newbie question about LNB compatability

[xtantaudio]

Hello everyone,

I am a current dish network subscriber, but I also want to expand into the FTA channels. My question is can I purchase a 36" or larger dish, a motor and attach my dish network LNB's and other LNB's to my new dish, hook up the LNB's from dish network to the dish network receiver and the other LNB's to my FTA Receiver?

I do understand that when I move the dish with the motor durring a blind scan, I will loose the signal from the dish network satellites, but I only have one dish network box hooked up to the same tv as my FTA receiver is.... so thats not a problem.

The LNB issue is my only issue left in figuring out what dish setup to purchase. What are the best LNB's and how may of them do I need to get in order to receive the most FTA channels? I would like to have access to as may satellites/FTA channels as possible.

I am sure that my location determines the satellites that I may be able to receive so I have included that information below.
I live in Indiana

Longitude - 89.30 W
latitude - 38.85 N

Thank you,

xtantaudio

 

[Das Hammer]

Hey, fellow Hoosier! Yes, you can do this and the easiest way is to do it with an Invacom QPH-031 from one of the sponsors. This LNBf has both circular and linear polarization on the same unit with seperate cable outputs for each type. Two outputs for linear and two for circular. I like this solution because you don't have to mess with multiple LNBf units, offsets, etc. Hook up one cable from your dish box to one of the circular ports and hook up another cable from your fta box to the motor and then to the linear port. Simple as that.

Other way which may be a little cheaper is to use a multiLNB holder. This should allow you to use your existing circular LNBfs for your Dish subscription and pick up a cheap linear LNB for FTA use.

Here's the link to Sadoun's page: QPH-031

I use one of these for my 1.2 meter dish and it works great. Hard to beat the Invacom.

 

[lumpkin666]

Any particular reason why you would want to upset an already functioning dishnetwork installation? If this is simply for the purpose of reusing the existing mount for a larger dish, please verify everything before proceeding, as the larger dish will require a more stable mount. In order to gain Line of Sight for the FTA dish w/motor, you may need to look at a different mounting area as well.

Personally, I cannot think of a scenario that would cause me to want to mess up a working subscription setup just to add FTA capabilities. It seems like too much of a hassle to me.

 

[Mr Tony]

agreed...also what happens if you want to record your favourite show from Dish and want to blind scan at the same time?

 

[xtantaudio]

thank you everyone for the quick responses. I have been all over the sadoun page so much that I was getting confused, they have so much stuff....

I guess the biggest reason is that I wanted to try and keep my satellite dish clutter to a minimum, and still be able to add the FTA functionality and better signal quality of a larger dish... i get rain fade something horrible right now, and I figured that a larger dish would add to the signal quality.

I have already installed a taller mounting pole in my yard, using one of the levels from the sadoun website and moved my dish network dish from the roof to that pole, I did that about 3 months ago, no problems...

 

[Larry1]

If your rain fade is severe, your dish may be poorly aligned and need to be peaked. A larger dish, even just one size up will help with some of the drop outs, but if the rain is hard, even a very large dish will still have rain fade.
Some of the Dish receivers do not like to be pointed away from their satellites and may require you to run a switch test when you are back on the proper satellite. You are best to keep the Dish receiver on a fixed dish for its signals and the FTA separate. Also a lot of the Dish Network setups are now multi-lnb's so it even more complexity to contend with.

 

[mastermesh]

best bet would be to set up fta in addition to the dish setup you currently got and use a switch to combine signals and stuff... That way you can have the best of both worlds. Do go ahead and get the invacom lnb though since you may just find that you like fta enough that you will eventually drop the subscription..... and subsequently want to remove the extra pizza pan clutter. One thing that is interesting about this hobby - it makes you more aware of dishes in the area... I constantly find myself looking around on roofs and at dishes on the sides of houses as I drive past anywhere nowadays, thinking to myself, man that dish is sitting on 119 degrees, etc. In the ancient days, mankind used the stars to navigate. Nowadays we have enough smog and artificial light to make that a problem, so we can just use dishes to figure out which way is south.

 

[xtantaudio]

Hey, fellow Hoosier! Yes, you can do this and the easiest way is to do it with an Invacom QPH-031 from one of the sponsors. This LNBf has both circular and linear polarization on the same unit with seperate cable outputs for each type. Two outputs for linear and two for circular. I like this solution because you don't have to mess with multiple LNBf units, offsets, etc. Hook up one cable from your dish box to one of the circular ports and hook up another cable from your fta box to the motor and then to the linear port. Simple as that.

Other way which may be a little cheaper is to use a multiLNB holder. This should allow you to use your existing circular LNBfs for your Dish subscription and pick up a cheap linear LNB for FTA use.

Here's the link to Sadoun's page: QPH-031

I use one of these for my 1.2 meter dish and it works great. Hard to beat the Invacom.

so am I to understand that the dish network satellites that I am using are at 110 and 119 and operate on a circular frequency? and that the FTA channels operate on a linear frequency?

so the Invacom LNB that you are describing would receive both the linear signals for FTA and the circular frequencies from 110 and 119, I would use the motor on the linear port, and the dish network box to the circular port.... I see now, that would work....

Does the Invacom LNB have the ability to reveice the HD channels that I am currently subscribed to on dish network? I guess the more reasonable question is.... does the LNB determine whether the Dish network receiver will display the HDTV channels to my tv?

If the Invacom LNB will not accomidate my current Dish network HDTV channels, Das Hammer, you mentioned that I could get a multiple LNB holder for the dish I am wanting to use.... I have looked on Sadoun website but have not found any "multiple lnb holers... I assume that the LNB holders can be ganged together and then mounted on the LNB Holder?

by the way Das hammer, where are u located in Indiana ? I am in Ft. Wayne