites I want but dont want to go getting a motor.

snaps

mossy464 wrote: »

Hi,

Basically, I have a sky dish on my house along with another dish which was pointed at astra 19.2 but is not out of alignment.

What I want to know is if i get a monobloc lnb for the second dish for astra and hotbird, could i connect this along with the sky dish to a diseqc switch?

These are the 3 satellites I want but dont want to go getting a motor.

Dont think you can connect a monoblock to a diseqc switch, i could be wrong though!

polyfusion

snaps wrote: »

Dont think you can connect a monoblock to a diseqc switch, i could be wrong though!

I don't think so either, not easily anyway, read here: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=623635

If the other dish (formally pointed at 19E) is big enough (80cm or bigger), you could get all 3 sats off it. Would involve getting a couple more LNBs, a 4-way DiSEqC switch, some holder/adaptors for the extra LNBs, and some extra cable and connections. You could then use the extra Sky dish to point elsewhere as you see fit/experimentation. If you need the Sky dish for a Sky subscription, then it could complicate things; I don't think Sky dishes can do DiSEqC. More info here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054905005

Pal

mossy464 wrote: »

Hi,

Basically, I have a sky dish on my house along with another dish which was pointed at astra 19.2 but is now out of alignment.

What I want to know is if i get a monobloc lnb for the second dish for astra and hotbird, could i connect this along with the sky dish to a diseqc switch?

These are the 3 satellites I want but dont want to go getting a motor.

1. align dish # 2
   
2. add a bracket with two LNBs (not a monoblock)
   
3. connect all 3 sats with a disecq

Thats exactly what I have.

It works fine and if you use a quad, you can send 28e to the other rooms.

mossy464

Cheers for the replies.

Should I be able to get a bracket for multiple lnb's for my dish?

It is an 80cm dish I bought in lidl a few years ago.

hugoline

Have a read of this thread.
A few of us receive the 3 satellites with an 80cm dish, pictures in the thread.

A multi-LNB holder of Tony's (or any other) shop should do the job (not sure what the LIDL dish accepts, but I managed to fit my multi-LNB holder alhtough it wasn't intended for the dish I use)

polyfusion

The arm on the Lidl dish is circular, so most of the triple lnb adaptors you'll see won't fit, as they're usually rectangular. I have a Lidl dish too, and got something on eBay which does the job fine, only I can't find anything similar now. This is the closest I can find: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310158938477

Instead of one long bar like in the link above, mine came with 2 short ones, which gives better flexability over adjusting the outer lnbs, particularly if you need to angle the lnb back towards the dish. Also, the lnb which came with (mine at least) the Lidl dish has a relatively long neck, so there is enough room to use an adaptor like that.

EDIT: This is more like the one I got, though mine is some kind of alloy, not plastic: http://www.coliram.com/images/present_supp_3_pvc.jpg

snaps

mossy464 wrote: »

These are the 3 satellites I want but dont want to go getting a motor.

A motor these days is just as cheap as setting up a multi lnb dish. Plus you'll get a lot more off a motorised dish and its more flexible. I started off with 4 lnbs on a 90cm dish, there were times when i needed other sats. Brought a motek SG2100 motor in the end and fitted it to a 1.1m dish, I havent looked back since!

stevethesatguy

Suggest you buy a motor and a proper satellite dish, Channel master or Triax , if you do not want a 1.1m like snaps why not opt for a Triax TD88 ,, 88cm dish

mossy464

stevethesatguy wrote: »

Suggest you buy a motor and a proper satellite dish, Channel master or Triax , if you do not want a 1.1m like snaps why not opt for a Triax TD88 ,, 88cm dish

Thanks for the advice. In your experience, how much am I looking at to get a motorised system set up including the price of the dish and motor.

Theres no way I would attempt setting it up myself.

MiketheMechanic

mossy464 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. In your experience, how much am I looking at to get a motorised system set up including the price of the dish and motor.
.

Hi mossy464.
As others have said, a motorised sat system is flexible allright, and isn't anywhere near as difficult to set up as you might imagine.
Like many others, I got great help on these forums for advice on setting up such a system. It really is a good idea to set it up yourself a the start. If you ever need to adjust it or make changes later, you'll be able to do it all yourself.

Triax Dish and motor and decent receiver are cheaper than you might think! ... and I know where where there might be some available

Regards,
MtM

mossy464

Hi guys,

This thread is an old one but im only getting around to doing the job now.

I bought a Multi LNB Holder for my lidl dish and it fits on it perfectly. I think it could have been made specifically for the lidl dishes. Im going to have 13e and 19e on the lidl dish and connect a feed from my sky dish into a diseqc switch along with the other two sats from the lidl dish.

Below is a link to the holder I got on ebay. Im a bit confused as to how I will align the dish for each satellite. Which one is central etc, 19 or 13. Also the bracket is made up of two pieces of metal joined together by screws which makes 1 side of the bracket higher than the other, you may see this in the picture on the ebay listing.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150479966164&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Any tips on how I can align this setup?

mossy464

Anyone, im dying to set it up but dont want to run into it without knowing whats the best way to go about it.

carbsy

mossy464 wrote: »

. Also the bracket is made up of two pieces of metal joined together by screws which makes 1 side of the bracket higher than the other, you may see this in the picture on the ebay listing.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150479966164&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Any tips on how I can align this setup?

That is correct, 19 should be slightly higher than 13 and 28.2 (if you were configuring this) is slightly higher than 19.

I'd suggest aligning the dish to hotbird (13) with the hotbird LNB central.Then its just a matter of popping on the LNB for 19 and moving it along the rail until you get a good signal.It's pretty easy.

mossy464

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I got some advice today from a guy on another forum and he also suggested putting the hotbird lnb in the middle. He also said that if I set it up this way. The LNB for 19E would be lower than the one for 13E.

I gave it a go today and firstly after a bit of fiddling I got 19E as the central satellite. I tried to loosen the screws then to allow me to change the elevation so I could change to the elevation for hotbird. The screws are a bit rusty though and need a bit of WD40

Anyways im gonna give it another go tomorrow. It would be ideal if I could get 28E on this dish as well as it would mean less cable running all over the place.

Correct me if im wrong, with hotbird as the central satellite, astra lnb is on the right hand side of this, if looking at the dish from behind and slightly lower, 28e is on RHS of 19e from behind and slighty lower again??

Or is it the other way around?? Higher than hotbird??

watty

Elevation no
28E is higher, 13E lower on arm than 19E as dish reflect mirrors

(actual elevation is otherway around)

Azimuth yes, 28E is more west and 13E more east as dish reflection mirror

mossy464

watty wrote: »

Elevation no
28E is higher, 13E lower on arm than 19E as dish reflect mirrors

(actual elevation is otherway around)

Azimuth yes, 28E is more west and 13E more east as dish reflection mirror

Ok, so basically. 13E will be lowest, 19 next, then 28 will be highest in the multi lnb setup??

carbsy

mossy464 wrote: »

Ok, so basically. 13E will be lowest, 19 next, then 28 will be highest in the multi lnb setup??

Correct.

mossy464

Well I had another go today. I put 19E in the centre as advised by another member on the forum. Got that at signal quality of around 75%.

Then I went about getting 13E. Got it but only with quality of 40-45%. Havent tried getting 28E yet.

Any ideas on how i could get 13 at better quality although I think it could be the bracket as from what i can see it doesnt allow for much change in height. The lnb for 13 is marginally lower than 19.

Also the bracket is a bit loose on the arm of the dish even with the screw firmly in.

watty

check your LNB Skew too (Rotation in holder).

I had to mount my triax bracket with hole at bottom of rail instead of top. Here in Ireland much more tilt is required than in France/Germany on 13 .. 28 as we are further west.

mossy464

I fiddled around with the skew today but couldnt get the signal any better. I had a sat beeper on to judge if it got any better or not but no joy.

I may try drilling a hole in the bottom of the rail to allow for more tilt as I have seen pictures of some other peoples setup and there is a lot more tilt than what I have at the moment.

Apogee

mossy464 wrote: »

I fiddled around with the skew today but couldnt get the signal any better. I had a sat beeper on to judge if it got any better or not but no joy.

The sat beeper only measures signal level so will not change as you change the skew. Skew will affect the signal quality, which is much more important than signal level.

Think of signal level as measuring how loud a musical sound is, regardless of how noisy or rough it is (how many errors it contains). By contrast, the signal quality measures how pure the tone is. The less errors, the purer the tone, and the easier it is for a digital receiver to "hear it" i.e. lock onto a stable stream.

So when changing skew, you need to go back to the receiver and check if the signal quality has increased. The beeper is useless.

mossy464

Apogee wrote: »

The sat beeper only measures signal level so will not change as you change the skew. Skew will affect the signal quality, which is much more important than signal level.

Think of signal level as measuring how loud a musical sound is, regardless of how noisy or rough it is (how many errors it contains). By contrast, the signal quality measures how pure the tone is. The less errors, the purer the tone, and the easier it is for a digital receiver to "hear it" i.e. lock onto a stable stream.

So when changing skew, you need to go back to the receiver and check if the signal quality has increased. The beeper is useless.

Thanks Apogee. I didn't know that. Hopefully I dont have to go drilling a hole as I think it could get messy from there.

I'll give that a go tomorrow.

mossy464

Well, I messed around with the skew on the hotbird lnb today and couldnt get the signal quality better than around 50%.

I guess my next option is to drill a hole in the arm of the dish to allow me to tilt the bracket??

I loosened the scew of the bracket so i could mess around and tilt it to find the best signal for hotbird. I have marked a spot to drill through but i checked how this affected the signal of the astra lnb and it did weaken it a bit.

Should i go ahead and drill the hole so i can tilt the holder or is there anything else i can do?

snaps

Before you go drilling holes lets get a few things correct.

What do you mean by tilt? If you mean elevation that is adjusted at the back of the dish.

Is it an 80cm dish (Notice its a lidl dish, these are not the best dishes for doing advanced set ups like this)

What receiver are you using?

Have you actually tried watching channels, sometimes the receiver signal meters mean nothing, i once had a receiver that read only 50% quality, but i knew that was wrong as it had a quad lnb on it and the main receiver downstairs was much stronger.

Have you had stronger signal levels on it before?

polyfusion

In addition to the skew, you may need to "toe-in" the lnb. Imagine the 19E lnb at the central position is pointing to a spot on the dish; the 13E lnb needs to be pointing at the same spot (approximately) to max out the signal.

Was it yourself mossy, that I gave links to my own setup a few months back? If it is, I think we have similar equipment and similar aims, so I can check signal levels later this evening to see what you should expect.

mossy464

snaps wrote: »

Before you go drilling holes lets get a few things correct.

What do you mean by tilt? If you mean elevation that is adjusted at the back of the dish.

Is it an 80cm dish (Notice its a lidl dish, these are not the best dishes for doing advanced set ups like this)

What receiver are you using?

Have you actually tried watching channels, sometimes the receiver signal meters mean nothing, i once had a receiver that read only 50% quality, but i knew that was wrong as it had a quad lnb on it and the main receiver downstairs was much stronger.

Have you had stronger signal levels on it before?

Hi snaps,

By tilt I mean the elevation yes. I have the dish centred at 19E and for 13E I know the lnb needs to be lower and to the LHS of the 19E lnb when looking from the back of the dish.

Yes it is an 80cm dish. Using a falcon ci6600, but this is only to test that I am getting a signal as it is closer to the dish than the dreambox i will be using when I have the set up complete. I have tried watching channels and on 13e some are choppy and freezing.

polyfusion wrote: »

In addition to the skew, you may need to "toe-in" the lnb. Imagine the 19E lnb at the central position is pointing to a spot on the dish; the 13E lnb needs to be pointing at the same spot (approximately) to max out the signal.

Was it yourself mossy, that I gave links to my own setup a few months back? If it is, I think we have similar equipment and similar aims, so I can check signal levels later this evening to see what you should expect.

Hi polyfusion,

It was me yes that you gave those links to a few months ago. You have the same dish as myself. I noticed there is a large angle from the 13E lnb to the 28E lnb in your setup. The bracket I have though doesnt seem to allow for that much tilt. There is not much give either to point the lnbs toe in. Maybe im doing something wrong here.

polyfusion

Only read your PM today mossy, sent a reply.

Had a look at the ebay item you linked. You shouldn't have to drill any holes in the arm, just attach it like the original part was; depending on the thickness of the metal pieces, you may be able to bend them to get the higher or lower position you need either side of the central lnb.

Also, a few posts up, I note you said that the bracket was loose in the arm, even with the screw tightly in. This could cause problems later on, with the whole apparatus moving about in the wind perhaps, and more likely if the setup isn't balanced with an lnb either side of the central position. When I first got the setup, I was messing with it so much that it got a bit loose as well, so I ended up drilling right through the plastic bracket, and getting a threaded piece of metal the correct size for the hole, two nuts and one washer to hold it all together. It's been up for over 3 years now, and hasn't budged a millimeter since (had to make a small adjustment after the ice earlier this year, but that was at the back of the dish). You should be able to make out the bit I put in in the picture taken from the dish, looking out along the arm to the lnbs.