multi sat newbie question

bohshead

i am looking into going multi sat - too many sky repeats for me.

i have been exploring this and seek advice in relation to lnbs and dish size etc.

i want to recieve stations from astra 13 and 19.2 degrees and 1 degree west

i have an old 80 cm dish with analogue lnb

i think i need to get
1) 3 universal lnbs
2) 1 4 input diseqc switch
3) good quality cable
4) sat meter for finding sats

however fitting these seems daunting

so what i want to know is what brackets etc are needed to fit three lnbs to the dish?
am i correct in thinking 13 degrees has the strongest output and should have the arm pointed at it with the other two offset?
is this a job for the average blogger like me or a specialist job?
if specialist is there one in the southeast capable of this and if so how much would fitting cost etc?
would a single lnb moveable system be much more expensive?
will 80 cm dish get these in wexford, (i know it used to in analogue with hand rotated single lnb dish)

any advice appreaciated

byte

Well I have set up a 80cm dish on Astra 1, with Hotbird offset. The reason for this is because I want to add Astra 2 at 28E at a later stage. I've never heard of anyone picking up 1W along with 19E and 13E from same dish. Dunno if it's possible. Maybe your best bet would be a H2H mount?

watty, Tony or chernobyl would have experience in this, and will be able to help you further...

watty

http://homepage.eircom.net/~watty/satellite/satellite.htm

I have 3 LNBs on one dish and use a chaep £20 analog meter (you don't need a tone gen one as your receiver can do that if thats what you tuning) You don't need a digial meter for digital.

A compass helps a little...

PC has 4-Way Diseq on Digital Receiver card.

Also 2 Digiboxes and 2 anaolg rx.

The LNB may be "universal" even if off a Analog receiver. It will still receive the low part of the band on a Digital receiver.

STD LNB 10.000GHz

Enhanced LNB 9.75GHz

Universal is 2 modes 9.75GHZ - tone off and 10.6Ghz Tone on

So difference is one band or two (Most newer analog and all digital will accomodate 10.00 or 9.75 on LNB setup menu)

If the dish is rusty clean and respray with car paint.


80cm is fine on 28, 16, 10, 13, 19E and maybe even 30W where you are, but a bit small for 1W (There is very little FTA on 1W, and that is mostly on 13E & 19E). About 1.2m where you are for 1W.

You would want to put 1W on centre normal LNB position on a 1.2M and then the 19 and 13 about 8" to left, side by side and lower. Won't work on an 80.


On 80 you can mount 28.2 about 4" to left (look at fron to dish) of dish pointed at 19E, as we are in service area and signal is strong for a 60cm dish.

The Tip of Scotland's north east edge is on edge of 1W coverage, so a big dish with LNB on main focus is needed.


check www.lyngsat.com They show coverage if you click on the "beam" link on each transponder.

Mod edit: corrected URL.

byte

Originally posted by watty

check www.lnygsat.com They show coverage if you click on the "beam" link on each transponder.

Just to fix the URL: www.lyngsat.com

The best in the business..

watty

Dyslexics rule KO

Capt'n Midnight

If you have a new digital reciever or any sky digibox get a satellite meter...

However with a second hand dish, it should already be set for the right lattitude - so all you need to do is adjust it left / right - if you have an analog reciever or digital receiver that's already tuned in and has a decent on screen signal strenght display then you might get away without the sat meter.

You must tune in to a known station first - analogs don't have to lock to a signal first so are handy for this. - start off by lining up with local sky dishes and moving slowly till you find the sat you are looking for (eg: move by a cm at a time and wait a minute or so)

Have a 90cm dish and the most I can get at once is from 13 to 28 (ie 15 deg beamwidth.) and they are three strong signals - you are looking at a second dish.

Probably best to get the first LNB setup for Astra 1 then the LNB for hotbird will be to the right (as you face the dish) with a gap of about 1 or 2 " between them (and a little lower) . Later on to get Astra 2 you put the other LNB on the left side - a wider gap this time and about an inch higher up.

Output also depends on the transponders, so not all channels from the same satellite will have the same strength - also different levels of error control are used so - eg: I keep loosing TCM but BBC 24 is solid - both (FTA) on same sat.

You can put the second LNB on a short length of PVC pipe and then use some threaded bar to bolt it on to the main LNB bracket - one bar goes through the lnb bracket hole - the other goes under the main bracket..

bohshead

from your replys i have made some progress.

i have dusted off the old dish and now have it picking up analogue from 19 degrees again with the pace ms100 which has also been brought out of the attic. still quite a bit there especaily fo rgerman speakers but have been watchign mtv and eurosport so that in itself has been good.

checked the lnb make and its old anologue, so i presuem nothing digital will come in, might check with digibox for clear stations from lyngsat just to be sure.

goigntto get a couple of univesal lnbs and play around more at the weekend when im off work, 13 and 19 for the minute and see what luck i have.

the digibox seems limited in what it can get by the number of channels you can put in as other channels and by the fec parameters and is limited to videocrypt so next thing i have been looking at is a reciever

- i have been offered a humax 5400 patched ( original version) and something called an xtreme reciever. without wishing to get into topics not welcome on this site does anyone know if these are good machines?

any help appreaciated.

chernobyl

Originally posted by bohshead
- i have been offered a humax 5400 patched ( original version)

The original version is quite rare and costs a bit but only differs slightly from its *other.

There is the 5400 IRCI[yours] and the 5400 IRCIZ...from my understainding Humax disabled the ability for you to connect your box to a pc and update the firmware etc so a board was required to bypass this and it was called the Z board.

The 5400 /patched was once the king of recievers for both hackers and TV viewers but as a reciever it was far from great.

A patched version, combined with the funcard can still give you some quality free tv but nothing to get too excited about.

With Humax, you cant really go wrong. The 5400 is a solid reciever but inorder to take advantage of it now you would need a dish on 30W aswell as 13/19 and maybe 5E.

Dunno about the other.

seano

Take the xtreme!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

www.xtreme-stb.com

watty

I have 1054 stored FTA stations and no dogey software, "patched" receivers or funny cards.

An old STD LNB will pickup stations up to about 12.150GHz on a modern Digital or Analog. Be sure to go to setup menu and change both LO LOW from 9.75 to 10.0 and LO High from 10.6 to 10.0

I got one transponder on Astra and many on Hotbird with Digibox and old "Analog" 10.0 LNB.

On my anlog 13E I get "M2" on Hotbird 13 at 12.134GHz H

There are actually more Radio than TV on Hotbird 13E analog.

Don't fotget on analog the radio are on the TV channels Usually ther is and audio setup menu