The pole is now installed

[PopcornNMore]

Pete,

Could I attach a dual coax grounding block right onto the 2 3/8" pole and run a copper grounding wire from it to a grounding rod near the house?

I believe this would ground both the pole and the coax at the same time?

 

[PSB]

You could but it would not be to local and NEC code! If you sink a ground rod it MUST be bonded to the homes service grounding point.....

 

[CharredPC]

Mmmm... not quite

" using the Channel Master 1.2m for C-Band since a lot of feeds and programming are going digital on C-Band."

The 1.2 meter channel master dish is a very nice dish for Ku band. I'd like to have one myself, but probably not for C band. For C band you need at least an 8.5' dish. The reason for this is the beamwidth (or how narrowly the dish can focus on the satellite it's pointed at) is a function of dish size in relation to wavelength (F/D ratio is a factor also). On Ku band the wavelength of the signal is must shorter. Therefore small dishes can focus tightly enough on a single satellite to get a good quality singal. On C band it's a differnt story as C band wavelengths are alot longer. Therefore the reason you need an 8.5' or larger dish is so that the dish will focus tightly enough on the single satellite your aiming at and not recieve signals from adjacent satellites that will interfere with the signals your trying to recieve. So, while the 1.2M channel master should make a great dish for Ku, you can likely forget about being able to get much C band on it.

Not to be disagreeable, but... I must disagree

I'm sure your data's quite real, and has been proven countless times. I agree with needing a larger dish for better signal rejection and tighter beams. But I must respectfully shoot holes in your idea that "you need an 8.5' or larger dish" and "you can likely forget about being able to get much C band on it." Let's look at Cascade's results just this past week, shall we?

He has a "window" of view from about T5 to T7. Using a C-band LNB and 120cm dish, he successfully locked into and watched programming on every single C-band bird in view. Lowest signal was 40%, but even then it had 100% Quality. Understandably, the C-band satellites had a larger 'spread;' concievably a same-frequency carrier too close to another would be hopelessly mixed and render both useless on a 120cm dish. The same signals would be further apart and therefore accessable individually on a classic BUD. But again... getting usable signals from every single C-band bird in view is hardly what I'd call having to "likely forget about being able to get much C band on it." Cascade's MircoBUD setup is probably what inspired PopcornNMore. It's inspired alot of us to recreate his rig and possibly double the amount of available channels, gain access to analogue feeds, and explore a whole new side of FTA previously thought only achievable with something the size of a large truck parked in your yard

An very apt comparison Cascade made was using a 76cm dish for Ku. While it does the job ok, it's the absolute bare minimum for Ku here in the States, and you should go bigger when possible. However, becuase of its convenient size and availability most of us start out our FTA-ing with 30" dishes. It appears that the same follows true to C-Band on a 1.2m dish; by all means, get bigger if you can. But a 120cm dish can be mounted on an SG2100; it doesn't cost a fortune like a BUD to set up; and doesn't need the yardspace or the permission of a few dozen neighbors and tenant's commitee If 76cm is the Geo Metro of Ku, and 120cm the Luxury Sedan, then the 120cm would be C-band's Geo Metro. A 'true' 6' or better BUD would be the C-band Caddy. I don't know about everyone else, but I'll happily settle for a Geo, if it pretty much gets me where I got to go- where I couldn't get to at all before!

Anyhow, with the impressive gain stats off the Fortec 120cm, newer high-quality lnb's, and the air saturated with strong carriers... the attatched 1.2 meter C-band results are very possible. Don't discount the little guy

 

[CbandLover]

Not to be disagreeable, but... I must disagree

I'm sure your data's quite real, and has been proven countless times. I agree with needing a larger dish for better signal rejection and tighter beams. But I must respectfully shoot holes in your idea that "you need an 8.5' or larger dish" and "you can likely forget about being able to get much C band on it." Let's look at Cascade's results just this past week, shall we?

He has a "window" of view from about T5 to T7. Using a C-band LNB and 120cm dish, he successfully locked into and watched programming on every single C-band bird in view. Lowest signal was 40%, but even then it had 100% Quality. Understandably, the C-band satellites had a larger 'spread;' concievably a same-frequency carrier too close to another would be hopelessly mixed and render both useless on a 120cm dish. The same signals would be further apart and therefore accessable individually on a classic BUD. But again... getting usable signals from every single C-band bird in view is hardly what I'd call having to "likely forget about being able to get much C band on it." Cascade's MircoBUD setup is probably what inspired PopcornNMore. It's inspired alot of us to recreate his rig and possibly double the amount of available channels, gain access to analogue feeds, and explore a whole new side of FTA previously thought only achievable with something the size of a large truck parked in your yard

An very apt comparison Cascade made was using a 76cm dish for Ku. While it does the job ok, it's the absolute bare minimum for Ku here in the States, and you should go bigger when possible. However, becuase of its convenient size and availability most of us start out our FTA-ing with 30" dishes. It appears that the same follows true to C-Band on a 1.2m dish; by all means, get bigger if you can. But a 120cm dish can be mounted on an SG2100; it doesn't cost a fortune like a BUD to set up; and doesn't need the yardspace or the permission of a few dozen neighbors and tenant's commitee If 76cm is the Geo Metro of Ku, and 120cm the Luxury Sedan, then the 120cm would be C-band's Geo Metro. A 'true' 6' or better BUD would be the C-band Caddy. I don't know about everyone else, but I'll happily settle for a Geo, if it pretty much gets me where I got to go- where I couldn't get to at all before!

Anyhow, with the impressive gain stats off the Fortec 120cm, newer high-quality lnb's, and the air saturated with strong carriers... the attatched 1.2 meter C-band results are very possible. Don't discount the little guy

Amen.

 

[Shawn95GT]

You could but it would not be to local and NEC code! If you sink a ground rod it MUST be bonded to the homes service grounding point.....

That is a great link you posted earlier.

It seems to me that we are making grounding WAY too complicated. Simply get the coax with the ground included and ground it at the Demark box. On my house there is a 10-12ga bare copper wire in the box that everything is grounded to.

If I decide not to trust that, the waterpipe ground that the builder used to ground the house electrical is less than 3 feet from the Demark box.

Now if I was running cable into the house directly instead of using the distribution box, I'd be in a bind.

I think I'm going to go ahead and run dual coax incase I decide to setup another dish for C-band.

 

[PopcornNMore]

I second Amen!

 

[Stefan]

"Anyhow, with the impressive gain stats off the Fortec 120cm, newer high-quality lnb's, and the air saturated with strong carriers... the attatched 1.2 meter C-band results are very possible. Don't discount the little guy"

Well, I certainly wish you guys luck and hope you have good results with your 1.2M dishes on C band, but I must say that I think all this talk of c band on a 1.2M dish may be setting up alot of folks for dissapointment. The reason I stated what I did earlier is not just to be negative and discourage people nor was it to "discount the little guy'. It was to give people realistic expectations. Sure it may be possible to pickup a few C band signals on such a small dish provided that certain conditions are met. Those conditions are that the satellites your aiming at are at or near the top of your arc and not at the extreme ends of your arc and that either the satellites that have C band signals on them are spaced far apart at that portion of the arc or that the adjacent satellites are not transmitting on the same polarity and frequency. If all of those conditions are not met then you will have problems with interference from adjacent satellites and no ultra low noise LNB or high gain dish will solve that problem. In fact one of the primary reasons I made the statements I did earlier is because there seems to be so much talk like this about how high gain dishes and low noise LNBs can magically cure this problem. Statements like this show the complete lack of understanding people often seem to have regarding this subject. If they did understand they'd know that high gain, low noise LNBs, and strong carriers, have absolutely nothing to do with the problems of getting good reliable C band reception on a small dish. Instead it's all about beamwidth and the dish not being able to focus tightly enough on a single satellite. If you have satellites 2 degrees apart and both of them are transmitting a strong carrier at the same frequency and polarity a small dish like this is not going to be able to recieve those signals at good quality regardless of it's gain or how low the noise figure of it's LNB because it's beamwidth on C band will be too wide and it will be recieveing both signals at the same time and 2 or more different signals of good strength don't give you a good quality signal. Instead they give you gibberish that your reciever can't possibly reconstruct a good signal from.

As for BUDs being way more expensive, I'm not so sure about that. In most parts of the country you can find someone willing to give you an old one for free provided you remove it from their yard. With a little luck, creativity, and hard work you might be able to get a BUD up in your yard for not much more than you'd spend on this 1.2M fortec dish when you factor in the shipping cost. I understand that everyone can't have a BUD and for those who absolutely can't have one for whatever reason, they might want to give something like this a try but I certainly wouldn't encourage them to spend a great deal on such a setup and I would remind them that they might not get the results they expect.

 

[CharredPC]

"Anyhow, with the impressive gain stats off the Fortec 120cm, newer high-quality lnb's, and the air saturated with strong carriers... the attatched 1.2 meter C-band results are very possible. Don't discount the little guy"

Well, I certainly wish you guys luck and hope you have good results with your 1.2M dishes on C band, but I must say that I think all this talk of c band on a 1.2M dish may be setting up alot of folks for dissapointment. The reason I stated what I did earlier is not just to be negative and discourage people nor was it to "discount the little guy'. It was to give people realistic expectations.

We expect nothing. We hope. Isn't this the nature of FTA, really? A Let's See What We Can Do attitude, getting excited when we hit a bird like PAS9, and feeling proud if you can make $200 worth of equipment get The Tube at decent quality on your TV? No one's tossing out their 12' BUD, thinking they no longer need it. I doubt anyone's been planning a 10' wire mesh install, and cancelled it so they could buy a Fortec 120cm. If I set up a 27Mhz CB here with a homemade coaxial dipole antenna, and manage to talk to SLC (some 40 minute's drive away)... enthusiasts might get the urge to recreate those nifty results. It doesn't mean they'll demand their money back for the radio and coax when it doesn't happen.

Sure it may be possible to pickup a few C band signals on such a small dish provided that certain conditions are met. Those conditions are that the satellites your aiming at are at or near the top of your arc and not at the extreme ends of your arc and that either the satellites that have C band signals on them are spaced far apart at that portion of the arc or that the adjacent satellites are not transmitting on the same polarity and frequency. If all of those conditions are not met then you will have problems with interference from adjacent satellites and no ultra low noise LNB or high gain dish will solve that problem.

A FEW C-band signals? I'm sorry, but you're not listening Cascade locked into and found viable signal off of every single C-Band transmitting bird within the 32 degree visibility window open to him. I'm not refuting the laws of physics or saying 2+2=5 without a leg to stand on, this has been done and proven. "Look, somone transmitted via CB to SLC on old wire for an antenna; I wonder if I could go even half that far?"

In fact one of the primary reasons I made the statements I did earlier is because there seems to be so much talk like this about how high gain dishes and low noise LNBs can magically cure this problem. Statements like this show the complete lack of understanding people often seem to have regarding this subject. If they did understand they'd know that high gain, low noise LNBs, and strong carriers, have absolutely nothing to do with the problems of getting good reliable C band reception on a small dish. Instead it's all about beamwidth and the dish not being able to focus tightly enough on a single satellite. If you have satellites 2 degrees apart and both of them are transmitting a strong carrier at the same frequency and polarity a small dish like this is not going to be able to recieve those signals at good quality regardless of it's gain or how low the noise figure of it's LNB because it's beamwidth on C band will be too wide and it will be recieveing both signals at the same time and 2 or more different signals of good strength don't give you a good quality signal. Instead they give you gibberish that your reciever can't possibly reconstruct a good signal from.

As for BUDs being way more expensive, I'm not so sure about that. In most parts of the country you can find someone willing to give you an old one for free provided you remove it from their yard. With a little luck, creativity, and hard work you might be able to get a BUD up in your yard for not much more than you'd spend on this 1.2M fortec dish when you factor in the shipping cost. I understand that everyone can't have a BUD and for those who absolutely can't have one for whatever reason, they might want to give something like this a try but I certainly wouldn't encourage them to spend a great deal on such a setup and I would remind them that they might not get the results they expect.

BUD's are an impossibility to the majority. Regardless of availability, cost, or what their wife thinks (ok, NOTHING is irregardless of what the wife thinks, lol). The vast majority of us live in apartments, condos, and little no-yard places like mine, which has kept us from even thinking the words "C-Band" save in our FTA dreams Those with a "if it can't be done 100% perfect, don't do it all" idea aren't in this FTA game, IMHO. Cascade deals with having a tiny 32 degree line-of-sight, and I'll bet you a six-pack he's not about to stop FTA-ing, lol. Right now I'm only using a 76cm "starter" dish, and quality can get pretty low on several channels. That's just the nature of the beast. We don't get every channel, we don't even get every major network sometimes. Nothing about being a FTA hobbyist is about guarantees; this isn't Europe, every single decent Ku band transponder could go encrypted tommorrow, and that's a chance we take. Gladly.

I'm pretty sure no one is jumping into this head-first with their eyes closed.
The overlapping is very real, but like rainfade on a 30" will just come with the territory. Certain same-frequency broadcasts on close satellites simply won't be accessable. One of the reasons for everyone trying this is to see what they can get. Before we had No C-band; with this setup we have Some. For those considering a dish upgrade, Some sounds kind of fun. I know it does to me! I'm sure I'll grumble and complain when The Tube on C-band is overlapped by an adjacent signal, the same way others curse the trees blocking their view and other obstructions. It's okay; it's all part of this hobby called FTA, and we enjoy it regardless.

I guess my final word would have to be this: do you want perfect C-band performance, perfect reception on all channels, and fewer problems? Well, even a 12' BUD can't guarantee that, but go that route and try. Are you a Ku enthusiast that has been planning on upgrading your dish, and welcomes the chance to frolic (however slightly) in a whole new playground? Then try the MicroBUD setup. If you were upgrading anyhow, the only extra cost will be a whole whopping $32 for a C-band LNB from www.psbsatellite.com . Considering that people will get larger dishes, buy lower noise level lnb's, and spend countless hours of peaking to tune an extra handful of weak transponders in... this is probably the easiest one-shot "upgrade" available. I feel everyone will get SOMEthing off C-band using this setup. With the quality of components, you certainly won't regret the Fortec 1.2m even just as a Ku receptor. But by all means, try C...

.. unless you're after perfection.

Then go get cable.

 

[Cascade]

CharredPC, you hit the nail on the head there, if people stopped taking risks and trying for the (seemingly) impossible we'd be living in caves.

Stefan, a 120cm offset would never replace a BUD, that's not in question.

As you know, most people aren't lucky enough to have the chance to install a BUD due to cost, space, HOA or any number of factors.
The 4ft dish will NEVER give as good a result as a dedicated 10-12' prime focus dish, nobody will argue with that point - my point was never to even compete with the proper dish.
I've been doing this (on and off) for over 15 years having worked with smaller prime-focus dishes back in England and this is the first larger offset I've had a chance to work with.

The purpose of posting my findings were to inform others that a C-Band signal was obtainable, maybe not as a 100% reliable way of watching a subscription based service but as a venture into what's possible with the relatively limited gear and space you have.
Granted, the picure I posted in my findings was from a very strong signal off Anik however, the other birds I hit gave me excellent results also which I was very surprised at.

I'm not here to sell dishes nor build people's hopes up, I don't get paid for it and I have very little to gain apart from the simple fact that I enjoy sharing my findings with others and seeing what they can get from it which is also true for the majority of people who post in this section.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

The thread is deviating away from the original topic.
Any other comments or thoughts on the 120cm/Cband results should be posted in the other thread.
Thanks.

 

[cralt]

You could but it would not be to local and NEC code! If you sink a ground rod it MUST be bonded to the homes service grounding point.....

Huh? Doesnt bonding to the homes ground point void the reson for sinking a rod in the first place?

When I have to do an install in a condo or someplace that you CANT get to the place's main grounding spot we just call an electrition to come in and he sinks a rod. Hook that to the ground block with messanger cable to the dish and its end of story. The cable company and phone company does it the same way also.

Maybe its a state by state thing?

 

[PSB]

"Huh? Doesnt bonding to the homes ground point void the reson for sinking a rod in the first place?"

Exactly thats why I have never used a ground rod

Another reason is the ground is frozen solid here for what seems like 10 months out the year (Minnesnota)

 

[PopcornNMore]

This is the way I did it in Pennsylvania. I just sinked a ground rod and connected the ground cable to it. A lot of times you aren't near the homes ground point.

 

[PSB]

Sure, but its not to local and NEC code............. : (

I would use a surge protector for some extra peace of mind!

 

[Tron]

The main grounding point on my building is a problem because it is as far from my sat farm as possible... on the opposite corner of the building!

I'm still trying to come up with a way to do this "by code", the only thing I can think of that *MIGHT* work would be to sink a new ground rod next to the sat farm and bond it to a cold water pipe connected to a water heater inside the shed (the sat farm's on the roof of the shed)...

Tron