not to rain on your parade . . .
Long time ago, I dug up the old discussions of the mini-buds, and read all the details, with much enthusiasm.
There were at least two very long threads, and I recommend anyone interested in the subject to sit down and spend a few hours reading what's been done.
My interpretation of the 4-foot dish tests was this:
1). yea, they got a few signals
2). at the end of the day, nobody was shouting about 'em
If 4' is what ya got, and you're itchin' to try it, read no further.
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But, if you're thinking about spending money on a 4-foot dish with a C-band LNB...
The 6 foot dish cost the same to buy, and
less to ship.
It got better signals, up to the point of maybe being considered
workable.
See the exploits of Iceberg and his garage-BUD, one of the 6'ers.
No reviews yet, but Sadoun even carries a
simple H-H motor for it.
As for the purists who claimed you needed 8' and 10' dishes or just give up...
...they weren't totally wrong ...but the big dishes weren't needed in every situation.
Meaning, you could get so much good stuff on 6', it might actually be considered an entry level C-band dish.
At the edge of the envelope, the 8 and 10 foot dishes were pretty much
required.
And for the BUD pay-TV service, I'm getting the feeling, the 8's & 10's were
mandatory.
That's difficult to know, without owning 4DTV equipment...
...getting a clean signal from just one bird is one problem...
... maybe they were in need of the big dishes for other technical reasons.
That's just a guess, based on a lot of reading.
See recent discussions by Iceberg about bit error rate on some satellite transponders.
The dual-band LNBs seem to have come to market pretty inexpensively.
$60 will get you one, most anywhere.
There are two designs, and several models of each (?).
(Or maybe I'm confused with some of the cheap C-band only, with dual output, another very attractive choice)
The dual banders never seemed to show the sensitivity in Ku band that was expected.
Perhaps everyone assumed the bigger dishes would make up the difference.
The actual LNB (without the horn and plumbing) is probably more sensitive than the old timers with their $100+ units, but doesn't have the frequency stability.
Again, todays receivers may not need quite the stability of the 4DTV boxes (just a guess), so it's hard to know the impact of cheap LNBs.
Then, too, consider the weather your outdoor equipment will be subjected to.
If you have 95º summers and -20ºF winters, maybe you need the good stuff (or expect troubles in winter months).
Well, those are my interpretations based on a lot of reading, both here and elsewhere.
It colors my choices of what to buy.
If I were to get into C-band tomorrow, I'd not hesitate to get the
6' dish and a dual-output
C-only LNB/horn, or its little brother with single output.
I would keep my Ku separate, and not worry about trying to make a do-all system.
If I really got the bug and wanted a bigger dish, there is a favorable review of a nice
2.4 meter dish on our forum...
... or I'd go out looking for a used dish.
