My New Dish Farm

[iBoston]

I had a problem i was aware of, but wasn't willing to invest the time into the issue until recently. I have a 4 tuner STB, and a couple years back, i attempted to hook in my satellite network into two separate LNB inputs. This way i could watch what ever i wanted, and my Record events could record without interrupting me. In another words, i could watch one thing and record another. Well, when i attempted to utilize this, the secondary tuner kept failing after a few hours.

Well, i decided to dedicate a couple days to upgrading the firmware to a recent one. I changed from a DreamElite firmware to a NewEnigma firmware. I was very happy to see that all 4 of my tuners work perfect now! - I was also able to get everything i customized on my old firmware to cross over to the new firmware. In another words, i didn't loose out on anything.

I have become a fan of "Through the Decades" on Decades. One of my daily records.

I have some current issues i need to resolve.

My 10' Cband dish is accumulating count errors, so i will have to run a new cable or something.. Ugh!
I have a 4' KU dish that blew down in a storm that was at 91w KU, that i need to put back up. I'm thinking moving it to 117w for the BYU Global.

I also have a 99cm KU that i would like to hook up. Any thoughts on where to point that one? Maybe 91w, or 119w (although i hate CNN now)

Over the years, i've learned to dislike moveable dishes. Especially USALS. Hence, why i have so many KU dishes. I prefer to have a fixed antenna. Less problematic, and quick channel changes. I have fixed KU setup at :

• 30w
• 34.5w
• 87w
• 95w
• 97w
• 99w
• 101w
• 103w
• 110w
• 111w
• 125w

 

[c-spand]

I had a problem i was aware of, but wasn't willing to invest the time into the issue until recently. I have a 4 tuner STB, and a couple years back, i attempted to hook in my satellite network into two separate LNB inputs. This way i could watch what ever i wanted, and my Record events could record without interrupting me. In another words, i could watch one thing and record another. Well, when i attempted to utilize this, the secondary tuner kept failing after a few hours.

Well, i decided to dedicate a couple days to upgrading the firmware to a recent one. I changed from a DreamElite firmware to a NewEnigma firmware. I was very happy to see that all 4 of my tuners work perfect now! - I was also able to get everything i customized on my old firmware to cross over to the new firmware. In another words, i didn't loose out on anything.

I have become a fan of "Through the Decades" on Decades. One of my daily records.

I have some current issues i need to resolve.

My 10' Cband dish is accumulating count errors, so i will have to run a new cable or something.. Ugh!
I have a 4' KU dish that blew down in a storm that was at 91w KU, that i need to put back up. I'm thinking moving it to 117w for the BYU Global.

I also have a 99cm KU that i would like to hook up. Any thoughts on where to point that one? Maybe 91w, or 119w (although i hate CNN now)

Over the years, i've learned to dislike moveable dishes. Especially USALS. Hence, why i have so many KU dishes. I prefer to have a fixed antenna. Less problematic, and quick channel changes. I have fixed KU setup at :

• 30w
• 34.5w
• 87w
• 95w
• 97w
• 99w
• 101w
• 103w
• 110w
• 111w
• 125w

91w

 

[iBoston]

I hooked up my 4' KU under my 9' Cband dish. I welded a pole onto the corner. I attempted 117w, but was unable to obtain BYU. So, i plan on aligning the dish to 91w, and ill put my 99cm on 117w. This dish was on my other storage container and came down during a nasty storm that brought some crazy winds. It turned out to be a good thing, because the dish was in the way of my 8' cband from rotating west where i wanted to re-align it. Hence why i didn't put my 4' back in the old place, there was no longer room for it because the cband pointed more west was in the way. This is a good spot and ill be able to align anything from 89w and west....

 

[iBoston]

An update. By installing a different LNBF, i was able to catch the weak signal BYUTV on 116.8 which is a great plus for me. So, the 1.2m dish is staying on 116.8w ... I am going to see if i can run another Coax cable to that location so that i can utilize the dual output on it to run it through a multi-switch.

I swapped motors to a spare StabHH120 KU motor on my 99cm. I can finally hit everything in the ARC. The other one had so much play in it, it was hit and miss... I still have to fine tune it, hopefully in a few more days.. Right now it is snowing. But, we are supposed to be back in the 50's in a couple days, and hoping i can fine tune it and run that extra cable, and hook up the last spare 99cm.

I want to put the spare 99cm on 91w. I was able to confirm i was able to catch everything on my USALS 99cm, so a fixed 99cm that is, dead on balls tuned, should be good for me.

With that, ill be out of spare dishes, and have no further plans of expansion. - Making no promises thou...

Ps, i spray painted the weldings and pipe on the 1.2m in the picture above and properly tied all the wires.

I will also add, that both dishes in the picture above , the 9' cband and the 1.2m KU dish were freely donated by another FTA user about 3 years back, and was driven from Southern California 2300 miles to my location. It feels good to keep used dishes in service.

 

[iBoston]

Since i decided to keep my 1.2m pointed @ 117w, and since i had all the spare parts, I went ahead and threw on a side car lnbf for 113w. Ran out of daylight, but i want to put another side car lnbf for 121w . Ill take pictures once I am done, but ill hit 113/117 and 121 with one 1.2m dish.

Here is my blind scan of 113w. Seems to be performing well :

 

[iBoston]

This morning i attached and fine tuned a side-car LNBF for 121w. Had to swap a diseqc 1.0 for a diseqc 1.1 switch. These are feed channel dishes so i don't run them through my multi-switches. They are only accessible from my living room, and thus allowed me to use some of the spare Single output KU LNBFs i had collecting dust.

113w / 116.8w and 121w - Lock and Loaded!

 

[c-spand]

This morning i attached and fine tuned a side-car LNBF for 121w. Had to swap a diseqc 1.0 for a diseqc 1.1 switch. These are feed channel dishes so i don't run them through my multi-switches. They are only accessible from my living room, and thus allowed me to use some of the spare Single output KU LNBFs i had collecting dust.

113w / 116.8w and 121w - Lock and Loaded!

View attachment 154503

Nice work. Where did you grt those brackets for lnb?

 

[cyberham]

It looks like the same brackets I bought from China. They're very useful.

 

[cyberham]

...Here is my blind scan of 113w. Seems to be performing well :

Looks like you're receiving all on 113W. Not so much there to watch. This is a good use of offset LNBs since there really isn't so much to see on 113W or 121W except for some feeds on 113W.

 

[iBoston]

Looks like you're receiving all on 113W. Not so much there to watch. This is a good use of offset LNBs since there really isn't so much to see on 113W or 121W except for some feeds on 113W.

Exactly.. I would never dedicate a satellite to 113 or 121.. And since i had the parts, there was no cost involved and i have found those mounts to be VERY reliable. They have all held firm for 5+ years. To answer C-spand's question, i bought them from AliExpress. They work very well. They set up quick and easy, and hence why i've kept buying them over the years. This was old stock from years back.

These side lobe LNBFs are performing better than my usals 99cm pointed at 113 and 121, so that says a lot. Plus, it makes it so much easier when i can instantly lock so many satellites.

I still have my 99cm i still need to setup.. Hoping to do it tomorrow and it will be pointed at 91w. I will probably throw my Invacom back on it so i can get Galaxy17 & Nimiq6.

 

[cyberham]

Seeing your LNB offset bracket has spurred me to re-install mine on my 1.2m motorized dish which has my C-band LNB. I've installed my Ku LNB so I can receive both C and Ku on the same motorized dish. I did this before but removed the Ku when I had trouble receiving 87W and 103W. Since I now have fixed dishes on those two satellites that doesn't matter anymore if I can't get them on the 1.2m C dish. I got all installed tonight, but it was too dark for tuning. I'll try tomorrow.

 

[iBoston]

That's awesome. I think that is a great alternative, and you can still swap the C for KU if you have to pick up that hard hard to catch signal , but at least your not having to do it every time now.

 

[clucas]

So, here's my two dish eight satellite Ku setup and experiment. The first picture is the working installation.
The white Aimsat has three LNBF's capturing 117W (Maverick), 123W and 125W (both a universal Amiko slim LNBF). The focal point is quite long so I was able to get two degree separation using the slim LNBF's.

Here's a picture of the GeoSat dish while I worked on it on the ground before moving it to the roof and adjusting the LNBF's. Two Mavericks on the left are for 87W and 91W, then my experiment with two used Avenger LNBF's for 97W and 99W and finally another Maverick for 103W.

Here's how I got two degree separation with the old Avengers. I measured the LNBF distance between 103W and 91W and calculated how close they had to be to get 97 and 99. This will vary depending on your dish. I think my final measurement was about 1 1/4 inch from center to center. I got the hacksaw out and started cutting then filing to get them close. You can see the rubber band I used to keep them together while the Krazy Glue set and I had a chance to use the hot glue gun on the plastic body then finally putting the feedhorn cover back on with the glue gun too. As you can see the covers have quite a bit of sun damage and cracked upon removal so I glued them the best I could.

 

[iBoston]

Oh very cool clucas. Awesome job.. I appreciate you sharing this. Amazing what you can accomplish with some thought and time.

 

[c-spand]

I had a problem i was aware of, but wasn't willing to invest the time into the issue until recently. I have a 4 tuner STB, and a couple years back, i attempted to hook in my satellite network into two separate LNB inputs. This way i could watch what ever i wanted, and my Record events could record without interrupting me. In another words, i could watch one thing and record another. Well, when i attempted to utilize this, the secondary tuner kept failing after a few hours.

Well, i decided to dedicate a couple days to upgrading the firmware to a recent one. I changed from a DreamElite firmware to a NewEnigma firmware. I was very happy to see that all 4 of my tuners work perfect now! - I was also able to get everything i customized on my old firmware to cross over to the new firmware. In another words, i didn't loose out on anything.

I have become a fan of "Through the Decades" on Decades. One of my daily records.

I have some current issues i need to resolve.

My 10' Cband dish is accumulating count errors, so i will have to run a new cable or something.. Ugh!
I have a 4' KU dish that blew down in a storm that was at 91w KU, that i need to put back up. I'm thinking moving it to 117w for the BYU Global.

I also have a 99cm KU that i would like to hook up. Any thoughts on where to point that one? Maybe 91w, or 119w (although i hate CNN now)

Over the years, i've learned to dislike moveable dishes. Especially USALS. Hence, why i have so many KU dishes. I prefer to have a fixed antenna. Less problematic, and quick channel changes. I have fixed KU setup at :

• 30w
• 34.5w
• 87w
• 95w
• 97w
• 99w
• 101w
• 103w
• 110w
• 111w
• 125w

I agree so much easier to get channels and scan. And i hate cnn too.

 

[c-spand]

Exactly.. I would never dedicate a satellite to 113 or 121.. And since i had the parts, there was no cost involved and i have found those mounts to be VERY reliable. They have all held firm for 5+ years. To answer C-spand's question, i bought them from AliExpress. They work very well. They set up quick and easy, and hence why i've kept buying them over the years. This was old stock from years back.

These side lobe LNBFs are performing better than my usals 99cm pointed at 113 and 121, so that says a lot. Plus, it makes it so much easier when i can instantly lock so many satellites.

I still have my 99cm i still need to setup.. Hoping to do it tomorrow and it will be pointed at 91w. I will probably throw my Invacom back on it so i can get Galaxy17 & Nimiq6.

Thank you iBoston.

 

[c-spand]

So, here's my two dish eight satellite Ku setup and experiment. The first picture is the working installation.
The white Aimsat has three LNBF's capturing 117W (Maverick), 123W and 125W (both a universal Amiko slim LNBF). The focal point is quite long so I was able to get two degree separation using the slim LNBF's.
View attachment 154517
Here's a picture of the GeoSat dish while I worked on it on the ground before moving it to the roof and adjusting the LNBF's. Two Mavericks on the left are for 87W and 91W, then my experiment with two used Avenger LNBF's for 97W and 99W and finally another Maverick for 103W.
View attachment 154518
Here's how I got two degree separation with the old Avengers. I measured the LNBF distance between 103W and 91W and calculated how close they had to be to get 97 and 99. This will vary depending on your dish. I think my final measurement was about 1 1/4 inch from center to center. I got the hacksaw out and started cutting then filing to get them close. You can see the rubber band I used to keep them together while the Krazy Glue set and I had a chance to use the hot glue gun on the plastic body then finally putting the feedhorn cover back on with the glue gun too. As you can see the covers have quite a bit of sun damage and cracked upon removal so I glued them the best I could.
View attachment 154516
View attachment 154519
View attachment 154520

Great idea to melt the two together. I have extra and may have to try that.

 

[iBoston]

Change of plans... (smile). Being i am in Side-Car LNBF mode, i have a 1.2m that is centered at 87w. I then have a side-car LNBF on that for 95w. I should be able to squeeze one in-between for 91w. Ill have to pull off the 95w one to slide in the 91w, and tune the 91w, and then slide in the 95w and re-tune that. I will give that a shot. Waiting for the temperature to get to 45 degrees before i venture outside.

I wrote down all the TP's on 91w to make sure i can lock them all. If i can pull that off, then that will leave me a spare 99cm dish for who knows what, that i can save until next summer...

Crossing my fingers...

 

[cyberham]

...Being i am in Side-Car LNBF mode, i have a 1.2m that is centered at 87w. I then have a side-car LNBF on that for 95w...

I'm also in side-car LNB mode with my 1.2m. I'm trying to catch Ku with the Ku LNB tight beside my C band scalar. It's sunny and 53F. It's early in my attempt, but I can only get the strongest Ku so far 6 degrees offset as I motor along the arc. About 6 dB lower than the Ku readings I should get. Ku LNB placement is very touchy. Still working at it...

 

[iBoston]

I'm also in side-car LNB mode with my 1.2m. I'm trying to catch Ku with the Ku LNB tight beside my C band scalar. It's sunny and 53F. It's early in my attempt, but I can only get the strongest Ku so far 6 degrees offset as I motor along the arc. About 6 dB lower than the Ku readings I should get. Ku LNB placement is very touchy. Still working at it...

Good luck.. Yea, i had quite the snafu myself that got me hung up re-obtaining the KU signal for 95w. Ugh, can be delicate work.