Can definitely vouch for this. The UK & Ireland spot beams on the Astra 2E/F/G satellites are ridiculously strong. Maybe a touch less stronger than the old DBS birds of the early 90's , but within the planned service area of the beam they are by far the most powerful Ku-Band signals in the Clarke Belt in my experience. Eutelsat have published the footprints of the 2E & 2F satellites that show more detail than Astra's own published footptint, and they show a 58 dbW contour essentially covering the whole of the UK & Ireland except for the Shetland Isles & maybe the extreme SW corners of Co. Kerry - I'd guess that the centre of the beam (in around the Isle of Man) is hitting >60 dbW. Even the European beams on these satellites are pretty powerful, albeit less than the spot beams, even the wide European beam on Astra 2G. I've no issues with reception on a 45cm dish here in Co. Tyrone for all services from 28E, even those on the 2G European beam. At worst, you might lose reception of the weakest signals no more than a handful of times per year due to heavy rain, and the strongest once or twice a year. There are exceptional circumstances that can happen, a few years back I had my motorised 120cm dish trained on 28E during a thunderous rainstorm and everything was lost, even that size of a dish couldn't win in that battle. Nonetheless, a properly installed 45cm dish or a Sky Zone 1 dish (the mk4 version is roughly equivalent to a 50cm standard offset dish in my calculations) will easily give service from 28E in the UK & Ireland in over 99% of locations for >99.9% of the time.What a load af tosh!
Well adjusted 45/60cm dishes are absolutely fine for Sky UK/Freesat here in the UK. Yes you might lose reception in an extreme downpour but seeing as thats only going to happen once or twice a year for a few minutes. And wet snow in the winter sitting on the lnb arm might take signals out but thats only going to happen every couple of years, and a larger dish isnt going to helpb as the attenuation is extreme in wet snow..
Yes you need bigger dishes in tropical areas where there is heavy rainfall every day to compensate for the attenuation but thats part of living in such areas...
What about strong winds? That is a factor too.
NORAD ID: | 54048 |
LOCAL TIME: | 16:57:20 |
UTC: | 15:57:20 |
LATITUDE: | 0.01 |
LONGITUDE: | 0.49 |
ALTITUDE [km]: | 35790.06 |
ALTITUDE [mi]: | 22238.91 |
SPEED [km/s]: | 3.07 |
SPEED [mi/s]: | 1.91 |
AZIMUTH: | 179.2 S |
ELEVATION: | +31.1 |
RIGHT ASCENSION: | 06h 43m 34s |
DECLINATION: | -08° 22' 43'' |
Local Sidereal Time: | 06h 42m 01s |
The satellite is in day light | |
SATELLITE PERIOD: | 1437m |
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