larger dish

[dxuall1]

hi guys i have a couple of questions i have a mercuty II receiver with a 36'' dish can i add a different dish probably 40'' or so? i say probably because at my brother's in law job site he saw a dish just sitting on the ground and he asked his supervisor and the suprvisor told him they used to use it to "get the weather info in the computer" he said the dish is a little bit larger than my 36'' and has a large lnb that's what he said. I don't have any extra info on the dish. will the dish work on c-band? Probably I'll have to change the lnb or something. can the mercury receive c-band fta channels with a larger dish????? what kind of lnb should I use???? what is the smallest size of dish that you guys have been sucessful to receive at least one c-band channel/s also what lnb??? In the lyngsat website says that some channels I might be able to receive here in south texas with my 75cm-105cm dish mine is 90cm but the merury does't scan c-band frequencies do I need to add the frequencies on each satellite? or it does not work on c-band at all? please help me thank you for your replies.

 

[lumpkin666]

The MercuryII will receive c-band digital FTA. You'll need a c-band lnb/lnbf in order to receive c-band though. As for the dish size, you "might" get a very strong channel if there is no other interference, but it's doubtful that you would get anything reliable (if anything at all). 6ft is generally the minimum c-band dish, with 10-12 foot being desirable.

IF you go trying to get c-band with this dish (and I wouldn't waste my time, given that you can find larger dishes for free if you spend some time, and you'll be MUCH happier with a larger dish), some will steer you towards the bsc-621, or other similar lnbf setups. My preference is a good old dual c-band feedhorn with separate lnb's. I've had 5-6 of these cheap pot-metal lnbf combos and none of them have performed as well as a 20+ year old feedhorn with lnb combo.

 

[dxuall1]

Is the c-band beam signal scale on lyngsat reliable? the one with the eirp (dbw) and dish size given in cm (size needed to receive the signals)?????? If is reliable acording to the scale I should be receiving almost all fta c-band channels with a 6' dish any opinions on dish sizes for c-band........

 

[lumpkin666]

Reliable? I don't know that I'd completely trust them. They give the "ideal" specs under perfect conditions (IMO). A 6' dish would probably work - Iceberg seems to indicate that he has pretty good luck. But you'll still have problems with certain transponders getting overpowered by adjacent transponders/etc. If you're just looking to tinker, 6' is probably okay. If you want stability and reliability, the bigger and more well parabolically formed dish you can get your hands on, the better your results will be.

 

[qwert1515]

"get the weather info in the computer"

The geostationary weather satellites transmit at 1691 MHz (needs a special LNB), GOES West is located at 125 Degrees West, and GOES East is located at 75 Degrees West, it is recommended to have at least a 60" dish, you will also need a special wefax receiver (Weather FAX) to decode the signals into a wefax image.

 

[dxuall1]

The dish is a round 4' primestar with a tri-pod mount for the lnb and they used it to get the weather channel. questions: will the bsc-621 c/ku lnb work on this particular tri-pod mount?? will my sg-120 motor work with this dish or is it too heavy?

 

[turbosat]

You can make anything work with enough engineering and money. Whether you will get very good results is another matter. You could prob rig that lnbf to fit on a primestar dish, but it's really not big enough for c-band. I'm not saying it's not possible to pick up a few digital signals with it, but that it may just give you more headaches than it's worth. If you have the room, run an ad, or knock on some doors, get yourself a real c-band dish. People will give them away to get rid of them these days. You will have better luck with your project with a c-band dish that is big enough to reject interference from other sats located only 2degrees away. I have tried sev sizes, the 7.5' dish will work ok in most places. But the 10' will give you rock-solid signal lock on digital c-band.

 

[SatPhreak]

CONUS reception means a 8.5' (2.6m) dish for 2 degree seperation. Anything less means interferance on C-band. 6' you could get decent reception, 40 inches don't expect much.

 

[updatelee]

well not to nit pick, but CONUS means continental united states, or ... it can means contiguous united states. the difference is if Alaska is included or not in what you are talking about. ya its dumb to have an acronym mean two different things.

but everything else you said was spot on

 

[SatPhreak]

When I said Conus, I meant contiguous US. I live about 40 miles from the contiguous US, but dxuall1 is from texas which any CONUS beam should reach.