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Earth Station Fisty - February 2016
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<blockquote data-quote="Fisty McB" data-source="post: 962890" data-attributes="member: 389824"><p>[ATTACH=full]91074[/ATTACH] </p><p></p><p>...on to the motorised dish. This is a 1.2m (actually 108cm by 117cm) perforated dish that was originally white, but I decided to paint it red at the back and yellow at the front.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]91075[/ATTACH]</p><p> </p><p>The yellow colour was chosen to help it blend better against the dividing wall. While it is glossy, it was *very* slightly sanded to etch some gloss off and given the climate here (compared to say the Canary Islands), strong sunshine is highly unlikely to focus on the LNB even during the sunniest days in summer to cause LNB heat problems or melt the cap! The semi-gloss surface actually helps a little with rainwater as it runs off quicker compared to using matt paint where it hold rainwater more easily than even an unpainted dish, and takes longer to evaporate. The LNB is an Inverto Black Ultra Quad, with a little plastic 'hood' made from cutting out a bit of a 2 litre soft drinks bottle - I still think there's room for improvement in this regard, but is does help against rain fade on weak signals in light rain.</p><p></p><p>And yes, that's my shadow.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]91076[/ATTACH] </p><p></p><p>The back of the dish on its motor (Dark Motor) on a patio mount painted grey. Not really seen here is that the tilt of the mount can be adjusted with adjustable bolts to make it perfectly straight again should it be needed but after installing the new dish this has not been necessary especially as the paving stone is some 50kg itself along with additional heavy stones.</p><p></p><p>What improvement does this dish give over the 97cm? Signals from Badr4 at 26E are much more stable & stronger in the BSS band with a much better rain fade margin only now cutting out in very heavy showers, no more than a handful of times a year - even the Kuwait channels on the FSS beam now come in but they're around 2db down on the rest. In general it gives more reliable reception on weaker transmissions wherever they are news & sports feeds or fringe signals from the likes of 21E, 7E, 10E, 3E, 1W, 24.5W etc. There is a hint of a signal from 7.3W on a couple of transponders, but so far nothing to get above the threshold steadily.</p><p></p><p>Eagle eyes might spot the old car tyre lying in the distance on the right next to the fence, inspired by Analoguesat's initial exploits!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]91077[/ATTACH] </p><p></p><p>The wiring arrangements into an EMP-Centuari 16x1 Diseqc switch set for 1.1 operation. The Zone 2 dish downleads (not easy to see here) could do with a little trimming once I'm satisfied with it. The output feeds into a conduit that goes underground & out again towards the receiver in the living room.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]91078[/ATTACH] </p><p></p><p>And a final close up of the switch. The two Zone 2 downleads can be more easily seen here being a little "looser" than the rest.</p><p></p><p>So what else can be done. Well first some of the small amounts of bird shite can be washed off the dishes (a hazard when you have bird feeders currently present next to them!) and also to touch up the paint when the weather gets warmer. On the 97cm dish, the threaded bars could do with a coat of paint as well as excess trimmed off, some fish line could be used to hold the multi-lnb brackets firm and also potentially look at a large "hood" to cover all the LNBs. I might also look at replacing the 9E LNB from an Alps to another Inverto Eco given that there's enough space for the latter's face and it gives a better SNR on signals over the Alps as the Swiss Romande feeds from France require a high SNR (DVB-S2 8PSK 3/4) and they suffer from rain fade easily in light rain. From experience I've grown fond of the Inverto Eco LNBs as they perform better than the Alps & Opticum narrow LNBs while still not having a wide birth on its face and having a reasonably long body for focal adjustment (though not as long as an IBU single) - however I might wait until Eutelsat 9B is fully in service with 9A moving elsewhere to see if it'll be worth doing. Adding an extra LNB for 1W could be done, though with that amount of offset from what I have tried only signals from the T2 beam from Thor 5 can be received, and the FTA content from that beam can all be received elsewhere. Might also use some transparent fish line I have to keep the multi-lnb brackets from possibly sagging in additional to the threaded bars support, though this hasn't been a problem yet.</p><p></p><p>On the Sky Zone 2 dish, performance is a little limited as might be expected - even on 15W the weaker signals like the MSNBC feed doesn't get above the receiver threshold and there's fewer channels of interest now compared to this time last year. Similarly on 5W performance from the France Televisions transponder is solid but the other French FTA's (TMC, TV5 etc.) are a little weaker though can still be found elsewhere, where the transponder with the Berber channels, RTI etc. is the weakest of the lot. I do wonder wherever the current France Televisions SD channels will remain after April or wherever a HD equivalent will appear, otherwise interest here would diminish here for me. I might look to see if reception from 22W & 30W on offset LNBs can give satisfactory results.</p><p></p><p>OTOH, there's not much more to really do on the Eurasian 80cm dish unless the spots between 50-53E start to really get busy where a better LNB like an IBU could give better fringe results. Near enough the same for the motorised dish except as previously mentioned look at seeing if trying a different rain hood can give better results against rain residue.</p><p></p><p>I do have a spare Sky Zone 1 Mk4 dish in store if there is any call for it, though space to put one up is getting limited and I think I may already be taking the piss with my current set up! I still have to take down the old Zone 2 dish that is high up on a side wall doing nothing. Maybe trim off the top of the steel pole that is painted black holding the Zone 2 & 80cm dish and also the Diseqc switch,</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fisty McB, post: 962890, member: 389824"] [ATTACH=full]91074[/ATTACH] ...on to the motorised dish. This is a 1.2m (actually 108cm by 117cm) perforated dish that was originally white, but I decided to paint it red at the back and yellow at the front. [ATTACH=full]91075[/ATTACH] The yellow colour was chosen to help it blend better against the dividing wall. While it is glossy, it was *very* slightly sanded to etch some gloss off and given the climate here (compared to say the Canary Islands), strong sunshine is highly unlikely to focus on the LNB even during the sunniest days in summer to cause LNB heat problems or melt the cap! The semi-gloss surface actually helps a little with rainwater as it runs off quicker compared to using matt paint where it hold rainwater more easily than even an unpainted dish, and takes longer to evaporate. The LNB is an Inverto Black Ultra Quad, with a little plastic 'hood' made from cutting out a bit of a 2 litre soft drinks bottle - I still think there's room for improvement in this regard, but is does help against rain fade on weak signals in light rain. And yes, that's my shadow. [ATTACH=full]91076[/ATTACH] The back of the dish on its motor (Dark Motor) on a patio mount painted grey. Not really seen here is that the tilt of the mount can be adjusted with adjustable bolts to make it perfectly straight again should it be needed but after installing the new dish this has not been necessary especially as the paving stone is some 50kg itself along with additional heavy stones. What improvement does this dish give over the 97cm? Signals from Badr4 at 26E are much more stable & stronger in the BSS band with a much better rain fade margin only now cutting out in very heavy showers, no more than a handful of times a year - even the Kuwait channels on the FSS beam now come in but they're around 2db down on the rest. In general it gives more reliable reception on weaker transmissions wherever they are news & sports feeds or fringe signals from the likes of 21E, 7E, 10E, 3E, 1W, 24.5W etc. There is a hint of a signal from 7.3W on a couple of transponders, but so far nothing to get above the threshold steadily. Eagle eyes might spot the old car tyre lying in the distance on the right next to the fence, inspired by Analoguesat's initial exploits! [ATTACH=full]91077[/ATTACH] The wiring arrangements into an EMP-Centuari 16x1 Diseqc switch set for 1.1 operation. The Zone 2 dish downleads (not easy to see here) could do with a little trimming once I'm satisfied with it. The output feeds into a conduit that goes underground & out again towards the receiver in the living room. [ATTACH=full]91078[/ATTACH] And a final close up of the switch. The two Zone 2 downleads can be more easily seen here being a little "looser" than the rest. So what else can be done. Well first some of the small amounts of bird shite can be washed off the dishes (a hazard when you have bird feeders currently present next to them!) and also to touch up the paint when the weather gets warmer. On the 97cm dish, the threaded bars could do with a coat of paint as well as excess trimmed off, some fish line could be used to hold the multi-lnb brackets firm and also potentially look at a large "hood" to cover all the LNBs. I might also look at replacing the 9E LNB from an Alps to another Inverto Eco given that there's enough space for the latter's face and it gives a better SNR on signals over the Alps as the Swiss Romande feeds from France require a high SNR (DVB-S2 8PSK 3/4) and they suffer from rain fade easily in light rain. From experience I've grown fond of the Inverto Eco LNBs as they perform better than the Alps & Opticum narrow LNBs while still not having a wide birth on its face and having a reasonably long body for focal adjustment (though not as long as an IBU single) - however I might wait until Eutelsat 9B is fully in service with 9A moving elsewhere to see if it'll be worth doing. Adding an extra LNB for 1W could be done, though with that amount of offset from what I have tried only signals from the T2 beam from Thor 5 can be received, and the FTA content from that beam can all be received elsewhere. Might also use some transparent fish line I have to keep the multi-lnb brackets from possibly sagging in additional to the threaded bars support, though this hasn't been a problem yet. On the Sky Zone 2 dish, performance is a little limited as might be expected - even on 15W the weaker signals like the MSNBC feed doesn't get above the receiver threshold and there's fewer channels of interest now compared to this time last year. Similarly on 5W performance from the France Televisions transponder is solid but the other French FTA's (TMC, TV5 etc.) are a little weaker though can still be found elsewhere, where the transponder with the Berber channels, RTI etc. is the weakest of the lot. I do wonder wherever the current France Televisions SD channels will remain after April or wherever a HD equivalent will appear, otherwise interest here would diminish here for me. I might look to see if reception from 22W & 30W on offset LNBs can give satisfactory results. OTOH, there's not much more to really do on the Eurasian 80cm dish unless the spots between 50-53E start to really get busy where a better LNB like an IBU could give better fringe results. Near enough the same for the motorised dish except as previously mentioned look at seeing if trying a different rain hood can give better results against rain residue. I do have a spare Sky Zone 1 Mk4 dish in store if there is any call for it, though space to put one up is getting limited and I think I may already be taking the piss with my current set up! I still have to take down the old Zone 2 dish that is high up on a side wall doing nothing. Maybe trim off the top of the steel pole that is painted black holding the Zone 2 & 80cm dish and also the Diseqc switch, [/QUOTE]
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Earth Station Fisty - February 2016
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