Fisty McB
Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2012
- Messages
- 434
- Reaction score
- 635
- Points
- 93
- My Satellite Setup
- See my signature...
- My Location
- County Tyrone, N. Ireland
My general health both physical and mental has not been great since I last gave an update back in July so progress on my set up has been slow. However things bit by bit have been getting done and I've managed in the last few weeks during valuable days where it's been clear & dry with no threat of rain with a bit of sunlight thrown in for good measure.
So since the last update I've got the 1.2 metre dish up on the Diseqc motor - even with the perforations the weight of this dish compared to the 97cm is significant, and where I can I don't drive this much further east than 42 East as the motor struggles to move it back west otherwise unless I go outside and give it a nudge!
I've also decided to paint all the dishes to try a combination of (a) blending with certain backgrounds, and (b) adding a bit of colour to give a bit of brightness to things particularly at this time of year.
So as it stands today, this is my current set up...
Four dishes in use, three for fixed reception, and one motorised.
Closest dish is 97cm dish aimed for the main European constellations.
Next one is a repurposed Sky Zone 2 dish (previously used for direct 28E reception)
Behind that is an 80cm dish aimed for satellites over the Caucasus & Middle East.
Farthest dish is 1.2m perforated offset dish on Diseqc motor.
Front face of the 97cm dish showing a somewhat "camouflage" paint job, the neighbour's pair of jeans being hung out to dry in the background(!) plus a 7 LNB set up that is supported by two lengths of of M6 threaded bar to help with stability and allow for small multi-LNB bracket adjustments. Back of the dish is painted a solid bottle green (can be seen in 1st photo).
The 7 LNB setup on the 97cm dish. I had mentioned back in my July post that I was going to experiment with an Inverto Black Ultra for 28 east to see if it would make improvements, unfortunately the size of its face made it an awkward fit against the 23.5E LNB and so in practice gave no better performance and I decided to reuse the IBU elsewhere and got instead a couple of Inverto Eco LNBs with one of them placed at 28E. If you notice on the 28E holder there is a bit of a tail from a cable tie sandwiched between the holder and the bracket - this is to tilt the holder & LNB up slightly to optimise by giving a roughly 1db SNR increase. The 13E LNB also has a cable tie attached to it to pull it towards the 16E LNB (which is at the centre focus) as well as attaching its holder behind the bracket to allow more movement, to optimise its SNR figures especially for some of the weaker transponders. The 4.8E LNB can get everything in the 11.7 to 12.5GHz band, though the signals in the 12.5 to 12.75GHz band are too weak to usually resolve - not a big deal.
The Sky Zone 2 dish was reused to provide a feed for the satellites roughly due south & south-south-west, with the main focus on 15W and a second LNB on 5W. Dish face has been pained black & grey.
Rear of the Zone 2 dish, painted a solid metallic blue. The dish brackets & arm were painted silver.
The (currently?) two LNBs on the Zone 2 dish. The main focus LNB is a Mk4 LNB made by MTI while the 5W LNB is the original Mk3 LNB also by MTI. Why do this? It's to do with skew adjustment. Even with the main focus at 5W, using its original LNB was a pain to get the skew involving the LNB done well. In its place is a Mk3 40mm LNB adaptor with a Mk4 LNB that has 15 layers of insulation tape wrapped around its neck to bring the diameter up from 37mm to 40mm to fit snugly and as a result the skew can be more easily adjusted using an LNB designed for Sky dishes rather than a universal LNB. It's original LNB is used for 5W reception using a spare multi-LNB holder where the hole in the spigot allows a nut & bolt to clasp & adjust, the dish originally had been modified to accept a nut & bolt instead of the normal plastic plug to hold the LNB in. Even being nearly 8 years old, the LNB performs better than a Zinwell J1S LNB that I first used with a different holding clamp. It appears to me that the wider face of the MTI LNBs give an advantage here over the small Zinwell faces.
The 80cm dish that was originally used for where the 97cm dish is now, is nowadays used to look towards satellites at the far eastern end of the arc. Yes, the dish does appear to be facing downwards, but it does clear the fence a short distance away. Again the dish face is painted with grey/silver and a black vertical line through the centre. The back of the dish is painted solid black, and can be seen in several earlier photos.
The dish is focused on 46E; due to my location on the western edge of Europe (7.3W longitude) the elevation for Azerspace 1 is less than 12 degrees. Another effect is that the positioning of the satellites on the Clarke Belt gives a steeper line compared to satellites that are more due south. The main focus LNB is the IBU that was originally intended for 28E on the 97cm dish. Originally the LNB set up used an Alps LNB for 42E, and Inverto Eco LNB for 46E and an Opticum narrow LNB for 52E, but with an LNB arrangement I chose to optimise it better performing "less narrow" LNBs which has given an improvement on all three positions for SNR levels and consequently their rain margins on weaker signals, particularly the Turksat 3A West beam signals that are notably weaker here than those on 2A & 4A. As noted in the photo the 46E LNB also receives (yes, spelling mistake!) 45E quite comfortably with SNR levels equal to better than that from 46E! Not mentioned on the photo, but the 52E LNB is actually aimed at 52.5E but even allowing for that it picks up 52E better than what the Opticum did! I have tried to pick up 39E even with narrow LNBs but no luck, so the bracket has been set to try for a possible future reception test from 57E but I don't think this might be possible, as I think regardless of theoretical signal levels there are some trees blocking the arc this far east.
More to come...
So since the last update I've got the 1.2 metre dish up on the Diseqc motor - even with the perforations the weight of this dish compared to the 97cm is significant, and where I can I don't drive this much further east than 42 East as the motor struggles to move it back west otherwise unless I go outside and give it a nudge!
I've also decided to paint all the dishes to try a combination of (a) blending with certain backgrounds, and (b) adding a bit of colour to give a bit of brightness to things particularly at this time of year.
So as it stands today, this is my current set up...
Four dishes in use, three for fixed reception, and one motorised.
Closest dish is 97cm dish aimed for the main European constellations.
Next one is a repurposed Sky Zone 2 dish (previously used for direct 28E reception)
Behind that is an 80cm dish aimed for satellites over the Caucasus & Middle East.
Farthest dish is 1.2m perforated offset dish on Diseqc motor.
Front face of the 97cm dish showing a somewhat "camouflage" paint job, the neighbour's pair of jeans being hung out to dry in the background(!) plus a 7 LNB set up that is supported by two lengths of of M6 threaded bar to help with stability and allow for small multi-LNB bracket adjustments. Back of the dish is painted a solid bottle green (can be seen in 1st photo).
The 7 LNB setup on the 97cm dish. I had mentioned back in my July post that I was going to experiment with an Inverto Black Ultra for 28 east to see if it would make improvements, unfortunately the size of its face made it an awkward fit against the 23.5E LNB and so in practice gave no better performance and I decided to reuse the IBU elsewhere and got instead a couple of Inverto Eco LNBs with one of them placed at 28E. If you notice on the 28E holder there is a bit of a tail from a cable tie sandwiched between the holder and the bracket - this is to tilt the holder & LNB up slightly to optimise by giving a roughly 1db SNR increase. The 13E LNB also has a cable tie attached to it to pull it towards the 16E LNB (which is at the centre focus) as well as attaching its holder behind the bracket to allow more movement, to optimise its SNR figures especially for some of the weaker transponders. The 4.8E LNB can get everything in the 11.7 to 12.5GHz band, though the signals in the 12.5 to 12.75GHz band are too weak to usually resolve - not a big deal.
The Sky Zone 2 dish was reused to provide a feed for the satellites roughly due south & south-south-west, with the main focus on 15W and a second LNB on 5W. Dish face has been pained black & grey.
Rear of the Zone 2 dish, painted a solid metallic blue. The dish brackets & arm were painted silver.
The (currently?) two LNBs on the Zone 2 dish. The main focus LNB is a Mk4 LNB made by MTI while the 5W LNB is the original Mk3 LNB also by MTI. Why do this? It's to do with skew adjustment. Even with the main focus at 5W, using its original LNB was a pain to get the skew involving the LNB done well. In its place is a Mk3 40mm LNB adaptor with a Mk4 LNB that has 15 layers of insulation tape wrapped around its neck to bring the diameter up from 37mm to 40mm to fit snugly and as a result the skew can be more easily adjusted using an LNB designed for Sky dishes rather than a universal LNB. It's original LNB is used for 5W reception using a spare multi-LNB holder where the hole in the spigot allows a nut & bolt to clasp & adjust, the dish originally had been modified to accept a nut & bolt instead of the normal plastic plug to hold the LNB in. Even being nearly 8 years old, the LNB performs better than a Zinwell J1S LNB that I first used with a different holding clamp. It appears to me that the wider face of the MTI LNBs give an advantage here over the small Zinwell faces.
The 80cm dish that was originally used for where the 97cm dish is now, is nowadays used to look towards satellites at the far eastern end of the arc. Yes, the dish does appear to be facing downwards, but it does clear the fence a short distance away. Again the dish face is painted with grey/silver and a black vertical line through the centre. The back of the dish is painted solid black, and can be seen in several earlier photos.
The dish is focused on 46E; due to my location on the western edge of Europe (7.3W longitude) the elevation for Azerspace 1 is less than 12 degrees. Another effect is that the positioning of the satellites on the Clarke Belt gives a steeper line compared to satellites that are more due south. The main focus LNB is the IBU that was originally intended for 28E on the 97cm dish. Originally the LNB set up used an Alps LNB for 42E, and Inverto Eco LNB for 46E and an Opticum narrow LNB for 52E, but with an LNB arrangement I chose to optimise it better performing "less narrow" LNBs which has given an improvement on all three positions for SNR levels and consequently their rain margins on weaker signals, particularly the Turksat 3A West beam signals that are notably weaker here than those on 2A & 4A. As noted in the photo the 46E LNB also receives (yes, spelling mistake!) 45E quite comfortably with SNR levels equal to better than that from 46E! Not mentioned on the photo, but the 52E LNB is actually aimed at 52.5E but even allowing for that it picks up 52E better than what the Opticum did! I have tried to pick up 39E even with narrow LNBs but no luck, so the bracket has been set to try for a possible future reception test from 57E but I don't think this might be possible, as I think regardless of theoretical signal levels there are some trees blocking the arc this far east.
More to come...
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