new style c and ku lnb

[surfdevil83]

Ive been scanning the skys with my six foot solid bud with a c band only gospel lnb with disappointing results. The bud is on the clarke belt with good signal but I only seem to find religious channels or something other then english. The system I'm using to scan is a viewsat 9000hd with a vbox2 to move the bud. My question is with all the new technology what would be the best lnb to retrofit to my bud for c and ku sides. I'm hoping that the bud's size isn't the problem.

Thanks

 

[truckracer]

I honestly think a chaparall corotor with c and ku lnbs would be best. You need an analog receiver to control the skew. A pansat 2500A fta receiver has the servo output on it.

free to air does consist of a lot of religious channels and foreign language stuff. Various feeds too.
You will not find any free "cable" type channels with FTA. Don't confuse true Free to air with what other people do to get free channels illegally. That is signal theft NOT free to air.

It is a fun hobby.

 

[Anole]

Well, I'm no expert on the subject, but I read a lot here, and you find the folowing:
- many BUD lovers recommend 8 and 10 foot dishes for C-band
- some guys have 6' dishes, and seem to do quite well, but miss some high-FEC signals
- there are even a few crazies who run C-band on 4 foot dishes, so the 6'ers can't be all that wild.

- if you'll sift through the threads in the C-band/BUD section, you'll see where Linuxman has been experimenting with the GeoSatPro CK-1 dual-band LNB, and getting good results.
- there is a competing unit from DMSI called a BSC-621, which may have been around longer; some have good results, so do not.

- if you are looking for a list of satellites and channels, we might direct you to the following:
* Ku & C band: TheList
* Ku & C band: Global-CM
* Ku quickie: FTAlist

Hope that gets you started in a few of the right directions.
And of course, hanging around the forum and reading threads of success stories may inspire you, as well.

Welcome to the forum. - :up

 

[voomvoom]

I honestly think a chaparall corotor with c and ku lnbs would be best.

If you want the best, I'll have to agree with truckracer, just remember the lowest "Stability Rating" on these lnb's are the best, and they are not cheap.
If you want the least expensive, yet adequately reliable, get the GeoSatPro CK1 or BSC621, and read the link posted in Anole's post above about the performance achieved by linuxman.
Good Luck!

 

[truckracer]

In my opinion a 6 foot dish is technically too small. They do work on some signals however.
A six foot dish cannot focus on one c-band satellite (two degree space in the sky).
It will see another degree or so from the neighboring satellites. This becomes a problem when the adjacent satellite is using the same frequency as the transponder you are trying to receive.

the 6 footer may have enough gain to get the signal but the sidelobe reception is too great.
The smaller dish sees to much of the satellites next door or undesireable signals.
This is critical on Digital reception. On analog - not so much.

two degree compliancy does not start usually until 8' of dish. Not all 8' dishes are 2 degree compliant. Most of the ones manufactured in the past several years are.

My 7.5' dish has a beamwidth (viewing angle) of 2.1 degrees. As you can see it has 0.1 too much reception of adjacent satellites. That does not sound like much but, If I am on a satellite doing a blind scan, sometimes it will scan in a transponder from the neighboring satellite with a low percentage of signal.

I also have a 10' dish. The 10' has a 1.7 degree beamwidth. It never does the above.
In fact the 10 footer is touchy if the positioner gets out of sync you will go from 100% signal to 0% signal with just a couple of clicks of the East / West buttons.

Ku band is three times more critical. Your 6 foot dish will make an excellent KU band dish since it's beamwidth at KU frequencies is much tighter. It will make it harder to aim on KU (if you are used to aiming small 30" dishes).

Iceberg (moderator here), gets good reception with his 6 footer. He has mastered the characteristics of that size reflector and does some amazing things with it.

I had a BSC-621 on my 10' when I first bought it new a few weeks ago. It just didn't work well on my 10' dish. I swapped out the unit for a Chaparall Corotor II with cheap lnbs that came with the "pack" (which I plan to replace with higher quality units). It performs much much better than the BSC-621.

Some members have got their C/ku lnbf to peform as well as a corotor. I was not so lucky.
I spend many hours experimenting and tuning to no success. I could get C-band to come in good but never got KU band to my satisfaction or anything like the corotor gets.

Good luck
Trucker.

 

[surfdevil83]

Thanks for your replys I'm going to do some research on the lnbs you have mentioned. The 6 foot dish does work awesome on ku with my invacom qph031 for sats like g10 etc, but like a little kid I always want more. I'm thinking that the blind scan might have some issues with these sats, so I'm going to hook up my old pansat 2500 and retest.

 

[gabshere]

the QPH is an offset lnbf and will probably work on a prime focus dish just not to its full potenial. I'm sure the QPF with the A-120 scaler would preform better on a prime focus dish
and there are other ku only lnbf's for a prime focus dish several of our sponsers sell them.

from there price wise you could get one of the combo all in one units BSC-621 or CK-1 as cheap but some find them harder to tune.

i have it setup both ways and on my 7 1/2 ft mesh dish the c-band signals are great and the ku signals are average. so i have a seperate ku motorized dish and it works great.... the best of both worlds.

I don't know about a c/ku corotor on a 6 ft dish.... maybe someone here has one and will chime in.

 

[Anole]

According to all the specs, you certainly should be using a QPF-031 with the matching ADF-120 horn, as Gabsphere commented, above.
However, with a 6' dish, if it's reasonably accurate, that's probably overkill, unless you are far outside the satellite footprint.
And by overkill, I mean both price and technical capability.
Here is a more modestly priced solution for Ku-only, that looks good.
Haven't seen any members report on it, but since it's supposed to match your dish better than a QPH-031 would, it may well outperform it.
... and for 1/5th the price of the QPF and 120 horn.

Wonder if you have considered mounting a C-band and a Ku-band LNB side by side on the dish?
Lots of users do that, instead of trying to use one dual-band LNB .
Just another way to go.

We'd like to see some pictures of your dish and know what type it is.
Motorized 6'ers are not too common.
If you're using a Gospel brand C-band LNB, I'll assume you're in Canada, but if you'll give your location, maybe that'll give us some idea of satellite footprints for your neighborhood.

 

[truckracer]

One user on here somewhere I read reported getting the best results using a C-band lnbf in the middle and a ku on the side. He said he got much better signals than using the combo c/ku lnbf units. I guess KU was tuned to a strong sidelobe and C-band just came in since the dish could see so much sky.

 

[boomer_106]

Thanks for your replys I'm going to do some research on the lnbs you have mentioned. The 6 foot dish does work awesome on ku with my invacom qph031 for sats like g10 etc, but like a little kid I always want more. I'm thinking that the blind scan might have some issues with these sats, so I'm going to hook up my old pansat 2500 and retest.

The blind scan on a viewsat 9000 is awful. My guess is you are missing alot of the feeds you are looking for. You've got a good idea hooking up the old pansat. The Pansat 9200 HD has a much better blind scan.

 

[surfdevil83]

I hooked up the old pansat 2500 and the results are much better. I also tried a different lnb for c band. I have a some pics of the 6' dish that i'm working with before the c band lnb and after. Thanks for your help.

 

[gabshere]

a different view of that scaler would be nice is it a dual feedhorn type scaler ?
nice work

 

[rv1pop]

Which wind generator is that? And is that on the house or an out building, and what is the noise level? How much wind do you get? ie. how much power can you get?

 

[updatelee]

Which wind generator is that? And is that on the house or an out building, and what is the noise level? How much wind do you get? ie. how much power can you get?

I was just thinking the same thing

 

[gpat]

when cruising thru some Chaparral stuff on net I ran across a dual scalar mount they make
for C and Ku band. I cant find it on their website but know they make it.
It had the blue caps in a sort of figure 8 with the larger center throat being the C band.

 

[surfdevil83]

The wind turbine is a air x 400 watt. This picture is fairly old since I now have solars as well powering my garage. My fta setup for the big dish is completely powered by wind and solar. The only problem with the air x is when the wind is above 20k it becomes fairly noisy for residential. No complants yet so testing will continue.

 

[rv1pop]

Great. Sorry for off topic, but, I use solar (plus gas generator) to power my FTA and need to add wind!

 

[truckracer]

Awesome alternative energy for FTA......Total independence.