3ABN 36" Dish with Multiple LNB

[Babadem]

I ordered the 3ABN 36" Dish today by Phone using my credit card because their Website's store section "Add to Cart" button is not working. I would like to catch these Birds 74°W, 79°W, 83°W, 91°W (G11) or 101°W (AMC4). My qestion is this; as the dish does not have a skew guage only Elevation, and I would be using a Magic LNB Holder (I'm shooting to put 4 LNBs on the dish) which bird will I have to aim first and what order will the remaining three be added. My location of Latitude: 42.078° and Longitude: -71.038° how will I accomplish this?

 

[schlever]

You'll be pushing the limits going from 74-91. The most anyone has ever pulled in to my knowledge is a 15 degree difference.

To set it up, aim at the middle bird (i.e. 79) and max out your signal on that. You skew the LNB in its holder, not the entire dish. Then add the lnb for 83 to the right and 74 to the left of the main LNB. It takes quite a bit of playing around with different distances and skew settings to get the offset birds.

79 and 91 have the most sports feeds, while 74 tends to be news feeds. I rarely scan 83.

 

[Mr Tony]

79 and 91 have the most sports feeds, while 74 tends to be news feeds. I rarely scan 83.

74 has more sports feeds than 79
91 has some but not alot
83 is news feeds but very rarely used
79 has a mix of stuff

 

[Babadem]

You'll be pushing the limits going from 74-91. The most anyone has ever pulled in to my knowledge is a 15 degree difference.

To set it up, aim at the middle bird (i.e. 79) and max out your signal on that. You skew the LNB in its holder, not the entire dish. Then add the lnb for 83 to the right and 74 to the left of the main LNB. It takes quite a bit of playing around with different distances and skew settings to get the offset birds.

79 and 91 have the most sports feeds, while 74 tends to be news feeds. I rarely scan 83.

Thanks for the insight.
At my my location of Latitude: 42.078° and Longitude: -71.038° my LNB skew: 8.7°. Now using the clock analogy where will my skew be, eg 5:30 or 7:30?

 

[Mr Tony]

I ordered the 3ABN 36" Dish today by Phone using my credit card because their Website's store section "Add to Cart" button is not working. I would like to catch these Birds 74°W, 79°W, 83°W, 91°W (G11) or 101°W (AMC4).

74/79/83 very easily
101 on that batch? no way
91 might be pushing it depending on how its set up..most likely its pushing it

My qestion is this; as the dish does not have a skew guage only Elevation, and I would be using a Magic LNB Holder (I'm shooting to put 4 LNBs on the dish) which bird will I have to aim first and what order will the remaining three be added. My location of Latitude: 42.078° and Longitude: -71.038° how will I accomplish this?

I've never used one of those. On my 36" I had the Glorystar 2 LNB holder that splits the LNB's off centre 2 degrees so I did 93 & 97 with no issues. Then added a couple brackets for 89 & 103 (see the pic in the FTA Shack "pics of the dish farm")
http://www.satelliteguys.us/1307197-post2.html

If those brackets only go on one side, you might have to only deal with 74 & 79..but if they go on both sides, I'd set 79 up as the "middle" and 74 & 83 on the outsides.

 

[Mr Tony]

Thanks for the insight.
At my my location of Latitude: 42.078° and Longitude: -71.038° my LNB skew: 8.7°. Now using the clock analogy where will my skew be, eg 5:30 of 7:30?

if standing in front of the dish facing it, 5:30

 

[Babadem]

if standing in front of the dish facing it, 5:30

Thanks Ice!!!! How do you determine the skew using the clock analogy? Could you give me a quick lesson?

 

[Mr Tony]

When standing in front of the dish, if the satellite is to the EAST of your true south, then the LNB gets skewed towards 7:00...the farther east you go the more skew you'll need

When you need to go west the LNB goes towards 5:00
Being that you are at 71W and that far north, the skew for 123W would be a fair amount (41 or so)

usually on the top of the LNB holder is the skew notches but alot of it is trial and error. As an example, G10 for me the skew is around 30 but I get best quality with skew at 20

 

[Keith Brannen]

I would like to catch these Birds 74°W, 79°W, 83°W, 91°W (G11) or 101°W (AMC4).

As has already been stated, 101 is definitely out. However, 74, 79, 83, & 91 is doable, if you put 83 in the centre of the dish (which means 74 is 9 degrees off centre, and 91 is 8 degrees off centre). On my one dish I have linear satellites 72/74, 79, & 87. Centre of the dish is probably about 84 (no LNB there, of course). At one time, I also had a LNB at 93 - though with some signal loss, but that may have been partly because of the dish in front of it. Anyhow, try it and see if it works, and whatever signal loss is acceptable.

 

[Babadem]

As has already been stated, 101 is definitely out. However, 74, 79, 83, & 91 is doable, if you put 83 in the centre of the dish (which means 74 is 9 degrees off centre, and 91 is 8 degrees off centre). On my one dish I have linear satellites 72/74, 79, & 87. Centre of the dish is probably about 84 (no LNB there, of course). At one time, I also had a LNB at 93 - though with some signal loss, but that may have been partly because of the dish in front of it. Anyhow, try it and see if it works, and whatever signal loss is acceptable.

Thanks Keith. So if the farthest lnb from the center (left or right) is less than 10° or so, it is then possible to lock on the chosen birds? Is that correct?

 

[Keith Brannen]

Thanks Keith. So if the farthest lnb from the center (left or right) is less than 10° or so, it is then possible to lock on the chosen birds? Is that correct?

Generally, yes. There are some linear satellites that you will find that are very strong and can sometimes be a bit further out (for example, for me, 72 is strong and it is about 12 degrees off centre, and the feeds I get are almost as strong as those I get on 79). Then there are those that 6 degrees is the limit. What I have found is satellites that are mainly feeds are fairly strong (examples, 72, 74, 79, & 91) whereas those with many channels (G10R & G25) always have some transponders that are weak and need to be as close to, if not at, the centre.

 

[neil_kc1]

all this talk about this 90cm dish has me wondering, Will I be able to see a difference going from a 75cm dish to a 90 cm dish? I mean really it is only about 6 more inches right? How much should I hope to increase my signal and quality?

 

[Anole]

more power !

Will I be able to see a difference going from a 75cm dish to a 90 cm dish?
How much should I hope to increase my signal and quality?

See the Hardware Review section for a discussion of the 36" Fortec, compared to smaller dishes.
It convinced me early on to not screw around with little dishes.

Bigger dishes get the job done. Little dishes are for fun experiments and hot birds.

 

[rv1pop]

As I understand it, gain vs. size of dish is a logarythmic or expotential relationship. An additional 1/6 (oh, where is my sldie rule) 3 times more signal? Been 12 years since I worked the formulas, and I can not remember them, but + 1/6th is significant.