Just got my Toroidal T-90

[VinceT3]

The box is huge! lol

I can't wait to set it up, but I'm busy working on pavers in the backyard.. Probably won't get a chance till 2 weekends from now..

I have 3 dbs & 2 universal & 1 standard lnbs.. the 3 dbs are going on 110, 119, 129 (hopefully I get a good signal) so I can take down the other dishes..

What other sats are a good option to hit? I was thinking 123, 103, and 89 maybe?

 

[Mr Tony]

123 I think would be a given due to the channels on it
103 has feeds on it (and has a goofy skew) so that would work
97 has a lot of ethnic & religious channels
93 has news feeds
91 has news/sports feeds
89 has news/sports feeds

If I had 3, I'd pick 123, 97, 91

 

[bidaw]

Hey Vince, been looking for a t-90 but Sadoun has been out for awhile...

Where did you get yours?

 

[VinceT3]

Cool, I'll try those out.. not that the non-dish ones will stay put for long..

 

[VinceT3]

www.pro-satellite.com

pretty good deal, 250 to roughly the airport or 40 more for home shipping via fedex

EDIT: I did the same thing.. I checked sadoun for a while and I wanted to get it while the wife said it was ok.. lol.. didn't want her changing her mind..

 

[Mr Tony]

Vince
I dont know where you plan on mounting the dish but I highly suggest 2 people. That bugger is HEAVY !!!

If you havent seen the review I did, check it out. It explains some of the uniqueness of the setup of the T90

 

[VinceT3]

My house faces amost exactly n/s.. I wanted to put it in an easy place where I can mess with lnbs without to much trouble...

My thought is the back of the house where my master is (I also have all my coax going into the master closet and distributed throughout the home).. so it should make life a little simpler..

I was going to keep it just under the fence so I don't hear anything from the neighbors.. I have 100% visiablity to the entire southern sky..

 

[Mr Tony]

My house faces amost exactly n/s.. I wanted to put it in an easy place where I can mess with lnbs without to much trouble...

very smart idea. I almost mounted mine on the roof but decided ono a 30" table. Smartest idea I did

 

[VinceT3]

I can't put it on the roof.. the joys of tile roofs.. plus the house is concrete block, so it should hold reeeeeeally well.. Hopefully through hurricanes too..

 

[VinceT3]

Ok, I finally unboxed it and put it together.. holy cow is this thing a monster.. I'd say if I put 3 dish 500's together it would equal this thing.. I'm waiting for my neighbors to whine about it.. maybe the bushes will go up sooner than later..

The weight isnt that bad.. but after hauling 2000 lbs of sand around last weekend, I'm a bad judge of weight..

Tomorrow, if it's light out and not raining, I'll try mounting the base to the wall.. getting it all aligned properly so aiming won't become guess work..

 

[VinceT3]

Ok, I finally tried to align this monster tonight.. adjusted everything per the calculator link on sadouns site..

WaveFrontier tilt angle (Skew): 59.54°
Make skew adjustment by tilting the antenna 30.46° to West which is exactly 59.54° on the scale!!!
(seen from behind the antenna)

WaveFrontier elevation angle: 45.67° (central satellite)

WaveFrontier azimuth range: 40° (89.0° W -> 129.0° W)

Imaginary central satellite: 109° W
Azimuth angle 231.07°
Elevation angle 45.67°

So I roughly get it in the right position and move the moster around till I get something worth while on the sat meter.. I do a scan.. I find channels.. it's 119, mind you I was expecting 107.3.. wacky.. so I try adjusting it again.. nothing except 119.. very wacky.. I think I may put the reverse dbs lnb on tomorrow and try to find 110..

Any suggestions on how to improve my ability to find the right sat?

 

[Mr Tony]

I would put the centre LNB as 107.3 and run those numbers. You can be a smidge more than 20 off and still get good signal. My centre one is IA6 (93) yet I can get AMC6 (72) with very good results

The thing is lock on the centre one first then the edge ones. That's one helluva skew you have there

 

[Wescopc]

When you have that much skew on a T90 it makes it VERY hard to visualize where it is pointing! I had 22° (112° on the scale) on mine and had a hard time so another 8° or so would make it even harder.

When I set my elevation prior to tilting it for skew, I lined my eye up with where my center satellite would be above the dish and got a feel for the amount of offset in the dish. That helped me when I tilted it to visualize where it should be aiming for the center satellite.
Bob

 

[VinceT3]

I had the LNB in -1.5 (which is where the calc said to put it for 107.3).. I was able to get 119 which was weird especially since it's circular and I was using universal..

Any how.. I know the lnb's can tilt a little in each direction, I'm wondering if I just needed to adjust it to get 107.3 correctly?

Would have been nice if they had degrees on the base so if I was pointing true south I knew how many I needed to go in any direction.. Eh, I'll try again this weekend if not tonight, it was getting dark and hard to see when I finally got 119..

 

[digiblur]

I had the LNB in -1.5 (which is where the calc said to put it for 107.3).. I was able to get 119 which was weird especially since it's circular and I was using universal..

Any how.. I know the lnb's can tilt a little in each direction, I'm wondering if I just needed to adjust it to get 107.3 correctly?

Would have been nice if they had degrees on the base so if I was pointing true south I knew how many I needed to go in any direction.. Eh, I'll try again this weekend if not tonight, it was getting dark and hard to see when I finally got 119..

Yep... I hate it. On a KU Linear Standard LNB, I'll pick up the bottom of the DBS band when I'm scanning near the hot DBS birds.

 

[VinceT3]

I found a problem, dunno if its entire issue..

One of the tapcons came free, it's just off of 90 degrees on the east / west, it wobbles left and right now..

I probably won't make another attempt till next weekend, I'm not sure if a pole in the ground would be better than against the wall?

 

[VinceT3]

I was looking at the pics on sadoun's site and noticed I think i have a part of two not right.. those instructions were not fun..

 

[iafirebuff]

I don't have the dish you have, but after having roof, wall and pole mounts, I prefer the pole mounts now. It is real nice being able to work on the dish at chest level.

 

[Anole]

I agree, but...
if this "against the wall" is at chest level, it'd probably be more stable than a pole.
So, if it's comfortable to work with, it sure sounds good to me.
...but, I'll defer to members who've worked with that dish.

If you want to take a few pictures, nobody would object.

 

[VinceT3]

Ok, I had about 3 hours this weekend to play around.. I verified everthing was built correctly from Icebergs pictures of his own T90..

my brain hurts from this thing.. I have one of those sadoun sat finders and that thing comes in super strong, but scans based on whats on lyngsat I should find something.. but nadda.. I ordered a CS5000 so hopefully the blind scan will help, but whats killing me is not having anyway of knowing what sat I'm pointing at.. theres gotta be a better way..