I finally took the plunge!

[DJ Rob]

Well, after cancelling Bell, I figured I would use my 30" dish for FTA. I bought a used Traxis 3500 from a member here and I thought I was ready to go.

So today I went outside to start my new adventure with FTA and move my dish to see if I could get any FTA stuff. I had forgotten I had sold my linear LNB. I thought I would never use it.

After going through my box of dish "junk", I found an LNB assembly from an old Superdish 121. I'm glad I kept it.

I "rigged" the part that had the stacked FSS and DBS LNBs to fit on the arm of my Winegard dish. I then attached my cheap sat finder to the FSS LNB and pointed the dish where I thought the 123 sat would be. I dialed in a strong signal within 10 seconds.

I went inside and read a bunch of threads here about using the stacked LNBs. I read the LO was 10750. So after I set that on the receiver, I thought I would scan to see what sat I was pointed at. The Equity channels call letters started showing on the list of scanned channels right away. I must have gotten really lucky finding it as quick as I did!

So after my first day with a FTA system, I must say I'm hooked. I'm going to try to get a motor soon so I don't have to mess with the dish once it gets cold here. Feel free to give me any advice and where to find any other cool stuff!

 

[Anole]

LNBs:
- if a single output Universal LNB would suit you, SatAV has a good price.
- If you find a 105° SuperDish LNB, its round feedhorn may match your round dish better.
edit: better than that tall 121° feedhorn.

Kinda all depends on whether you are planning on running a lot of LNBs on one dish, on multiple dishes, and how many receivers you want to support.

Some members use a few SuperDishes to augment their dish farm.
If you have access to a supply, ya might deploy 'em for birds with stronger signals, then tie everything together with some switches.
There's a design in the Switches Simplified FAQ that lets you hook up 8 LNBs with minimal hardware.
I wasn't really thinking bandstacked when drawing the picture, but all those LNBs certainly could be!

Congrats on your quick success... and welcome aboard!

 

[lownote2]

Welcome to the club. Just got hooked up myself and I'm with you, I'm hooked. Congrats! G18 does have a ton of cool stuff. That's all I have for now, but next for me is a motor as well. Tried to convince my wife that it's time to drop dish, but she's too in love with the dvr and of course my coolsat 6000 (which is a great receiver) doesn't have the capabilities, so it looks like I'll be looking for a pvr model next, which then means a hard drive. Hard drive, another receiver, motor.... man this hobby can start adding up. Way I figure it though is once I convince the wife to drop dish I'll be saving $100 a month which would pay for a lot of stuff fast. I have to say I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting on G18 right now and could live with that, but that's me.

Pretty good on hitting G18 so fast. Took me about 20 minutes to get a good lock, and that was even with a birddog meter. I knew I was close, but it was a hard one to hit and not a lot of leeway once I did.

Better hurry on the motor if you're in Colorado. It's already getting cold here in Missouri, so I can only imagine you're cold weather is already beginning. Happy "bird hunting"!

 

[Corrado]

I went inside and read a bunch of threads here about using the stacked LNBs. I read the LO was 10750. So after I set that on the receiver, I thought I would scan to see what sat I was pointed at. The Equity channels call letters started showing on the list of scanned channels right away. I must have gotten really lucky finding it as quick as I did!

If you're using the stacked FSS LNBF from a superdish, you need the LO frequency for the LNBF set to 13850 Mhz. Then scan only V polarity.

 

[DJ Rob]

If you're using the stacked FSS LNBF from a superdish, you need the LO frequency for the LNBF set to 13850 Mhz. Then scan only V polarity.

I'll try that when I get home. When I had it set to 10750 it seemed to scan in everything that was listed and the frequencies matched what was on the list.

 

[DJ Rob]

Welcome to the club. Just got hooked up myself and I'm with you, I'm hooked. Congrats! G18 does have a ton of cool stuff. That's all I have for now, but next for me is a motor as well. Tried to convince my wife that it's time to drop dish, but she's too in love with the dvr and of course my coolsat 6000 (which is a great receiver) doesn't have the capabilities, so it looks like I'll be looking for a pvr model next, which then means a hard drive. Hard drive, another receiver, motor.... man this hobby can start adding up. Way I figure it though is once I convince the wife to drop dish I'll be saving $100 a month which would pay for a lot of stuff fast. I have to say I'm pretty happy with what I'm getting on G18 right now and could live with that, but that's me.

Pretty good on hitting G18 so fast. Took me about 20 minutes to get a good lock, and that was even with a birddog meter. I knew I was close, but it was a hard one to hit and not a lot of leeway once I did.

Better hurry on the motor if you're in Colorado. It's already getting cold here in Missouri, so I can only imagine you're cold weather is already beginning. Happy "bird hunting"!

I think I got really lucky because it was the first strong signal I found with my cheapie SF-95 meter. Later today I'm going to try to find some "feeds". I'm not in in too much a rush to get a motor since it's almost 80 here today
I'm sure next week that coud change

Good luck as well and enjoy!

 

[DJ Rob]

The traxis 3500 seems not to have an option for LNB LO to 13850. I tried entering the number but it doesnt take. Is there another way to change it?

 

[Mr Tony]

If you're using the stacked FSS LNBF from a superdish, you need the LO frequency for the LNBF set to 13850 Mhz. Then scan only V polarity.

I'll try that when I get home. When I had it set to 10750 it seemed to scan in everything that was listed and the frequencies matched what was on the list.

vertical polarity works just fine with 10750..thats why it worked...its the H side that needs the different LNB LO frequency

 

[Mr Tony]

The traxis 3500 seems not to have an option for LNB LO to 13850. I tried entering the number but it doesnt take. Is there another way to change it?

no other option to change it like maybe a user setting? I know the Coolsat 8000 has a "user option" to set to whatever LNB LO you want

Otherwise, you might have to get a regular KU LNB

 

[Mr Tony]

Congrats on getting the FTA bug

 

[DJ Rob]

Ice Thanks! I'm having fun with it. I was able to dial in G16 and catch some news feeds earlier.

As for the stacked LNB thing, I'm confused. Am I not supposed to be getting any Horiz transponders? Or am I missing some on the top freqs?

I thought I was getting them when I do a blind scan for just Vertical. The horizontal channels are showing up above the vertical ones. On G18, Research Channel is showing up for me. On AMC4 I'm getting TWC. And on G25 I'm getting Al Jazeera English. All on horiz transponders.

 

[Mr Tony]

Ice Thanks! I'm having fun with it. I was able to dial in G16 and catch some news feeds earlier.

cool. Lots of news feeds on G16...

As for the stacked LNB thing, I'm confused. Am I not supposed to be getting any Horiz transponders? Or am I missing some on the top freqs?

I thought I was getting them when I do a blind scan for just Vertical. The horizontal channels are showing up above the vertical ones. On G18, Research Channel is showing up for me. On AMC4 I'm getting TWC. And on G25 I'm getting Al Jazeera English. All on horiz transponders.

weird. The way the stacked LNB's work is if the LNB LO is set to 10750 it will still find the H transponders but the receiver needs to blind scan that high. In a bandstacked world the LNB LO frequency is set normally at 10750 for vertical and 11250 for Horizontal. But if you leave it at 10750 and are able to scan high enough on a blind scan then it will work.

As example for verticals 10750 works fine. For Horizontal (now if I use the math right...lets see...take the frequency from 24600 and turn V) so the H side is from 12400 to 12900. So when you do a blind scan if you can set the scan parameters from 11700 to 12900 and scan V only it should work

I have a receiver that is the same way and wont accept 13850 (Coolsat 8000)...here is the info
http://www.satelliteguys.us/free-ai...t-8000-doesnt-like-bandtacked-technology.html

 

[DJ Rob]

Interesting read. I'll have to see how high in freq it is finding those horiz transponders.

 

[Mr Tony]

let us know...otherwise the simplest thing to do is to switch it to a regular KU (either standard or Universal)

I use to have a stacked LNB on my C-Band rig and it became too much of a pain to convert frequencies all the time (the Quali-TV receiver is the same way...no option for a frequency off the beaten path)...so I switched to a regular LNB

 

[DJ Rob]

I had to swing the dish back over to 82 and put the DPP single back on so that the wife could watch a program while we still had Bell service.

After doing that, I got a bright idea. Since the dish is still going through a DPP44, I might be able to hook the Traxis up to the switch and see where the DPP single maps the transponders.

After reading more threads here, I saw to use a stacked DBS LNB, you can set the LO to 11250. I scanned and found that the odds scanned in exactly what is posted on Lyngsat. The evens are mapped above and go backwards from trans 32 down to 2. The Traxis seems to handle the higher scanning frequencies just fine.

1 - 31 Odds 12225 - 12661

32 - 2 Evens 12925 - 13361

I'll see tomorrow if the FSS LNB follows the same pattern.

 

[Tron]

My Visionsat finds all transponders (both V and H) on G-18 using a Dish stacked LNB and L.O. of 10750.

 

[DJ Rob]

It looks like the DN stacked FSS LNB does the same thing as the DN stacked DBS LNB as far as stacking the Vert transponders first and then doing the Horiz transponders above them inverted.

2 questions to anyone who may know...

1) If I use a regular linear LNB instead of the stacked one, will I get better reception? I'm having issues with one of the Equity transponders at times.

2) If I get a SG 2100 motor, will the commands go through the DPP44 if I keep it inline with the stacked LNB?

 

[Mr Tony]

It looks like the DN stacked FSS LNB does the same thing as the DN stacked DBS LNB as far as stacking the Vert transponders first and then doing the Horiz transponders above them inverted.

correct. As long as its "stacked" they all do the same thing...just what frequencies they can get

1) If I use a regular linear LNB instead of the stacked one, will I get better reception? I'm having issues with one of the Equity transponders at times.

possibly. I havent put a SD LNB up against a regular but a regular C-Band LNB & a stacked one work the same.

2) If I get a SG 2100 motor, will the commands go through the DPP44 if I keep it inline with the stacked LNB?

I'm confused as to the setup...can you explain?

 

[DJ Rob]

Since I was running my 30" winegard dish for Bell, I had a Dish Pro single going into a DPP44 to the rooms here.

When I moved my dish to 123, I replaced the Dish Pro single with a Dish Pro FSS/DBS combo from a Superdish 121 and hooked up the FSS LNB. I disconnected my Bell DVR and then hooked up my Traxis 3500 to the DPP44. It made my labor easier since everything is wired up already to my rooms here in the house.

I may just replace the Dish Pro FSS/DBS combo with a standard LNB and see if I get better signal. I only get between 50-60 quality on the transponder with KDEV-LP. When it goes under 50, it starts tiling.

I also don't want to be aiming it in the snow so I was wondering if I did keep the current config (with the DPP44 switch), if the motor commands from the receiver would go through the DPP44 to the motor.

 

[voomvoom]

Rob, I'm glad you finally decided to take the plunge. I'm sure you're going to enjoy this hobby Big-Time..! Only now that you've become quite Active in the FTA section, something has been Bugging me.... I guess I'm a bit slow, and your Avatar has already caught me a half dozen times. That little bugger is quite impressive..!!!!!