Newbie Here Upgrading Dish System

The Rascals

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Clarke-Tech 5100C, Freesat V8 Super, Stab HH 120 Motor, Laminas OFC1200C
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Cork
Good Night Folks
Finally went for a Laminas OFC1200 with the az-el mount as I feel more comfortable
working with diseqc at the moment, I actually bought 2 of these as the shipping cost
to Ireland was the same as if I bought 1.
I will use the second one to maybe experiment with c-band(don't all go WHAT) there is
not many satellites in c-band with a 1.2M but at least I will dip my toe into c-band and get
a feel for it.
Next question: what LNB works best for the OFC1200 for Ku and c-band that has at minimum
of twin output.
Great group of people here, and thanks to everybody for their help
Regards

The Rascals
 

sonnetpete

Grumpy Old Retired Moderator and quiz inquisitor..
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My Satellite Setup
Laminas 1.2M fibre dish with an IBU, on a Clarke Tech USALS motor, covering 57E - 24.5W to an Octagon SX88. Displayed on a 20" Dyon LED TV.

Seperate 80 cm dish on 28E with a Humax Freesat for SWMBO.
Free Sat V8 meter. Sony Bravia 46" LCD, Sony BluRay and Home Cinema.
My Location
Normandy, France
I tried one or two LNB's for KU on my Laminas and found the Black Ultra to be the best. I didn't try the twin output however. I haven't tried C band on it, though I did experiment with a C band LNB on a 1 metre Gibertini and got a couple of satellites, so using the Laminas may not be such a silly idea.
 

lovelyperson

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My Satellite Setup
2.0m PF dish
1.8m PF Famaval
1.8m PF Marrafa
1.4m Tecatel offset
1.2m dish + Stab HH120
TBS 5925 USB
Octagon SF8008 4k Twin
GTMedia V8 UHD
GTMedia GTcombos x 2
Goldmaster SR525 HD
Sat-illimitè F300 hyper
62.0ºE - 63.0ºW
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pontiend

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My Location
south yorkshire
I have been messing with C Band on and off for a couple of weeks now. I am getting some transponders with a 100cm dish.Still experimenting.A lot of fiddling to do changing plate etc.Not had much time to catalog them yet.Just typed these this morning.
10 East
3677 Right 1083 3/5 8PSK CCM
3819 Right 3473 3/4 32 APSK ACM
3648 Right 20158 2/3 QPSK2 CCM
3829 Left 10337 4/5 QPSK2 ACM
3862 Left 2167 3/4 32 APSK ACM
3986 Left 29298 3/4 32 APSK ACM
 

The Rascals

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Cork
Hi All
Just started painting the outside of the house, garden wall and patio to be done also, hopefully I will
have the job done (it will take about 50Lt of paint) before the Laminas OFC1200's arrive
Thanks for the help and sonnetpete for the Ku Lnb anbody with C-Band Lnb experience on a OFC1200
 

The Rascals

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My 2 Laminas OFC1200 have now arrived in Dublin port from Poland, so should have them in a day or so, it sometimes takes longer
to get from Dublin to Cork than across Europe.
 

Captain Jack

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My 2 Laminas OFC1200 have now arrived in Dublin port from Poland, so should have them in a day or so, it sometimes takes longer
to get from Dublin to Cork than across Europe.
It takes longer for an item to get from London to Bristol than it does from US to UK...
 

The Rascals

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My Satellite Setup
Clarke-Tech 5100C, Freesat V8 Super, Stab HH 120 Motor, Laminas OFC1200C
My Location
Cork
My new Laminas OFC1200 arrived yesterday, packaging damaged and face down on the back of a truck, despite
symbols and stickers saying keep it vertical (the usual courier story "I know noooothing") but both look all OK
when unwrapped.
My other courier for my HH120 stab motors and LNB's know it arrived in Ireland but as of now it is in the "Unknown Zone"
as this weekend is a Bank Holiday in Ireland, next Tuesday the mystery may end, and the boy can start getting all his toys
connected together and working.
 

The Rascals

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My Satellite Setup
Clarke-Tech 5100C, Freesat V8 Super, Stab HH 120 Motor, Laminas OFC1200C
My Location
Cork
Got to work today on my new kit as the HH120 motors and ultra black LNB's arrived this morning.
As I am replacing motor and dish so all had to come down to get the new kit up, got the HH120 mounted
and set the usual parameter (Latitude) assembly my OFC1200 and put a twin Black Ultra on it,
mounted this on motor and aligned this with 8W my nearest due south satellite.
Before I took down the old kit I had my Clarke-Tech tune to the Test Card on this satellite.
There was no signal to be had (I take the TV (LG 43") and the Clarke-Tech receiver outdoors so I can
see the signal my self, rather that the lady of the manor shouting through windows) despite moving
it slightly east/west- up/down.
Took OFC1200 down from roof again and tried it ground level still nothing, connected my old dish and lnb
to receiver and test card there, made up new cable from Ultra Lnb on OFC1200 and conned to receiver,
and tested at ground level, test card now present, a lot of choice words spoken (I will keep that priest busy
if I go to confession) two hours wasted with a dud cable.
Went back up on the roof and aligned again , yippie i a, yippie i o, test card on my LG, the sight of that
test card make satellite junkies like me almost cry, did a few course adjustments as it was getting dark
and tomorrow I will do a bit of fine tweeking.
Did a blind scan on 8W, normally only get 3 channels with my Joe Blogs 1M dish, now I had 112,
so a very good day's results was had, I must now blind scan all the other satellite positions and see
what new world I will be able to see.
 

Captain Jack

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Pictures please!
 
A

archive10

Guest
Got to work today on my new kit as the HH120 motors and ultra black LNB's arrived this morning.
As I am replacing motor and dish so all had to come down to get the new kit up, got the HH120 mounted
and set the usual parameter (Latitude) assembly my OFC1200 and put a twin Black Ultra on it,
mounted this on motor and aligned this with 8W my nearest due south satellite.
Before I took down the old kit I had my Clarke-Tech tune to the Test Card on this satellite.
There was no signal to be had (I take the TV (LG 43") and the Clarke-Tech receiver outdoors so I can
see the signal my self, rather that the lady of the manor shouting through windows) despite moving
it slightly east/west- up/down.
Took OFC1200 down from roof again and tried it ground level still nothing, connected my old dish and lnb
to receiver and test card there, made up new cable from Ultra Lnb on OFC1200 and conned to receiver,
and tested at ground level, test card now present, a lot of choice words spoken (I will keep that priest busy
if I go to confession) two hours wasted with a dud cable.
Went back up on the roof and aligned again , yippie i a, yippie i o, test card on my LG, the sight of that
test card make satellite junkies like me almost cry, did a few course adjustments as it was getting dark
and tomorrow I will do a bit of fine tweeking.
Did a blind scan on 8W, normally only get 3 channels with my Joe Blogs 1M dish, now I had 112,
so a very good day's results was had, I must now blind scan all the other satellite positions and see
what new world I will be able to see.
Excellent stuff... Congratulations!
 

The Rascals

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Cork
Thanks to everybody for the likes, I hope that my saga was not too long.
Captain Jack, picture will be done over weekend, when it will all look nice and pretty
not with cables everywhere like a bombed out power station in Iraq.
Have now got Amos 3/7 at 4W and Nilesat at 7W (not all the tps on these sats just
the stronger ones) as never had these before, I am now working my way east on
the satellite list arc, as I am typing this I'm blind scanning Thor at 1 W.
Scan just finished , have a look at this, 10715Ghz(H) 24498Ms ID = CDK_N with NETFLIX
are they going by sat now.
The HH120 motor is a dream compared to that Technomate 2600, yes it it slower but you
have a fine nudge level and it is much quiter.
I think I will swap out the twin Ultra Black for a quad version as I just got my hands on
a Freesat V8 Super, and a TeVii S482 DVB-S2 pcie card, so I should be able to send a
snapshop of my feeds etc with my post.
The second OFC1200 is still not assembled as I am going to see if I can get a twin output
C-Band LNB that would fit this dish.
 

PaulR

Dazed and Confused Admin
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I hope that my saga was not too long.
At "only" three pages long you're a long way off that particular prize.

Good story and looking forward to the photos.
 

The Rascals

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Cork
Raining here at the moment, so cant dolly up the dish for the photoshoot on page 3 of Satellite Dish exposed.
One difference I see that there is less "bleedover" from 9E on a 10E scan as the beam with on the dish is less
 

dxhound2003

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Triax 110 cm dish motorised.
Black Ultra LNB. Nov 2011 DrD F15.
My Location
Dundalk Ireland
Got to work today on my new kit as the HH120 motors and ultra black LNB's arrived this morning.
As I am replacing motor and dish so all had to come down to get the new kit up, got the HH120 mounted
and set the usual parameter (Latitude) assembly my OFC1200 and put a twin Black Ultra on it,
mounted this on motor and aligned this with 8W my nearest due south satellite.
Before I took down the old kit I had my Clarke-Tech tune to the Test Card on this satellite.
There was no signal to be had (I take the TV (LG 43") and the Clarke-Tech receiver outdoors so I can
see the signal my self, rather that the lady of the manor shouting through windows) despite moving
it slightly east/west- up/down.
Took OFC1200 down from roof again and tried it ground level still nothing, connected my old dish and lnb
to receiver and test card there, made up new cable from Ultra Lnb on OFC1200 and conned to receiver,
and tested at ground level, test card now present, a lot of choice words spoken (I will keep that priest busy
if I go to confession) two hours wasted with a dud cable.
Went back up on the roof and aligned again , yippie i a, yippie i o, test card on my LG, the sight of that
test card make satellite junkies like me almost cry, did a few course adjustments as it was getting dark
and tomorrow I will do a bit of fine tweeking.
Did a blind scan on 8W, normally only get 3 channels with my Joe Blogs 1M dish, now I had 112,
so a very good day's results was had, I must now blind scan all the other satellite positions and see
what new world I will be able to see.

I can only get one transponder on the MENA beam on 8 West. 10971 V 27500 with the Al Jazeera channels very weak. The 3 channels on the European beam are strong. Maybe being further south than me gets you more, but is there a possibility that they are from 7 West? I had over 100 channels from 7 West at various times, but usually only a couple of transponders.

Another test you could try is the Nordic beam on 4.9 East. I get one transponder very weak 11862 V 27500. Sometimes there are weak signals on a few other Vertical transponders. Being further south might be a disadvantage in this case.
 
A

archive10

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I think I will swap out the twin Ultra Black for a quad version as I just got my hands on
a Freesat V8 Super, and a TeVii S482 DVB-S2 pcie card, so I should be able to send a
snapshop of my feeds etc with my post.
The second OFC1200 is still not assembled as I am going to see if I can get a twin output
C-Band LNB that would fit this dish.
Point 1: You may be able to topimise performance even more. I seem to remember a member of This Forum (@Trust1?)who found out that the LNB holder of the OFC-1200 was not pointing the LNB at the sweet-spot of the dish. If you tilted the LNB slightly downwards, you could get even more performance from the LNB.
Point 2: You will struggle to find a C-band LNB that will fit the 40mm holder from Laminas. Instead you will need to either "side-load" a Ku-band LNB with a suitable C-band one using clamps (plenty of threads elsewhere on this site), or manufacture a C-band holder from scratch. If you go for a Titanium Satellite LNB, they can also provide a generic C-band holder that could be adapted if the fee arm is adapted as well...
(Or make you own feed-arms - I know @RimaNTSS would advocate this option!)
 

Trust

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@dxhound2003 ,at the type with the plastic feedarm which is provided for 40 mm lnb's , the lnb is pointing to high in the dish .
The signal increases when the lnb is pointing a bit lower but you also have to make the side arms a bit longer to keep the correct focal lenght .
I made a lnb tilter for those feedarm .

lnb tilter.jpg

A 63 mm C-band lnbf (there are no other beside Corotors) wont fit in a proper way at that feedarm .
 

The Rascals

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To dxhound2003: I have Helm Alshabab TV 11012Ghz(H), Iraq Future TV 11095Ghz(H), Marjaeyat 2 11178Ghz(H) plus more all on
8W, and I crossed check on Flysat against 7W so all good there.
To st1 and Trust 1, thanks for the info.
I recon a re-alignment must be done as channels east of 39 are breaking up, west to 34.5 there is no problem, so tomorrow we will
have to go outdoors again weather permitting and do a bit of tweeking, and then we will experiment with LNB twitching, as st1/Trust 1
has mentioned.
Until it is fine tuned like myself, then the dish photos will be done
 

Trust

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My Location
Nijmegen Netherlands
To dxhound2003: I have Helm Alshabab TV 11012Ghz(H), Iraq Future TV 11095Ghz(H), Marjaeyat 2 11178Ghz(H) plus more all on
8W, and I crossed check on Flysat against 7W so all good there.
To st1 and Trust 1, thanks for the info.
I recon a re-alignment must be done as channels east of 39 are breaking up, west to 34.5 there is no problem, so tomorrow we will
have to go outdoors again weather permitting and do a bit of tweeking, and then we will experiment with LNB twitching, as st1/Trust 1
has mentioned.
Until it is fine tuned like myself, then the dish photos will be done
Also you have to correct the dish elevation after changing the lnb position , but I guess you know that .
 

The Rascals

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Hi Folks, just spent 5Hrs trying to tweek this system, Dish was low in the east and slightly high in the west, no problem, or so I thought,
swing the whole system including motor slight to the west, realigned my 8W south satellite again, dish still low in the east, even at 16E
and duly getting worst as you move east. I wonder is my HH120 motor not counting correctly, as when I am on 39E it shows roughly on
it markings 54E, thats still 7 Deg of a difference. If I increase the height of the dish for 39E it is then too high for 8W.
I would appreciate any info/guide, just for information I have installed my motorised systems myself since the 36V HH were out.
 
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