Which FTA LNB would you recommend?

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, here’s a(nother) stupid question.

I got confused (as usual) about hooking up a 3x4 switch..

I knew that the H & V go to either the 18v or the 13v. Or maybe the other way around.

I tried to google it and found a flood of nonsense I couldn’t wade through.

I also found a section in here about switches but I found the part about the 3x4 switches to be, a bit unclear or uncertain, for me. My brain didn’t seem to grasp it.

Anyway, I took a best guess at it and it SEEMED to work. I put the H/V LNB on my motorized dish then I put the 3x4 on it to combine them into one wire for my MicroHD.

I went back inside and I had TV again on the MicroHD. Cool beans…


So yesterday evening I decided to see if I could also tap it off into my PC so I ran a wire from a port on the 3x4 over to a spare port on the 1x8 feeding my PC.
I check the MHD and it was fine. Then I add 83w to the PC, setup the LO and the port of the 1x8 it is on and hit scan. Nothing..

I scanned like 8 times and nothing. Bah.. So I quit the PC and went back to watching Dish Network nonsense the rest of the night.

Later on when I went to bed I wanted to watch the MHD but to my dismay, there was still no signal, AGAIN, on it. Arrrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!

I gave up and again watched Dish..

Then today I was outside getting ready for some really bad weather that is headed our way and I decided I wanted to try once again to get it working on two systems.

I went outside and put my meter on the 3x4 and PBJ came right in just fine. I went inside and tried scanning on the PC again and still nothing..
On the MHD I had now lost ALL ku channels. Nothing was working except C-band.
I went back outside and found there was now no signal going to my meter.

Back inside and more scanning and still nothing. Then I changed channels on the PC and watched OTA on it while I contemplated this stupidness.
All of a sudden I heard the TV in my bedroom blaring a cartoon. I go in and check and the signal is there and strong.

So I try again and nothing on the PC. I go back outside and again there’s no signal on the meter.
Back inside and there’s again nothing at all on ku.

Then I thought about flipping the polarity on the PC. I set it to 11735/4440 and VERTICAL and BAM! It scanned it.
I check the MHD and it’s still working too.

What I don’t understand it why the MHD which is set to 11735/4440 HORIZONTAL works fine but the PC has to be set to vertical? I changed nothing at all on the MHD and it works until I try to set the PC to work the same way!
When I set the PC to V and the MHD to H, both work fine at the same time.

What am I doing wrong? I assume I have the wires backwards between the LNB and the 3x4 but if that’s so, why does the MHD work but not the PC?

I set them up as Horizontal to 18v and Vertical to 13v..

For now I have the polarity on the PC set wrong, to vertical. It’s raining and tomorrow and Saturday it’s supposed to flood so I won’t be able to mess with it for 4-5 days, maybe more if it’s as bad as they say.
Is there any potential damage I could do with things wired like this? Should I not use it for now?

?Thanks…

 

[Dee_Ann]

Ok, now it’s getting really weird. Yesterday it was working, today it’s not, again..

I give up on trying to get it to feed two systems. I’ll just wait until next week when I can order a few new LNB’s and Ecoda switches so I can start over with the right things.
I think I’ve just got too much junk here that I’m trying to use and it’s just frustrating me. Out with the old, in with the new..

 

[Tron]

Vertical is 13V, horizontal is 18V.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Vertical is 13V, horizontal is 18V.

Hmmmmm…. Well WTH?? I would appear that I have it connected right. UNLESS I switched the wires backwards, I guess that’s possible. But it’s raining and muddy out and I’m not messing with it tonight.

So, I got a little cash advance and I went ahead and purchased some new stuff from one of the other SGUS members here..

I bought two new Ecoda 22khz switches. One to use now and one as a spare.

I bought two new SL1PLL LNBF’s. One for me, one for my dad. I’m going to put them on my motorized ku dish and on my dad’s motorized ku dish. Both of our dishes are finicky and Dad has trouble with PBS sometimes and RTV. As do I. I’m hoping this will help both of us.

I bought one new SL2 dual bullet. I’m going to set up a dedicated, fixed dish for 83w and put this LNBF on it and then feed it to both my systems with a 3x4 which I already have two of.

I’m tired of the nonsense, tired of the troubles so I’m just gonna do it right.

Another thing, next week my dad is taking me to an electrical supply place to buy a pair of 2 1/2” pipes. They are 10’ long and very heavy. I looked at fence poles at Lowe’s but they are too flimsy.
Then I found a piece of shiny pipe left over from when they replaced the power pole on my house after a hurricane. It’s the right size and extremely heavy. It’s the one that goes from the meter up through the roof and the wires connect to it from the main pole. My dad said they are 10’ long so we have to go in his van. I can cut them to length I want and they have threads on the end so I can connect the cut offs into even another pipe and put a little weld to keep them from coming apart. I could use that for maybe a smaller dish. When I put in a new pole for my motorize dish I’m going to put it at least three feet deep, more if I can manage and I have some ideas to try and help it stay stable no matter how dry the ground gets..

And the same for the new dish for 83. I’m about fed up with loose dishes, I figure we’re gonna be stuck in a drought for years so I might as well just redo all the poles to deal with it.
I’ve had to put a sprinkler on a timer to keep the farm damp and that helps but it also costs money and makes the weeds grown around the dishes like mad!

?I hope by the end of next week to have most of my problems resolved.

 

[Anole]

Check and double check pipe diameter.
Get it right the first time.
"Close" is only good enough in horseshoes and hand grenades.
.
As for pipe depth, you seem to have unusual conditions, so an unusual solution might be called for.
This dry-cracking sounds a little like frost-heave, and might respond to similar techniques.
Three foot post hole with cement might work for fixed Ku dishes.
For motorized or extra heavy dishes, you might want to seek the group's opinion.
.
Your low dishes have been a major saviour, I think.

 

[Bongu]

I like the SL2 LNBFs, but the scalar on it is pretty small for those of us with an undersized reflector. I know that having a small reflector is not a problem you have. My Invacom is still hanging on my smaller Ku dish. Two of my SL2's are on my larger motorized Ku reflector. I am contemplating modifying my 3rd SL2 to adapt to the feedhorn for the 1.8M Prodelin that has come back into play recently. Once the dual output GeoSat PLL is ready for market, I will replace the SL2's with those.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Check and double check pipe diameter.
Get it right the first time.
"Close" is only good enough in horseshoes and hand grenades.
.
As for pipe depth, you seem to have unusual conditions, so an unusual solution might be called for.
This dry-cracking sounds a little like frost-heave, and might respond to similar techniques.
Three foot post hole with cement might work for fixed Ku dishes.
For motorized or extra heavy dishes, you might want to seek the group's opinion.
.
Your low dishes have been a major saviour, I think.

Yep…. I checked. That short piece left over from my electrical is 2 1/2” diameter. It’s the same exact size as fence poles except it’s like 50 times thicker in the walls. I think it would be completely impossible to bend it.
I did take the short piece and tried fitting it in several old dish mounts and it’s good. And my dad will be there so he will be double checking to make sure they give me the right thing. I wanted to take the short piece with me but my dad said not to worry, that he knows exactly what to ask for.

As for frost-heave, I’ve never heard of that, since we only get about 2 weeks of cool weather a year here. I’m guessing it’s something to do with the ground freezing, something that hasn’t happened here in about 50,000 years..
Since I’m buying two 10 foot poles I can dig the holes as deep as possible. Three, four, I don’t know. I would like to go four feet. I have some in at three feet and they “droop” when the ground dries out. My C-band dishes are in at 5 feet and they seem to be solid as a rock. I had to pay a guy to do those. That was a BIG job. I think I can do these myself. I just hate the cement part. That’s killer..

The dishes low to the ground, I think may have helped a tiny bit but not a lot. They still wiggle a lot and over the years I keep having to go out and beat sticks into the ground around them to try and stabilize them but that never really works very well. It seems the sprinkler has been the most effective tool to keeping them stable. This fall, when things begin to cool down I’m going to rip ALL my ku dishes out and redo them with new, heavy duty poles much deeper and more cement around them. This is so annoying and sooooo old. This was a problem for me back in the days of White Springs. I had h*ll with that, I couldn’t figure out what was going on and by the time I did, I only got to watch White Springs for about a month before they went bye-bye forever.. I need a solid, 100% reliable dish so I can record my cartoons on 83 before that goes bye-bye too..

I like the SL2 LNBFs, but the scalar on it is pretty small for those of us with an undersized reflector. I know that having a small reflector is not a problem you have. My Invacom is still hanging on my smaller Ku dish. Two of my SL2's are on my larger motorized Ku reflector. I am contemplating modifying my 3rd SL2 to adapt to the feedhorn for the 1.8M Prodelin that has come back into play recently. Once the dual output GeoSat PLL is ready for market, I will replace the SL2's with those.

I’m excited to hear that they are coming out with a dual output PLL ! I will definitely be a buyer on that! One thing I am sort of thinking about trying is putting several LNBF’s on that 1.8m Prodelin that I have, I hadn’t thought of that until you mentioned it. I have one. I would love to be able to use it to get Dish 129 HD but if I can get that tree down the 1.2 I have aimed as 129 will work fine as is.

 

[ftageekyyc]

Personally, based on the soil conditions you have described, I would be using screwpiles or helical piers. The link below is just to give an indication of the technology.

http://www.austinfoundationcontractors.com/commercial-foundation-contractor/helical-pile-system.html

The goal would be to disturb the ground as little as possible.

?Or, hire a power auger service who has a unit with the smallest bit size you can find that is just larger than the pole, then use one of the newer expanding foam post setting products like Fast2k.

May or may not be too costly, I have no idea what the $ might be like in you area, but one or two well set poles that never move might be worth it.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Personally, based on the soil conditions you have described, I would be using screwpiles or helical piers. The link below is just to give an indication of the technology.

http://www.austinfoundationcontractors.com/commercial-foundation-contractor/helical-pile-system.html

The goal would be to disturb the ground as little as possible.

?Or, hire a power auger service who has a unit with the smallest bit size you can find that is just larger than the pole, then use one of the newer expanding foam post setting products like Fast2k.

May or may not be too costly, I have no idea what the $ might be like in you area, but one or two well set poles that never move might be worth it.

Ooooh, that is a weird thing. I’m not sure I understand what I’m looking at there but I’ll show it to my dad.

I wish I knew some country folks, I have seen them have post hole diggers mounted on tractors. THAT would be cool! Then I could get some holes drilled like 6 feet deep, or more, and that would totally end my problems!
The C-band dishes are in 5 foot deep and one is holding a 10’ dish and it’s solid. It hasn’t shown any sign of being loose.

 

[pwrsurge]

You can rent post hole diggers at any major hardware store or tool rental place and dig the hole with two people holding the machine. This would be the easiest and quickest way to dig 4 ft. holes and it would be cheaper than hiring someone to do it for you.

Some of the better machines only require 1 operator as you can see below




Best regards,

 

[Dee_Ann]

You can rent post hole diggers at any major hardware store or tool rental place and dig the hole with two people holding the machine. This would be the easiest and quickest way to dig 4 ft. holes and it would be cheaper than hiring someone to do it for you.

Some of the better machines only require 1 operator as you can see below




Best regards,

WOA!!!!!!!!!! Now THAT is cool!!! I LIKE THAT!!!

I’m not sure I would want to try that by myself, I would be better off having someone around just in case I do get hurt or have a heart attack but that thing is flipping COOL!

I’m going to show that to my dad! He knows where all the rental places are, maybe he can find one.. My dad told me about a hole digger they had where he used to work that took two men to hold handles on it and if it hit a rock or a root it would break your arms. He said two men got hurt using it and he made some guys throw it in the river and banned them from the entire refinery. I guess he has been out of the loop so long that he hadn’t heard of these things!

OMG if I had only known about that 2 years ago when I paid a goober neighbor to dig holes for my C-band poles!
He took his sweet time then gave up on one pole and didn’t plant it as deep as I asked him too, that annoyed me but there was nothing I could do about it. He dug them by hand with an old fashioned hand digger, I have the thing here, it’s ancient and it’s a killer.. I hate it ! Early this year I used it to dig holes to plant bamboo and roses and it about killed me! Ugh!!

With this, I can dig the holes as deep as I want! I assume they have different drills for them? Like smaller, bigger, taller, etc?


edit: I went to youtube so I could send a link to my dad and I saw a video of the very kind of digger my dad told me about, the one that breaks arms and puts people in the hospital.



It was his stories about these things that scared me away from the very thought of using ANY machine to dig holes. I just dismissed the idea completely.
Your video shows me that things have changed! Thanks !


edit 2:

What manner of wizardry is THIS??????



I need one of these too to pull the old poles up! OMG! The genius of these things!
Is that something that can be rented too or is that something some guy made up in his garage?


Edit 3:

Ok, I’m sold. This is the thing I need. Except this one is electric and I don’t think it would dig through this “gumbo” clay as we call it here. It would have to be a gas motor.

But if she can do it, I can do it.

 

[Dee_Ann]

So I got my new LNBF’s and 22khz switches in yesterday.

I changed out the old Primestar LNBF for one of the PLL type.

I can’t really tell any difference with it over the old type but on the MicroHD signal meter, the little bars hold steady. Before they would “dance”, I guess the signal was fluctuating before. The levels are the same, 90/70 but I guess more steady.

Should I be able to get a better signal? I have a clear LOS and the dish is a one meter Primestar/Andrew. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the post however. On that note, I checked to see how much a 2 1/2” electrical pipe is and they are flippin $89 !!!!!! WUT????? Nope….. Ok, plan B. I need to go shopping for a very heavy fence pole. Or, just take one that I have already (it’s light and thin, very cheap.) and stuff another thin pole down inside it and fill both of them up with cement. Arrrrgh!


Anyway…

So on this PLL thing. Are there any special considerations I need to take into account? Any special settings I should set in the tuner for it? I assumed the settings are the same as any other LNBF but there’s that terrible “assume” problem I have.

Also, another problem I don’t know what to do about is where do I position it? The neck of it can slide backwards or forwards in the Primestar clamp by a good bit. I’m sure that that can affect reception, just like light doesn’t focus in the right part of my eye anymore and I have to wear glasses, I assume the signal has to focus on the little antenna inside the LNBF and if it’s not positioned properly, well, wouldn’t that mess with it?


The last picture didn’t come out very well, I used my iPhone in the dark, what I was trying to show is how much the thing can be moved in the clamp.

Another issue that baffles me, for some reason I just seem to find pretty much nothing past 97w. It moves as it scans but most of the satellites to the west of 97 seem to be mostly dead.
I really doubt that they are. One of them, like 103w, scans in and shows channels like the two beach cams and the NBC channels but despite that, it just says “No signal” on all of them.

I’ve always had problems seeing past 97w with this dish and I can’t figure out why.

The LOS on it is clear all the way over to 129w but I don’t try to push it past 125. But between 99 and 125, it’s a wasteland. Something weird is going on and this new LNBF, I would think it would pick up the weak stuff, right?

This weekend I need to go to my dad’s house and swap out his old Primestar & 3x4 for the other PLL LNBF I bought. I need to get the routine down before I go over and look a fool.

?Thanks!
?

 

[jorgek]

The PLL LNBs do not need any special settings. They are a direct plug and play replacement. You probably won't notice any big change if you are already receiving strong signals. The PLL really shines on small dishes and weak signals.
Going past 97w there is not much to view till you hit 125w.
101w has the pentagon channels and a couple others
103W has the beach cams. Then a bunch of channels such as COZI TV which requires the LNB to be skewed in the opposite direction to detect them. This skew is an odd ball situation and you can do a search on it to learn more. Also some of the other channels are news feeds and not always live. Thats why you get the "no signal" on most channels. Having to go out and re-skew the LNB for just 1 sat is a pain in the butt especially if the dish is on a motor.

 

[jorgek]

Oh, 125w has loads of PBS channels and some other ones. This is a great sat if you enjoy a variety of PBS type programming.

 

[KE4EST]

The way the receiver is designed with out getting technical, 70 is a great signal. It would be about the same as 96 on other receivers.

 

[cyberham]

I can vouch for what ke4est says. I recently connected my Shaw Direct dish to my microHD. This dish delivers a 98% or 99% signal to my Shaw Direct receiver. MicroHD received a signal of 71% with this dish connected. I have never seen higher than a 74% signal from any satellite when using my FTA dish and microHD.

I also agree with Jorgek. My experience is PLL design seems to stabilize received signals and also enhance low signal qualities. It made little difference to signals already being received strongly.

 

[cyberham]

And don't worry too much about 103W and its funky skew. This issue will disappear when the new SES3 (already in place) becomes operational replacing AMC1 in the coming months. No more skewy problems soon.

 

[Dee_Ann]

The PLL LNBs do not need any special settings. They are a direct plug and play replacement. You probably won't notice any big change if you are already receiving strong signals. The PLL really shines on small dishes and weak signals.
Going past 97w there is not much to view till you hit 125w.
101w has the pentagon channels and a couple others
103W has the beach cams. Then a bunch of channels such as COZI TV which requires the LNB to be skewed in the opposite direction to detect them. This skew is an odd ball situation and you can do a search on it to learn more. Also some of the other channels are news feeds and not always live. Thats why you get the "no signal" on most channels. Having to go out and re-skew the LNB for just 1 sat is a pain in the butt especially if the dish is on a motor.

AH HA!!! Ok then! This answers a lot of questions that have been messing with my head.

Chances are that everything is just fine then.

Now I just need to focus on ripping that old pole out and putting a new one in that’s much deeper and more substantial. I found some stuff I think will work.
I found a 6 foot pole but it’s rather thin. I also found the rail from a fence and it’s fairly strong. I’m going to pull the old pole, dig the hole at least 3 feet deep and try for four feet.
I’ll put the little fence rail in the middle of the big gate post then fill both of them with cement and cement the snot out of the pole into the ground. I’ll let it sit up for a few days and I should be good to go then.

As for COZI on 103, eh.. I get COZI via OTA here so setting up a dish just for that is a very low priority and I’ll probably just skip that.

Thanks!