New House came with 90cm dish

[compuwizz]

So the house that I just bought has a 90cm dish attached to it. I think its pointing at Dish Network at the moment.

There are a few problems:
1) The dish and back of the LNB are painted to the beige color of the house. So I can't see any markings on the LNB or tell if the dish is actually 90cm. I could only measure it. Will this affect the performance of the dish?

2) Since its painted, I can't see if it is circular or linear polarized.

Ideally, I'd like to attach a motor and be able to go between Galaxy 19, Galaxy 17 for ABC News One, AMC 21 for PBS, and AMC 1 for Cozi and the NBC feeds. For the time being I'll probably pick Galaxy 19 and stay on it for a bit while I learn. I'm in Las Vegas, so are there any non North American satellites I should look at?

Assuming I should just replace the LNB, which kind should I get to replace it?

I haven't decided on a receiver yet. I'm leaning towards the geosat micro hd or the Amiko mini HD SE. However I'm not sure which one performs better for blind scans. The Android powered Amiko A3 would be nice if it was shipping. Should I consider any others?

Finally after 8 years of wanting an FTA setup, I get one! We are in an HOA, otherwise I'd get a C-Band dish to have some real fun.

 

[StarScan]

Can you post some pictures of it?

 

[Christopher Cromwell]

Hey Compuwizz! Welcome to the forum! I am relatively new here myself but thought I would try to offer a little bit of help. Congrats on your new house by the way, not many people can lay claim to that achievement these days! Another big score for you that you got a large dish already attached to the house! :-D Any chance you could post pics of the dish you are looking to use for FTA on your house? If you are thinking you are dealing with a Dish Network Eliptical shaped antenna, this won't work for most FTA satellites you want to look at, you may get a few channels on a few satellites, but that's about it. The Eliptical shaped dishes aren't designed for FTA Ku signals only Dish Network or Directv signals. If you know for certain that the dish is a large perfectly round shaped antenna, definitely measure it with a soft tape measure from top around down to the bottom. A 90cm dish is going to measure 3 feet in diameter. When this actually works out to be the case, you have scored a reflector that can work with FTA satellite signals! All that you have to do then, like you mentioned, is to take the dish off of the pole mount, bolt up a Horizon To Horizon Motor from the Satellite Shop for example; about $90. Then bolt up the dish to the motor, bolt the whole thing back up to the mount, replace the original LNB with either a standard or universal Invacom Ku LNB and Manhattan FTA receiver from Skyvision for examples, run all new RG6 cable, line up the dish to your closest true south satellite for the best signals, lock it all down and your on your way! You can do it all in a weekend since a lot of the hard work was already done for you with the satellite mount already in place. You can pretty much get everything that carries Ku Band signals in the Clarke Belt, and since you live in Vegas, you should be able to get several satellite signals that broadcast out over Asia. I live in Kentucky, so I can't get anything that far west where you are. I hope this helps, if you end up having an Eliptical shaped dish, you will have to exchange it for the correctly shaped one. Like you, I want to go C-Band for some real channel surfing, but my wife has said no to that idea, so it's not in the cards for me sadly. The replacement LNB should already come with a bracket to fit on the existing arm of that satellite dish, or you can easily buy a replacement LNB adapter if needed. Like I said, I hope this helps you and I truly hope that you will be scanning the skies really soon for all the free channels in this new hobby. :-D

 

[FaT Air]

Pictures are worth thousands! The more, the better. But include the dish face measurements, both vertical and horizontal, across the dish face. (don't 'conform' the measurement to the 'dish', just straight across)

 

[compuwizz]

Thanks guys!

So I took pictures today of the LNB and the Dish.

From the looks of it, without moving the mount, I can get between AMC 6 and AMC 15. However I want to go through the HOA docs and see if I can't move the dish to the roof to get more of the belt.

The measurements are a little smaller than I thought, 33 in vertical and ~30 horizonal (probably a little bigger horizontal) which works out to 83 cm x 76 cm.

 

[Jim S.]

That's no Dish Network LNB I've ever seen. It looks like a normal dual-output Ku-band LNB. Chances are it's pointing at 97W. Since you're in a big city, maybe you could find a dirt-cheap used receiver in a pawn shop or something and check.

A 76cm dish will get most but not all channels on most but not all satellites. (Unless you're in a really strong part of the signal footprint, the NBC transponders on 103W will require super-accurate aiming. I can't speak to the PBS channels on 125, because not only did I never try them when I had a 76cm dish instead of 90cm, but they were DVB-S rather than DVB-S2 back then anyway.)

One other word of caution: my old 76cm dish was NOT compatible with a motor -- the design of the bracket just wouldn't allow it to fit on one! I don't know what model of dish you have there, but like my old one, it has a rectangular LNB arm rather than a square one. The only way to know for sure would be to get up there and look at the bracket from the top.

 

[. Raine]

The paint shouldn't cause you any problem and the dish is big enough for FTA, I have two dishes setup here that size and they work pretty well.

The LNB could be anything, probably when you get a receiver just hook it up and try it, see if it works. Or you could buy another, they can be bought as cheap as $5, you can get a decent one for around $20.

I have a MicroHD receiver and it's been really good for me, I don't have a Amiko mini HD SE, so I don't know about that one.

An afterthought: I bet you could probably scrape the paint off the label on the LNB with your fingernail or something, house paint on stuff like that doesn't usually stick very well and comes off pretty easy.

 

[DJdish]

I also think that could be a dual Ku LNB, maybe still in working condition, chances are you may already have part of your new FTA setup there.

 

[compuwizz]

Just an update. It is a dual LNB Ku band dish aimed at Galaxy 19. I had fun tracking down the 5 white coax cables that came out of the wall to the two running to the dish. But now I've caught the bug and want to add a motor.

If I wanted to pick up Al Jazeera America/English thats on G19, who would I contact to try and get that programming since it is encrypted?

 

[FaT Air]

Bubble burst - there's no way to subscribe to it, individually, signal is only for commercial 'outlets' (cable providers).

 

[xtgold]

if it's even still there

 

[compuwizz]

So an update: After getting bored with 97 W, I ordered a STAB HH90 motor and I'm installing it. However I have a craving for a new LNB and a better STB. Particularly I'd like a STB that does 4:2:2 (it can dump it to Ethernet for play via computer) and offers streaming out via Ethernet similar to an HD Homerun. I think the Amiko mini HD supports all this, but is there a better receiver I'm overlooking? The Android ones are nice, but I'd like to stay $150 or less.

As far as an LNB, I think I'd like to get one that does both Linear and Circular. Is there a Universal LNB that is both Linear and Circular? However if Circular bumps the price up too much, I'll stay with Linear.

 

[Christopher Cromwell]

@compuwizz, Don't make the mistake I made earlier this summer. I bought a Invacom combo LNB that does both Ku/C band. It's a very nice high end strong LNB, but the bad part was the C-Band part was only for Directv or Dish Network receivers. I ended up switching over to a Invacom Universal Ku LNB which still draws in the signals and channels really well; I think you will be very happy with that upgrade. I researched the other Ku/C Band combo LNB'S designed better for FTA, but they didn't seem to perform very well at all; and they are now hard to find as companies stopped making them. You would need a much bigger dish anyway if you did find a Combo LNB that did both Ku & C-Band for FTA. I eventually gave up on using C-Band on my 85CM motorized dish, and bought a 1.2M dish to use for C-Band. That arrangement works alot better for me with a multi port switch. I am experimenting with 2 C-Band LNB'S on one 1.2M dish, not sure yet how it will turn out. Anyway, I am using the Manhattan RS-1933 receiver, I bought it for $140 at the time. It doesn't do apps or internet, but it can record TV programs and brings in all 750+ channels from all the satellites I can get. I'm pretty sure you will be happy with the motor, and a standard or Universal Invacom Ku LNB. The Universal LNB'S cover more frequencies, but really meant to be used in Europe. Once you get the receiver you want, you can manually enter in TP information to get even more channels after you blind scan.

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[FaT Air]

Universal Ku LNBF is only needed it you can see some Ku satellites over the Atlantic. If they have some 10700 to 11700 aimed this way. Check www.satbeams.com and mikes list @ http://www.global-cm.net/mpeg2central.html
All domestic (US) satellites use only 11700 to 12200 so a Standard LNBF is all you need for them.
Linear and Circular in one LNBF is the Invacom QPH-031*
*Covers DSS band -12200 to 12700 - with circular polarity and the FSS band of 11700 to 12200 (FTA).
ALthough there's none to LITTLE, ever, that's ITC on the DSS satellites. And if there is, it only lasts a few hours or a day or two usually.
All newer 'boxes' will record the 4.2.2 to the USB HDD. But you'll have to move it to your computer to play them. (VLC works well)

 

[Jim S.]

So an update: After getting bored with 97 W, I ordered a STAB HH90 motor and I'm installing it. However I have a craving for a new LNB and a better STB. Particularly I'd like a STB that does 4:2:2 (it can dump it to Ethernet for play via computer) and offers streaming out via Ethernet similar to an HD Homerun. I think the Amiko mini HD supports all this, but is there a better receiver I'm overlooking? The Android ones are nice, but I'd like to stay $150 or less

I don't know what the Amiko Alien goes for these days (if you can find one), but other than that, the only other relatively low-priced receiver I can think of that will stream a live channel is the new X2 Premium III, which seems to be quite similar to the Amiko Mini HD SE except with built-in wifi.

Please take note: The Mini HD SE and X2 Premium III will ONLY stream to an Android app, NOT a web browser or other program. The Amiko Alien series will stream to a browser, and after having initiated the stream in a browser, you can open the stream in VLC or another video player.