Invacom question

[kingjeste]

Alot good info here. thanks all.

 

[B.J.]

Earlier today, I had started to draft a post here basically saying that except for the circular/linear capability, you'd get more bang for your buck with a cheaper lnbf. My example was going to be the Extreme II (or III, I can't remember), which cost me about $19, and has been an excellent lnbf. So I pulled up the specs for the two lnbfs, and they were pretty much the same, except for 2 things. The Extreme had more gain, which given the fact that they have equal noise figures and drift parameters, would suggest that it might be a better lnbf. However then I noticed that the Invacom had better cross polarization rejection. This made me think about a problem I've had with AMC21, in that I've been having a hard time with the horizontal side of that sat. So I decided to compare my Extreme to my spare Invacom. I was going to do this on my fixed Primestar which is aimed at AMC21. Only problem is that it's mounted on a PVC pipe bolted to an old log just sitting on the ground, so it isn't very stable. Rather than drag out a receiver and TV, I decided to take my computer out, and monitor the signal through my wireless LAN, watching the signal from my Twinhan on a desktop PC. Only problem with this is that I can't see the screen of my laptop in full sunlight, so I took out one of those picknik table umbrellas to provide some shade. Unfortunately, the umbrella fell, and knocked my not so fixed dish off the sat, so I had to find the sat again from scratch, which could have been hard using a Twinhan, but it worked out OK.

Anyway, I tuned in one of the AMC21 transponders, and was getting a good signal from the Extreme on my Twinhan, I can't remember, but it was something like 60/50, which is good for the Twinhan. Then, I switched to the Invacom. The signal went down to about 30/30, still good, but it "seemed to be" worse. I was tempted to just quit at that point, and say that the Invacom wasn't as good, however I decided to switch to the horizontal side, which was my reason for trying this. Previously, the 12150 transponder had been something like 35/30 with the Extreme, however with the Invacom, at first, I wasn't even getting a lock. However I played with the polarity a bit, and played with the aim, and I got it to lock, and managed to get the signal up to something like 30/25 , which is OK for the Twinhan... it usually loses lock somewhere down around 16-18 or so. So, again, the Invacom didn't seem to be performing quite as well as the Extreme.
HOWEVER, I decided to go inside, and look at the reception on my Diamond 9000. I looked at the S/Q on the 12150 transponder, and it was about the same that I had been getting before with the Extreme. However then I switched to the Lousianna PBS channel, which I hadn't been able to lock at all today with the Extreme, and have never been able to get a solid lock on it. Well, it is now giving me a solid 66/66 lock . The first time I have EVER been able to get a solid signal on that transponder!

So basically, this seems to demonstrate that different parameters are important for different things. While the Extreme seems to give me better performance on most QPSK transponders, and due to it's higher gain, seems to give higher S/Q readings, apparently the S/Q isn't that important when it comes to locking an 8PSK transponder. I'm not sure what the difference is, phase noise or cross polarization interferrence, or what, but the Invacom does seem to be better than the Extreme on 8PSK transponders.

Anyway, I set out to prove that the Extreme was better, and ended up convincing myself that the Invacom is better, even though it's a bit low on gain. And I'm happy about being able to actually watch the LaPTV channel, except when the wind blows, and tips over my log a bit. As soon as I find a suitable place to plant it, where I'm not blocked by trees or telephone poles, I'm going to mount the Primestar on a metal pole in concrete. Where I have it now, it's partially blocked by a tree, so I think I'm going to lose AMC21 when the leaves come out. I've already lost it on my motorized Fortec dish. I had AMC21 last week, but the leaves have started to come out, and now it's gone. (It's more than one tree with the Fortec, and some of them are maple trees, which I don't like to cut because they give me syrup. And the tree blocking the Primestar is also a maple.)

 

[Larry1]

B.J., very good test information from you. I do not give too much weight in the gain figures, as the receivers tuners all have Automatic Gain Control (AGC) circuitry built in to amplify the signal to the level required. Now, which tuners are better? Is the amplifier in the tuner better or the amplifier in the LNBF? Now any noise entered from the LNBF to the tuner will be amplified in the tuner, whereas, if amplified in the LNBF that noise would not be present. Now the manufacturer posted ratings, are they all measured on the same playing field.... are some exagerated or measured at specific points where their product shines and not where it operates poorly? If you look at the measurement paper that came with your Invacom LNBF, you will find that the noise rating is not flat across the entire band. Do all manufacturers measure theirs the same or interpret the graphs the same? The point is, comparing apples to oranges do not place a great value in the numbers. Real life testing will tell the true tale for your situation on what the numbers mean.

 

[skysurfer]

I know I'm fashionably late to the party...

I didnt like mine. I actually lost signal points and I can mark it up to a couple things
-the thing is friggin heavy

that should be easy enough to carry out a mod on that dish to cure the weight issue, I would think.

My FS-120cm has side LNBF supports and I still had to do a couple mods to take care of issues caused by the weight of the invacom.

Absolutely no regrets with the invacom. Very phase stable for trouble-free S2 signal reception and very good frequency accuracy that I can resolve the two mexican side by side narrow video carriers properly each time.

I've had the $10 chinese cheapies and even slightly more expensive LNBFs like I think it was a DMS one for Ku-band and they didn't perform nearly as well as the invacom.

I would like to say "I love the Invacom so much I bought the company!" but that'd be false advertising. I love it enough I picked up one more and I"m on the lookout for even more used ones.

 

[B.J.]

....
Absolutely no regrets with the invacom. Very phase stable for trouble-free S2 signal reception and very good frequency accuracy that I can resolve the two mexican side by side narrow video carriers properly each time.
....

Re frequency accuracy, I'd have to disagree with the "very good" description. It is only equivalent to the lowest quality BUD LNB. Ie it's ratings are +/- 1 MHz, however that is only over a very narrow temperature range. I observed mine drifting up to close to +/- 2 MHz when the temperature dropped. This is about the same performance as the low end of say a CalAmp LNB. It's significantly better than my KUL1, however, which drifted 5 MHz.
But I would reserve a "very good" description for a LNB that is stable to less than about 200 KHz, not one that drifts 2 MHz.
HOWEVER, compared to the other consumer lnbfs that we have available, I'd agree that there aren't any that are better, that I"ve seen. Seems like there must be some commercial lnbfs available that have better specs, but they probably cost a lot more, so the dealers don't carry them.

 

[zamar23]

I've recently got both LNBFs: Invacom QPH-031 and Monster LC-101 (DGL-101Q) to test. They perform VERY similar with my setup: 33" DigiMonster Dish, SonicView 360 Elite, Chieta Switch, Moteck SW-2100 Motor. I did notice a bit higher S with the clone on some sats. Both are heavy that somewhat affects reception in very strong winds, since the dish doesn't come with LNB bracket struts. The price is very similar, both are cheaper on Ebay - about $40. Warranty is 5-years versus 1-year.

Good news is, since the clone went to sell in huge numbers, Invacom's guys seems to quietly widen QPH-031 spec. Now both can receive 118.7W TP freq. range via Circular port with 10750 freq., but don't work at all in my setup with 118.7W via Linear port. I'm interested in unscrambled channels only, and at times there're just a few, but at times more - like a surprise.

SonicView seems to auto update TP list regularly with autoscan, I see new channels popping-up. Bad news is its firmware bugs - when switched to 118.7W, it can't tune fast enough and auto erases the channel, then go to the next and so-on, until all are erased. It also happens, when the receiver in error scans channels to a selected by user sat from a nearby strong sat. Next time you switch to that "fake" sat with no own channels, the channel list is auto erased. SV Elite can't recognize most sats you scan at Dish Setup time, just uses the sat you manually selected, unless you catch a very strong TP at aiming the dish. The same channels are added as duplicates to the nearby sat, so surprise - you have to clean it up later. LOL

To avoid erasing 118.7W channels, I go to Channel Edit each time to switch the channel. PG Preview doesn't work in such scenario. But in Channel Edit Preview works fine though switch is a bit slower compare to its cousin sat. Q=100 on most of 118.7W channels I scanned, but you never know what TPs are active at the moment.

 

[B.J.]

I've recently got both LNBFs: Invacom QPH-031 and Monster LC-101 (DGL-101Q) to test. ......
.....
Good news is, since the clone went to sell in huge numbers, Invacom's guys seems to quietly widen QPH-031 spec without notice. Now both can easily and completely receive 118.7W TP freq. range via Circular port with 10750 freq. settings, but don't work at all in my setup with 118.7W via Linear port.
....

I'm thinking that you may not be doing what you think your're doing here, but to be sure, perhaps you could give more info about exactly what you're doing.
But the reason I'm skeptical is that you can't really use the circular port on a 031 with a 10750 LO setting, or perhaps a better way to say that is yes, you can put 10750 in the the receiver's setup, but you will still be receiving the 12200-12700 band, not the 11700-12200 band you think you're receiving (assuming that you're saying what I *THINK* you're saying, and I'm assuming that you're talking about Anik-F3???).
I think that the QPH-031 was probably always capable of receiving a good bit down into the 11700-12200 band, however I doubt that much of that gets put out on the IF, because that would mean the freq would be in the 450-950 band, and that's asking a lot, ie basically half way down to DC. I'd guess that you'd only get down more than maybe to 800 MHz or so.
However regardless of whether the QPH-031 actually puts out any or all of the 450-950 band, I have yet to see an FTA receiver that would receive that band. To receive it, you'd need to use say the 11250 circular LO freq, then input say 11720 or something, and every FTA receiver I've seen will not let you do this, basically because the receiver isn't capable of tuning below 950 MHz.

Anyway, I may be wrong, but I think that you are mistaken about actually seeing the 11700-12200 band using the circular port on the QPH-031. Just my opinion.

 

[pendragon]

I think that the QPH-031 was probably always capable of receiving a good bit down into the 11700-12200 band, however I doubt that much of that gets put out on the IF, because that would mean the freq would be in the 450-950 band, and that's asking a lot, ie basically half way down to DC. I'd guess that you'd only get down more than maybe to 800 MHz or so.
However regardless of whether the QPH-031 actually puts out any or all of the 450-950 band, I have yet to see an FTA receiver that would receive that band. To receive it, you'd need to use say the 11250 circular LO freq, then input say 11720 or something, and every FTA receiver I've seen will not let you do this, basically because the receiver isn't capable of tuning below 950 MHz.

I haven't done a quantitative measurement, but the QPH-031 definitely puts out a lot below 950 MHz when I use switches that can pass IF below that point. If my spectrum analyzer is on while the dish motor is slewing, a lot happens in that range. I am with you with skepticism about a receiver actually tuning down there. I have wondered whether some of my computer-based receivers might work, but I'm leaving that for a rainy day because I'd like to read through the driver code first. If it doesn't work out of the box, a driver hack might extend the range. I do have a few block converters, but none that would move 450-950 MHz up to a useful range.

 

[zamar23]

B.J.
I'm still learning all tricks of this receiver. After reading your post I wanted to re-test. This time I followed a Guide, seems to be written to scan circular sats with SV 360 Elite hooked to an elliptical Multi-LNB dish (not a motorized setup). When scanning a sat, it suggests to switch OFF LNB voltage and Network Search for other sats (i.e. nearby sats for motorized system) in Dish Setup. I was still getting some channels with LNB 10950 setting withing 118.7W TP freq. range (as ID'd in Channel Edit). However, they don't seem to match Anik F3 Channel Line-up as per Lyngsat. Then I went through the list of 118.7W TPs on a preset TP-list screen, and the receiver ID'd that the channels locked to were in fact 119W channels broadcast from TPs listed in 118.7 TP list and withing its freq. range (like 11898, etc).

A'm not sure about the root cause to fail scanning 118.7W, as my dish mount point is 20" higher than it should be on the balcony, and large part of the dish is obstructed from beam in 119W position. I guess, stronger 119W signal goes through anyway, but not Anik's. Not sure, why some TP freqs overlup on these sats. When I re-mount the dish, I revisit this issue. Its actually important, since the dish doesn't have side struts for LNB Bracket, so adding extra LNB to catch unscrambled channels on 118.7 may lead to overweight issue.

 

[DJ Rob]

What free channels are on 118.7?

 

[B.J.]

B.J.
I'm still learning all tricks of this receiver. After reading your post I wanted to re-test. This time I followed the Guide, seems to be written to scan circular sats with SV 360 Elite hooked to an elliptical Multi-LNB dish, not a motorized setup. When scanning a sat, it suggests to switch OFF LNB voltage and Network Search for other (i.e. nearby for motorized setup) sats in Dish Setup. I was still getting some channels with LNB 10950 setting withing 118.7W TP freq. range (as ID'd in Channel Edit). However, they don't seem to resemble Anik F3 Channel Line-up as per Lyngsat. Then I went through the list of 118.7W TPs on a preset TP-list screen, and the receiver ID'd that the channels locked to were in fact 119W channels broadcast from TPs listed in 118.7 TP list and withing its freq. range (like 11898, etc).

A'm not sure about the root cause to fail scanning 118.7W at the moment, as my dish mount point is 20" higher than it should be on my balcony, and large part of the dish is obstructed from beam in 119W position. I guess, stronger 119W signal goes through anyway, but not Anik F3's. Not sure, why some TP freqs overlup on these sats. When I re-mount the dish, I revisit this issue. Its actually important, since the dish doesn't have side struts for LNB Bracket, so adding extra LNB to catch some free channels on 118.7 may lead to overweight issue.

Re the 11898 transponder.

I'm guessing that what is happening is:
What that probably is, is the 12399 transponder (~12398)
The circular LNB is sending 12399-11250 = 1149
Your receiver is seeing the 1149 as 1149 + 10750 = 11899 (11898)
Ie because you gave the receiver the wrong LO freq, it is calculating the freq as 11898 instead of 12398.

I may have misunderstood what you said above, but I THINK that this is what is happening based on what I THINK you are saying.

 

[zamar23]

Well, I'm not sure about that - would appreciate, if you suggest how to check that - but I do know that Invacom doesn't scan anything and neither register any S or Q (like no voltage is supplied to LNB from the receiver), if you switch it to 11250 at scanning 118.7W. Nada... If you're right, why the receiver tunes to these channels with Q=100 after calculating there freqs with such a huge error? And why only 3 TPs of 119W shows up (up to 12020 freq.) instead of all when scanning 118.7W? All 119W TPs show up (except these 3), when scanning 119W with 11250 freq, so its not a matter of stronger TPs.

 

[Mr Tony]

What free channels are on 118.7?

the "you have a Dish at 118.7" slate

 

[B.J.]

Well, I'm not sure about that - would appreciate, if you suggest how to check that - but I do know that Invacom doesn't scan anything and neither register any S or Q (like no voltage is supplied to LNB from the receiver), if you switch it to 11250 at scanning 118.7W. Nada... If you're right, why the receiver tunes to these channels with Q=100 after calculating there freqs with such a huge error? And why only 3 TPs of 119W shows up (up to 12020 freq.) instead of all when scanning 118.7W? All 119W TPs show up (except these 3), when scanning 119W with 11250 freq, so its not a matter of stronger TPs.

Well, it's still not completely clear exactly what you're doing, such as blind scan, transponder scan, satellite scan (your receiver may name them differently), however, try the following.
When you are set up with the 10750 LO freq on the circular port.......Assuming that you can create a transponder, try creating 11870 R, with SR=20000, and try to scan that transponder in. OR, if you are doing a blind scan, see if that transponder scans in.
What I'm guessing, is that if you scan in that transponder, that you will scan in the NASA channel, ie ch 213. Or, if you have done a blind scan, I'm guessing that NASA shows up on that 11870R frequency.
And it's NOT a "huge error" as you say, it's just that if you lie to the receiver about your lnbf's LO freq, then the receiver is going to lie to you about what freq it's tuning. The receiver doesn't tune either 11870 or 12370, for the NASA channel, it's tuning 1120, and it's basically telling you that the frequency is 1120 plus whatever freq you tell it the LO freq is.

It isn't clear from what you've posted, whether you have identified what any of the channels actually are, by name or channel number. Ie when you say you've scanned in a channel from the 118 Anik sat, can you give an example of a channel name, channel number, or some other identification?? You might try the channel Ice mentioned for example.

OFF topic, when looking up the freq of the NASA channel to do the above calculation for the test, I notice that someone changed Lyngsat to indicate that NASA is scrambled. I just checked and it is still FTA, but I'm wondering whether it might have been encrypted for a short period of time, or if whoever gave that info to Lyngsat just had a receive problem or something........ or perhaps there are dishnet spies sending even more incorrect infor to Lyngsat???
I'm amazed that Lyngsat is as complete as it is, with getting info from such a wide variety of people. I have only sent info to Lyngsat once. After getting annoyed that it had incorrect data on a couple transponders that I watched all the time, and that wrong info had been there for years, I sent in a correction. My accurate correction lasted about 2 weeks, before someone put the old wrong info back in.
Anyway, I'm just curious whether anyone has EVER seen the NASA channel encrypted on DN ?

 

[zamar23]

I'm doing Sat Autoscan for 118.7W, while LNB is switched OFF in the receiver for 119W. Otherwise Autoscan produces many 119W channels, and Blind Scan produces a number of duplicated 119W channels on both 118.7W and 119W sat channel lists. I tested 11870 freq at 2000 V 7/8, and it gave a list of Echo 7 channels, when scanning this TP for 118.7W sat, while LNB is OFF for 119W sat. It looks like you're right on this one. Still no answer, why only 3 TPs of 119W shows up (up to 12020 freq.) instead of all when scanning 118.7W?

When you say, the receiver is tuning to 1120 for NASA channel - could you elaborate on this?

As to Lyngsat, a lot of TP and Channel info is obsolete, but some of what people perceive obsolete may be caused by regional TP spot beam related differences - don't you think so?

 

[B.J.]

I'm doing Sat Autoscan for 118.7W, while LNB is switched OFF in the receiver for 119W. Otherwise Autoscan produces many 119W channels, and Blind Scan produces a number of duplicated 119W channels on both 118.7W and 119W sat channel lists. I tested 11870 freq at 2000 V 7/8, and it gave a list of Echo 7 channels, when scanning this TP for 118.7W sat, while LNB is OFF for 119W sat. It looks like you're right on this one.

Let me try this another way.
If you set your LO to 11250 while using the circular port, it is scanning 12200-12700.
If you set your LO to 10750 while using the circular port, it is scanning 12200-12700.
Ie, with a standard lnbf, the band that your receiver sees has nothing to do with what you set your LO freq as. That setting is only used to convert the 950-1450 IF band into a freq that is displayed or used to select an IF freq to tune.
I'm still a bit confused about the receiver setup, particularly when you say things like you've turned off one sat or the other. It sounds like your receiver has some special setup that is intended to handle a Dishnet lnbf setup, of which there are so many types, I've given up trying to remember what they all do. If that's the case, you shouldn't be using a setup like that for a QPH-031. You should set up that lnbf as a standard or single lnbf, regardless of whether you're setting up the circular or linear port. If you're setting up a sat for the linear port, you use 10750 LO freq. If you're setting up a sat for the circular port, you should use 11250. Using 10750 while using the circular port will do nothing except give you some channels that appear to be at the wrong frequency, or in your case, will appear to be from the wrong satellite.

When you say, the receiver is tuning to 1120 for NASA channel - could you elaborate on this?

Your receiver does not receive in either the 11700-12200 band or in the 12200-12700 band. Your receiver receives in the 950-1450 band, or actually it goes past that, ie probably from 950- somewhere around 2000. This is because you're using an LNB which is a block down converter, ie it converts the Ku frequencies down to a common 950-1450 band whether you're using a Ku or C-band lnb. So when you think you're tuning say the 12370 freq on your receiver, you're actually tuning 1120, which is 12370-11250. The Ku frequencies that your receiver uses are only for display purposes, and for doing the conversion between L-band and the actual frequency being received by the lnbf.
Some people, using some receivers don't even use the C-band or Ku-band frequencies at all, and perhaps that would avoid a lot of confusion. For example, DCII receivers use the actual frequency that it's receiving in the 950-1450 band. My DCII receiver has 2 ports, one for C and Ku, but I never use my Ku band port. I just put Ku into the C-band port, because it doesn't matter, because it expects 950-1450 on either port, and that's what I input when I tune it.
Many people do the same thing with some DVB FTA receivers too. Ie they just set it up with a LO freq of ZERO. Then if you enter the actual IF freq, you'll tune the same channel. I don't know if your receiver will accept a LO freq of zero, but if it does, you might try that. Ie use LO=0 and set up a transponder with freq=1120V SR=20000 . You'll probably get the same NASA channel when you do a scan.

As to Lyngsat, a lot of TP and Channel info is obsolete, but some of what people perceive obsolete may be caused by regional TP spot beam related differences - don't you think so?

Yeah, sometimes people can't see transponders, and report that they aren't there. But relative to obsolete, it's probably just more a case of people are more likely to report a signal if it is new than they are when it goes away, so things tend to stay in Lyngsat long after they have gone away.
That aspect doesn't bother me so much, as I just look at the date, and anything that doesn't have a current date on it, I don't trust.
Also, there are a lot of innacurate frequencies and SR values that are on Lyngsat because some receivers report the wrong values on blind scans. The Mercury II is notorious for giving the wrong values. I think MY Mercury II would be off by enough that a couple of my other receivers would not be able to lock the transponders about 95% of the time.

However, the third issue is information on Lyngsat that almost HAD to have been put in there intentionally with incorrect info meant to confuse people. I don't know why people would do this.

 

[zamar23]

Well, you're saying that TP freq display is only for info purposes, but is not used by the receiver for tuning. When I scan a sat like Galaxy 19 with Single 10600 LNB freq., I get channel list and can watch channels. If I switch LNB freq to 10750, I can't watch any channel, until the sat is rescanned with this freq. That means to me, the receiver uses info data it shows on the screen (whether correct or not) to tune to channels. Is it not?

Switching OFF LNBs for a nearby sat in SV 360 Elite, when scanning a sat, prevents duplicate channel lists for both sats.

 

[guapoharry]

B.J., very good test information from you. I do not give too much weight in the gain figures, as the receivers tuners all have Automatic Gain Control (AGC) circuitry built in to amplify the signal to the level required. Now, which tuners are better? Is the amplifier in the tuner better or the amplifier in the LNBF? Now any noise entered from the LNBF to the tuner will be amplified in the tuner, whereas, if amplified in the LNBF that noise would not be present. Now the manufacturer posted ratings, are they all measured on the same playing field.... are some exagerated or measured at specific points where their product shines and not where it operates poorly? ....

Wow, This is one of my pet peeves. I really wish you could turn off the AGC.

Back when I listened to short wave radio, I came to understand that AGC lies to you. Or rather, you can make erroneous judgements about doing settings without looking at all of the info.

 

[B.J.]

Well, you're saying that TP freq display is only for info purposes, but is not used by the receiver for tuning. When I scan a sat like Galaxy 19 with Single 10600 LNB freq., I get channel list and can watch channels. If I switch LNB freq to 10950, I can't watch any channel, until the sat is rescanned with this freq. That means to me, the receiver uses info data it shows on the screen (whether correct or not) to tune to channels. Is it not?

That fits exactly what I was at least *TRYING* to say. I didn't say that it was *JUST* for info purposes, I also in the same sentence said "and for doing the conversion between L-band and the actual frequency being received by the lnbf. "
Ie if you blind scan and the receiver finds the NASA channel, it finds it at 1120. If you have the receiver set for a 10600 LO freq, it then converts that to 1120+10600=11720 and tells you that (wrong) freq for the transponder. If you then change the LO freq to say 10750, and you ask the receiver to find that 11720 channel, it does a calculation of 11720-10750=970, and looks for the channel at 970, and of course it isn't there. If you rescan with the LO set at 10750, it would find that channel again at 1120, and add 10750 to it, and tell you that the channel was at 11870, and you could watch it again. But if you then changed the LO freq to the correct 11250 freq, then, when you'd try to play the channel, it would think.... 11870-11250=620, and it probably wouldn't even TRY to tune that in, because most of the receivers I've used won't even TRY to tune below 950. However even if it DID try, that channel isn't at 620, so it wouldn't play it.
Generally, if you do a blind scan with different LO freqs, you'll come up with the same channels each time you scan, however they will be saved as being at different frequencies. They are only saved with the correct freq if you use the correct LO freq.

Switching OFF LNBs for a nearby sat in SV 360 Elite, when scanning a sat, prevents duplicate channel lists for both sats.

At first, this didn't make any sense to me at all, but then it occurred to me that perhaps if you have a system with some fancy switch that allows multiple receivers to receive from multiple powered LNBS aimed at different satellites, then I can understand how turning off other LNBS might help, because switches have a tendency of leaking signal from one port to another, it wouldn't even matter if it were a nearby sat or not. But if you just have a system with one receiver, even if it goes to a DiseqC or 22KHz switch with a couple LNBs, then there shouldn't be a problem, because there will only be one LNB powered up at one time.

Are you using a multi switch with multiple receivers and multiple LNBs aimed at different sats, or just the one receiver and one Invacom LNBF? I guess I was assuming that you only had the one receiver, in which case I don't think turning off other satellites does anything at all.

 

[zamar23]

B.J.
I appreciate your detail arguments and explanation, which cleared a lot this issue, I haven't seen clarified before. Some options of a particular receiver depend on its firmware algorithms for a given task, and not only connected hardware config. I'm not using many switches. The advice of switching LNB Off for all sats from the preset list except the one you intend to scan, I mentioned, was given for a multi-lnb elliptical dish setup. To what degree it's suitable for a single LNB motorized dish setup depends also on firmware implementation in that how it attempts to prevent channel duplicates in scanned channel lists. So I wouldn't be so sure claiming its useless without knowing how a given firmware release for a given receiver actually works. But that part is not always disclosed.