Surprising performance from cheap lnbf

[lumpkin666]

I bought a handful of cheap single .4db lnbf's for a little project this week. I thought I'd put them up against my invacom .4db since I hear how awesome quality the invacoms are and how the db's aren't always up to spec of these cheapies.

I was surprised to find a pretty good gain with the new lnbf as compared to my 5-6 month old (barely used) invacom quad. I even strapped the invacom on with a ziptie in order to make sure the weight of the heavy invacom lnb wasn't affecting performance. Yet, I managed to go from a decent 79-80 to a solid 87 on my old pansat 2500a. I didn't even get peak readings without the weight of the invacom on there, but I suspect it might even do better without! I ought to compare them to some other lnbf's but I'd always found the invacom to be a high performer, so there's really no need to do so, in my mind anyhow.

I'm pretty happy having spent approx $7.50 each for a small group of BSC321S lnbf's. Now I'm just hoping they hold up over time! Now it has me wondering, however, if I would have gotten even better performance if I'd spent the extra $1.50 apiece for the cheapie .3dbs that I was pondering over :/

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Two years ago we had a party in Denver, and Sadoun gave away some LNB's which I considered them to be cheap LNBs... until I hooked it up and was shocked at how well it performed. I was actually very surprised!

That was a great giveaway from Sadoun!

 

[Anole]

not too surprised

Some of the cheapies are worth trying, especially if you are going to use a large number.
Last year, I got a handfull of Sky Mexico (new, surplus?) LNBs for somewhere around $6..7 (see my sig).
I thought they were okay, so I sent one to Linuxman for evaluation.
They proved adequate enough that he got a six-pack, I believe.

SatelliteAV sells the little GeoSat Universal Mini for $10 on his site.
It's no slouch, and great when you need to get two LNBs really close together for nearby birds.
For those of you wanting Standard, PM me.

In the review section, there's a cheapie for around $15..16 shipped. (Megasat? Coolsat?)
It looks like a DirecTV LNB, and has a rectangular base.
So, for some silly experiments, using junker DTV dishes, it fits right on.
But even if you mount it by the neck, it's got two outputs, and sometimes that's worth a -lot- !
Don't recall if they were Standard or Universal, but -not- circular!

Several members are using recycled Dish Network FSS bandstacked LNBs.
JerryT in Florida, for one (search his posts for pictures and discussion), and maybe Tron.
They can often be picked up for little or nothing.

 

[DocRobster]

I would like to chime in real quick...

I'm testing a standard lnb from Robby from WSI which is VERY reasonably priced and this unit is rock stable. I am running it through its paces and I will have my first review here in a couple of weeks to update everyone.

With the days of heat then rain and sometime tropical storms here in the Houston area I am testing this unit.

I believe this unit is around 10 bucks.

 

[iafirebuff]

I like the Sadoun .4 standard - KUL1's. I had been using Fortec lnbs and when I switched to the Sadoun's I saw an improvement

 

[RVD420]

I like the Sadoun KUL1's also.

Good working cheap LNB.

 

[Mr Tony]

I've got the dual version of Sadouns on all the dishes.
Mototrized
2 on Primestar for 74/79
1 on other Primestar for G10