Wave Frontier T-55 setup (European Mainstream TV)

[archive10]

Here's my Wave Frontier T-55 with (only) four LNBs.
I get 5W, 4.8E, 13E and 19.2E.

This is the "house" TV dish - e.g. the main thing was to provide two STBs with Viasat signal for the Danish channels (one dual tuner STB, one single).

The generic Viasat provided Telesystems PE57 was so bad with rain-fade when it really poured (and there's been a lot of that recently), that we decided to upgrade. As I saw an opportunity to colour match the dish to the house, and of course more interesting sat tech going in, I went for the dark-gray WF Toroidal 55. The 90 is nice, but the extra size not really needed for the four sats I wanted.

Main target was to expand our reception to include French, German and Italian channels (I don't speak arab, russian, polish etc) - so no big surprises in the choice of sats.

Dish went up over two days - these things require quite a bit of fiddling compared to single LNB offset dished. Biggest surprise was that normal LNBs tend not to fit under the primary reflector in the "centre" range, i.e. where the signal is strongest. Had to buy new Inverto Multiconnect LNBs to make sure the middle ones fit.

We now have higher signal strength and much better quality ("100%") on Viasat, and all the channels from France, Italy and Germany (plus a whole bunch of others too).

And of course it looks a whole lot better than the light grey Telesystems dish!

Major lessons learned include:

• All equipment much better priced via mail-order in Germany than anything sourced in DK.
• Web-calculator makes things much easier, but requires mount to be absolutely vertical.
• Sometimes when ordering things like mounts, they arrive in surprising colours and need to be spray-painted to match dish colour.
• You may need special "slim" LNBs just to fit them under the primary reflector of the T55.
• Wave Frontier Co. are really saving on washers, so when aligning your dish, you will scrape off a lot of the paint around nut fastenings.
• When ordering F-connectors, make sure you get the ones that has a 7-8 mm hexagonal thing, rather than a 2 mm one. Saves skin on finger-tips!
• When slipping on the slip-on-water-proofing-rubber-things that come with the LNB, they are so tight fitting on 8 mm cable that your hand/arm may accidentally slip and knock the dish out of alignment (ouf!).

 

[Lazarus]

Excellent Project - although I'm surprised by your surprise at needing to use thin profile LNBs.

10/10 !

 

[archive10]

Excellent Project - although I'm surprised by your surprise at needing to use thin profile LNBs.

Thanks - I think I may have been distracted by all the good pics of T90s on the forum (it seems people alway can fit 16 full size LNBs under their dishes, so I didn't even think about it when I ordered the first batch...)

10/10 !

Tusind tak!

 

[Ghostleader]

Love it, Love Wave setups/Multi LNB setups period. Good clean photo's of your rig.

 

[godzillafan]

looks good - I am just about to update my 3rd go at my t90

 

[zakdk]

Hi nice setup , i am thinking about buying the Wave Frontier T-55 with and 4LNBs,
with the following setup 1w 5W, 4.8E, 13E and 28.2E will this work ok??

 

[archive10]

Hi nice setup , i am thinking about buying the Wave Frontier T-55 with and 4LNBs,
with the following setup 1w 5W, 4.8E, 13E and 28.2E will this work ok??

Erhm, that's five positions, so if you use 4 LNBs it's not going to work.
If you do mean 5 positions, the 1W and 5W may not be realisable as they are to close to allow two LNBs.
If you ignore 5W, then yes 1W 4.8E 13E and 28.2E will work just fine, EXCEPT you are very very unlikely to receive anything at 28.2E from Astra 1N (the free-to-air channels including BBC, ITV etc.).
(What you CAN receieve are Sky subscription channels, if you have that sort of thing).
If you live in the south-west (Esbjerg), you may be lucky to pick up stuff from 1N with clear skies etc, but otherwise forget it.
If you are in Jutland or even Funen (Fyn), you may pick things up from 1N on a Wavefrontier T90 rather than a T55.
But remember, either at the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013, reception conditions for 28.2E will change again as 1N is likely to be replaced with 2F et al, so your results will change then.

...all of which is why I still keep my 1.8m for 28.2E. I have toyed with the idea of putting an LNB on the T55 for 28.2E, but I know that would just be wishful thinking for 1N.

 

[Ohono]

Hi, thanks for your post. It's really interesting to see that you've done something similar to what I would like to do here in the UK. Especially important as space is an issue, so I can only have one dish. I'm hoping to get 28.8e and 5w!

I'm looking at dishes on different web shops, all called T-55, but some by Wavefrontier and some Maximum. Different shops have different specs, some stating 30 degrees, others 40 degrees, and a wide range of prices.

I was wondering what were the specs of the dish that you bought?

 

[Analoguesat]

Hi, thanks for your post. It's really interesting to see that you've done something similar to what I would like to do here in the UK. Especially important as space is an issue, so I can only have one dish. I'm hoping to get 28.8e and 5w!

For 5W you could probably get away with a zone 1 Sky dish - the signals are VERY strong. The small zone 1's are easy to hide - you could even concrete a pole into a bucket and have the dish ground mounted.

 

[archive10]

I was wondering what were the specs of the dish that you bought?

The T-55 was branded Wave Frontier.

The T55 and it's bigger brother T90 come under various brand-names, but it's the same dish made by Janky Technology Co., Ltd. in Taiwan.
產品介紹PRODUCTS:::::鍵吉科技股份有限公司JANKY TECHNOLOGY:::::
I have a T90 branded Maximum, and a T55 branded Wave Frontier. They come in various colours too.

The Wave Frontiers differ from most other dishes in their double reflector design.
Apary from making them more compact, and easier to accomodate multiple LNBs on, I suspect it may even have a rectifying effect on the polarisation distortion from the parabolic reflector.

In any case, to my knowledge there is only one manufacturer, so you should probably go for price and best delivery options. Hm-sat are, although somewhat erratic, a good source for these dishes. They do a special bundle with multiple LNBs and a multiswitch. And don't forget to order a mount - the T55 uses a non-standard 42mm diameter tube for the AzEl mount.

Re reception: You should be able to get away with 28.2E -> 5W. If you look at the specs on the website, the dish is at least +/- 20 degrees, probably +/-30 (not shure what difference between "azimuth" and "in-arc" is).
And as @Analoguesat writes, the 5W is very strong, so that can go at the edge. Aim centre of the dish for something like 13E or 16E.

 

[4wd]

Very happy here with a T90 general behaviour and mechanical stability, T55 should work very well in uk for those strong signals, in addition to 28e & 5w (fransat?) easy to add more, f.ex. 9e, 13e, 19e.

 

[Ohono]

Wow, thank you all for your super-fast replies!

All the photos I've seen have the reflector (and looked exactly the same). I reckon I'll go for the one which is a tiny bit more expensive but claims 40 degrees reception.

I was going to try and get 9e and 19e too . So 5w 9e 19e 28.8e in total. I saw that some of you used skinny LNBs. Was that just for ease of fitting or do they obscure each other if they're too close?

Thanks again!

 

[archive10]

I was going to try and get 9e and 19e too . So 5w 9e 19e 28.8e in total. I saw that some of you used skinny LNBs. Was that just for ease of fitting or do they obscure each other if they're too close?

Thanks again!

> You may need special "slim" LNBs just to fit them under the primary reflector of the T55.

Some of the LNBs I had didn't physically fit under the primary reflector.
On the T-55, there isn't a whole lot of room for big bulky LNBs.
Unless you are trying two sats with only 3-4 degrees separation, you're probably alright with "normal" LNBs.
I fitted only 4, but you can probably do 5W, 7E, 13E, 19.2E, 23.5E, and 28.2E without probs. If the specs are right, you can even go further left and right...

Note: When choosing supplier remember it is the same factory makng the dishes. There are no "extended versions" or similar. Go with the cheapest option, that has decent tracking of the parcel...

 

[archive10]

It's been almost five years since the dish went up.
It has not been adjusted since.
The LNBs have been moved around and changed a bit, but the holder are still in the same place.

Just to see what sort of reception was possible in quantity rather than quality, I ran a full scan on all four sat positions (19.2E, 13E, 4.8E, 5W) with a new Humax UHD 4tune+ box (German market) I was setting up.

Nifty little box... I was quite impressed that it - without intervention from me - actually figured out that there was a DiSEqC switch attached, and that 19.2E was on DiSEqC port D, and 13E was on DiSEqC port C. My other boxes (including the Humax iCord eveolution) didn't work until I told them to use DiSEqC and use port D...

Across the four ports I found:
TV channels = 3056
Radio channels = 588



Not bad at all...
Zapping through them yields many that are not decodable (non-FTA), but quite a wide range of SD; HD and some UHD channels.

So with a T55, you can grab quite a wide range of European channels with just a few LNBs!

 

[Ohono]

Thanks for the update on all those channels, satellite positions etc. That's a lot of telly to watch!
So I'm down to two possible companies. Both saying it's a T55 but with different specs.

Do you think these are the same thing?

4005 Maximum T-55 (T-55 55 cm multifocus dish - 6 positions over 30 degrees - Wall mount included - Warranty: 2Y)

Maximum satellite dish toroid T-55 Multifocus - Parabola | Alza.co.uk

 

[archive10]

Do you think these are the same thing?

While I can't guarantee anything, I can say that it is extremely likely they are the same thing.
There is only one official mfg of such dishes, and I have not heard of copies being made.

So either will do. Ignore the 30/40/50 degree specs; even IF it was a copy, they would have the same performance in that respect.

One thing though:
Both sites claim all necessary mounting HW is included.
But if I were you, I would check that the wall mount is included before you order.
From other vendors, the price of the dish is very similar to what you've found here, but that price is *without mount*.
The mount is a 42mm thing, which is not a common diameter tube, and the original monut makes it easier to get the mount plumb.
(plumbness is very important for setting up the dish).

Good luck!

 

[Tururu]

Las originales tienen que tener el serigrafiado WaveFrontier, si no lo tiene, no es original.
La T55 es pequeña, aqui necesitamos un a T200, como no es posible, solo T90
es la que tengo mas estudiada, toca para septiembre.
La T55 pesa 6.7Kgs, cuidado.
La T55 tiene una efficiency 70~80% para 40º, para 80% 35.7dB, en los extremos solo 70%, tenemos solo 31'2dB.
Como 35cm aproximadamente, si das mas angulo, menos señal.

La T90 en los extremos Hispasat 30W y Astra 19E, 49º rinde como una antena de 40/45cm perdiendo canales con buen tiempo.
--------------
The original must have the silkscreened WaveFrontier, if it does, it is not original.
The T55 is small, here we need to T200, as this is not possible, only T90
It is what I have most studied tap for September.
The T55 weighs 6.7Kgs care.
The T55 has a 70 ~ 80% efficiency for 40 to 80% 35.7dB at the ends only 70% have only 31'2dB.
As approximately 35cm, if you give more angle, less signal.

The T90 at the ends Astra Hispasat 30W and 19E, 49º yields as an antenna of 40/45cm losing channels in good weather.

T90.- 116x103, rinde como una mala antena de 90cm o una muy buena de 85cm.
T90.- 116x103, rendered as a bad antenna 90cm or 85cm very good.

 

[Ohono]

Thank you again. You have been amazingly helpful. I'll make sure I ask both about the mount before I purchase. Fingers crossed!

 

[Ohono]

I wanted to thank you all again for your help earlier this year!

After a rather drawn out period, holidays, British summer etc. everything is finally installed and fine-tuned and I've got all the channels I thought I could get, plus a few extras

 

[Ohono]

Everything is working ok except that there is a noticeable drop off signal strength and quality the further along the LNB bracket you go. Fine in the summer but when it's lashing down there's often loss of signal.
Reception goes fom 100% on 28.8E to around 70 or 80% for 5W.
When I originally started messing about with satellite dishes I got an adapter for an old sky mini dish to get 19.2E and saw there was a loss of signal, so when I installed the T55 I rather foolishly thought that this was to be expected. Now revisiting the satellite footprint maps I can see that I should be getting close to 100% for all LNBs.
As the drop in quality and strength are pretty equal I'm guessing the dish is slightly off. But before I start moving things, balanced up a ladder, I wondered if anyone had any ideas on which aspect of the dish I should tweak first?
Many thanks!