just got a p* 40x29" dish, questions?

[drhydro]

My neighbor just gave me a very used (at least ten years old) p* dish. Nice dish and i really like the mounting system.

I know there are plenty of posts concerning this dish, but when i did a forum search i came up way to many pages to quickly scan thro and find the answers (call me lazy today i want to get this mounted today, and point it at amc 3 for the PBS's up there.

question 1) i see two coax cables coming off of the lnb, one is for v and one for h, correct? should i grab a 22khz switch to switch polarities, and if so will a 22 khz switch work inline after a diseqc switch?

reciever>diseqc switch> 22khz switch?

question 2) how reliable is the original lnb for this dish, and if i should upgrade what should i get for an lnb?

question 3) If i want to try some "mini bud" experiments with this dish, could i use my old cal amb 65 degree lnb/ scalar ring (for prime focus) or is it a waste of time to even try? it worked great on my BUD, im hoping i can try it on the p* just for yuck yucks

I know all of this has been discussed here before, but i couldnt find the answers.
Thanks

 

[PSB]

I just used a DiSEqc 2 way switch. Then upgraded.

I would upgrade the LNBF to get the full use from the dish (same as the one I have)

Any KU LNBF would work better than the older ones. You may have to crack open the casing to get the exact focal height, thats what I had to do.

The ASC-421 C-LNBF is for a prime focus dish and the results have been pretty good considering the size of the dish, I would give your C-LNB a try. Well worth it even if you only get the Canadian channels on Anik F1. Of course you have a C-band setup already : )

 

[drhydro]

Thanks for the reply Pete, guess its time to climb up on the roof and get that dish mounted

 

[Mr Tony]

If you have a Diseqc in the system, use the 22K and you can switch that way. Or if you have an old DirecTV multiswitch those work. If you do the 22k route, lets say V is 0 and you are using port 2 for the switch

V would be port 2 22K 0
H would be port 2 22K on

I just did this with 119 & 129. Works pretty snifty .

 

[drhydro]

Thank you iceberg, that is probably the way i will set this up for now.

 

[drhydro]

Just climbed up on my roof and low and behold, all of the mount feet for a primestar mount are already attached to my roof In talking with one of my neighbors he informed all 4 of the houses on my road had p* "back in the day". So all i have to do is wait for a sucker, errrrrrrrrr i mean a friend , to help my get that unwieldy / heavy dish up on the roof, bolt it to the existing feet, run a few feet of cable and I am off and running.....

Ok, another question, which of the two feeds coming off of the lnbf is verticle and which is horizontal (looking at the back of the lnbf)?

 

[Mr Tony]

Crack open the LNB casing and it should say

Otherwise trial and error

 

[WTguy]

Yep, like Iceberg says, it should say, mine is engraved V and H respectively.

 

[drhydro]

Got it up on the roof and mounted, cracked the lnb casing and low and behold polarity was labeled now, time to aim it at g10 for a start and do some comparisions. Thanks

 

[drhydro]

Well i finally managed to find a little free time to start aiming my P* dish last night after it had cooled down a little. I first tried for g10, but whoever installed the original p* mount on my roof didnt care about tracking the arc and set it up so that bottom of the dish hits one of the mount support legs at lower elevations :-( hmmmmmmmm guess i will have to redo the mount feet at a latter point when i have some roof caulk.

Thought about it a moment and decided that for last night i could raise the dish on the mounting pole a little (which allowed me to lower the elevation more) and see what i could find that way. Right off i found a strong signal and proceeded to scan to see what i had found. Imagine my surprise when i found i was on 119, and recieving the audio channels and NASA at rock solid 71% with a ku lnb

Now i know I should get about a 50% lower signal level on dbs sats with a ku lnb (linear) than i would with a dbs lnb (circular), but that high of a signal quality surprised me, esp. after i had aimed my BUD at nimiq 1/3 and was only able to get a 15-20% S.Q. So i figured what the hey, and aimed my BUD at 119 and got a 99% s.q. Then I tried some other DBS sats to see what i could find with the BUD. No s.q. to speak of on any of the other DBS sats i tried (e5 was the first one i tried). hmmmmmmmmmm again.

The only thing i can think of why i get 119 in so strong is I must be in a "sweet spot" of its conus beam, or else that sucker is REALLY putting out a strong signal. Anyways just thought i would share that, and ask what other people that are aiming a ku (linear) lnb at 119 are getting for s.q.

As for tonight i will be busy setting up my new V-box that should be here today (thanks PSB, awesome doing business with you, some of the fastest order processing/shipping i have seen) so the p* experiments are on hold for at least a day or two. What a fun hobby you folks have hooked me on :-D

 

[ken2400]

Ok now get 121W then keep an eye on the quility meter for a given 121W transponder and move the dish to the right just enought to loose the 121W signal and you should be on 123W.

Good luck!

Well i finally managed to find a little free time to start aiming my P* dish last night after it had cooled down a little. I first tried for g10, but whoever installed the original p* mount on my roof didnt care about tracking the arc and set it up so that bottom of the dish hits one of the mount support legs at lower elevations :-( hmmmmmmmm guess i will have to redo the mount feet at a latter point when i have some roof caulk.

Thought about it a moment and decided that for last night i could raise the dish on the mounting pole a little (which allowed me to lower the elevation more) and see what i could find that way. Right off i found a strong signal and proceeded to scan to see what i had found. Imagine my surprise when i found i was on 119, and recieving the audio channels and NASA at rock solid 71% with a ku lnb

Now i know I should get about a 50% lower signal level on dbs sats with a ku lnb (linear) than i would with a dbs lnb (circular), but that high of a signal quality surprised me, esp. after i had aimed my BUD at nimiq 1/3 and was only able to get a 15-20% S.Q. So i figured what the hey, and aimed my BUD at 119 and got a 99% s.q. Then I tried some other DBS sats to see what i could find with the BUD. No s.q. to speak of on any of the other DBS sats i tried (e5 was the first one i tried). hmmmmmmmmmm again.

The only thing i can think of why i get 119 in so strong is I must be in a "sweet spot" of its conus beam, or else that sucker is REALLY putting out a strong signal. Anyways just thought i would share that, and ask what other people that are aiming a ku (linear) lnb at 119 are getting for s.q.

As for tonight i will be busy setting up my new V-box that should be here today (thanks PSB, awesome doing business with you, some of the fastest order processing/shipping i have seen) so the p* experiments are on hold for at least a day or two. What a fun hobby you folks have hooked me on :-D

 

[Tron]

Echostar 7 is horribly powerful... and I do mean HORRIBLY.

I was tweaking my new Invacom QPH LNB on the roof last night (make that early yesterday morning), and while smart scanning Satmex 5, I was hitting E* transponders from 119w with the LINEAR side of the Invacom!

This was truly aggravating. Nearly 2.5 degrees off, I still had to delete the E* crud from my scan results. I forgive Echostar 7, though, some great FTA stuff there!

 

[Mr Tony]

I know what you mean Tron

When I scan AMC9, I get some of Nimiq2
When I scan G11, I get Nimiq1 also

Both on a linear

 

[drhydro]

Ok now get 121W then keep an eye on the quility meter for a given 121W transponder and move the dish to the right just enought to loose the 121W signal and you should be on 123W.

Good luck!

Thanks for the input Ken :-D My only problem in getting g10 on this is i have to move the tripod mount "legs" before i can drop elevation enough for g10 (g10 is at 18.8 elevation for me here). Right now with the dish on 119 the bottom of the dish is hitting the leg :-( I will probably fix that on Sunday. I'm really interested in doing some comparisons in between my 76cm winegard (.5 db lnb), my p* (unknown db lnb) and my BUD (.7 degree lnb) on g10. Then I'll have to put one of my extra c band lnbs on the p* and see how it compares to the bud on c band. I'll be sure to let you folks what happens :-D

 

[drhydro]

I know what you mean Tron

When I scan AMC9, I get some of Nimiq2
When I scan G11, I get Nimiq1 also

Both on a linear

When i tried to scan nimiq 1/3 off of my BUD (ku linear) i only picked up a couple of audio channels, both with s.q. so low that i couldnt listen to them. I guess the echostar sats are much more powerfull than the nimiq sats.

 

[Tron]

Echostar 7, in particular, is quite powerful. On an small 18" dish, I can literally move the dish a half an inch azimuth IN EACH DIRECTION and still get 119w with high quality.

Can do +/- 3 degrees or so for the elevation. It's gotta be the most powerful bird up there.

 

[ken2400]

Hope it worked out. Can you get anything off 121W? The elevation should be real close to 123W.

Thanks for the input Ken :-D My only problem in getting g10 on this is i have to move the tripod mount "legs" before i can drop elevation enough for g10 (g10 is at 18.8 elevation for me here). Right now with the dish on 119 the bottom of the dish is hitting the leg :-( I will probably fix that on Sunday. I'm really interested in doing some comparisons in between my 76cm winegard (.5 db lnb), my p* (unknown db lnb) and my BUD (.7 degree lnb) on g10. Then I'll have to put one of my extra c band lnbs on the p* and see how it compares to the bud on c band. I'll be sure to let you folks what happens :-D

 

[drhydro]

Hey Ken,
I just came off of the roof from playing with the p*. Until i move the mount legs there is no way i will get anything with a lower elevation than 119. So i parked it at amc3 at 87. Once i peaked it there for KU (well as best i could with just my sat meter) i was able to pull in Montana PBS with a solid 60% s.q. on the pansat 2700. Marked both Az and El. so i could make sure i could find it again with no problem. Then i got ambitious......

[edit, moved rest of post to where it belonged]

see rest of post here
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?p=595537#post595537