Ok, had a day off, so I took some time this morning and did some signal quality tests using both my pansat 2700a and my satworks 3618. I did one test also comparing the diff. receivers on both a 76cm winegard (fixed position) and my 10' pierced aluminum BUD, and a couple of tests using just the BUD.
Each of these tests are done with the receiver connected directly to the LNB.
Here are the results:
The Tube (g10 KU) on 76cm, .5 LNB
pansat 2700a...... ~30% SQ some dropouts
satworks 3618........36% SQ solid picture
The Tube (g10 KU) on 10' BUD .7 LNB
pansat 2700a...... ~65% SQ
satworks 3618........48% SQ
Newsworld (Anik F1 C band) on 10' BUD 20 degree LNB
pansat 2700a.........90% SQ (almost no fluctuation on meter)
satworks 3618........90% SQ (solid meter)
Montana PBS (AMC 3 KU) on 10' BUD, .7 LNB
pansat 2700a...... ~60% SQ
satworks 3618........41% SQ
What suprised me where the results on The Tube with 76cm Winegard. While the satworks held a steady picture at 36%, the pansat only had ~30% SQ, sometimes dropping as low as 15% SQ, and had a lot of dropouts. It seems as if the Satworks is a tad bit better dealing with weaker signal strength.
Another pleasant surprise is how well my BUD is picking up KU signals. I was told when I first picked it up not to expect great KU perfomance with a mesh C band dish for a couple of reasons, 1) mesh dishs didnt pick up KU well, 2) i would get a lot of terrestrial interference because the KU LNB could see through the mesh and would pick up TI from the ground behind the dish. I was told by a couple of people i would probably be disappointed with my ku band performance.
Luckily for me i am definately getting better KU SQ with my BUD than i do off of the 76 cm winegard. I would be interested to see what people with the same recievers can report back with SQ readings using the larger (100-304 cm) solid dishes on the same TP/sats.
