I've been telling my friends how cool this is. So I got one of my friends interested in joining the C Band hobby. He told me he found a Echostar 6 foot fiberglass dish with the motor and assorted pieces and found this info on it: Lnb .0950, noise 60k (who knows what that means?), anyway, he wants to know if that dish would be ok to use? Would it be better for C band or Ku or both?
You guys have got me going
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I wouldn't bother with it, it's too small, fiberglass (which breaks down over the years). It's not that much more work to track down a good 10ft dish, and install that instead.
Charlie sold a lot of relabeled trash dishes (and a few good ones, but you have to be selective) before he started Dish Network. Just because you see the name "Echostar" on a old c-band dish, does NOT mean it's a good one!
Charlie sold a lot of relabeled trash dishes (and a few good ones, but you have to be selective) before he started Dish Network. Just because you see the name "Echostar" on a old c-band dish, does NOT mean it's a good one!
Put strings across the face of it, lip to lip. Clock positions 12 to 6 & 2 to 8 and again from 10 to 4. They should be touching where they meet over the center of the dish. If not: no good.
If OK, I'd 'bin' the lnb and use a new LNBF (PLL preferred today)
6 ft is small but quite a bit is receivable on 99W. High FEC transponders are most likely out of reach.
Many have started with a 6 with many graduating to a 10.
Sometimes, and only sometimes, setting the F/D slightly higher or lower than the calculated value can get a marginal transponder to come in a bit better. (May alter the angle of the sidelobe response enough, without affecting the gain too much, to get a better S/N)
60K noise figure. A new LNBF will be below 20K. Less noise = better S/N
If OK, I'd 'bin' the lnb and use a new LNBF (PLL preferred today)
6 ft is small but quite a bit is receivable on 99W. High FEC transponders are most likely out of reach.
Many have started with a 6 with many graduating to a 10.
Sometimes, and only sometimes, setting the F/D slightly higher or lower than the calculated value can get a marginal transponder to come in a bit better. (May alter the angle of the sidelobe response enough, without affecting the gain too much, to get a better S/N)
60K noise figure. A new LNBF will be below 20K. Less noise = better S/N
I put up a stationary 6 foot dish in '13, took it down after about a year as it did not bring in that many C-Band channels. I initially aimed it at the sats having the most transponders and it only received a fraction of the channels. The dish didn't cost that much so all I got was some valuable experience in the shortcomings of a 6 footer.
The dish may or may not be good quality but if it's free and in good condition, I'd at least give it a try myself. Explain that to your friend, along with it being a bit small for c band. If he's still interested, he can give it a try and gain some experience until he can get a bigger one. If not, then he can pass but you never know until you try. 
Still working with my friend, and he has property at the bottom of a pretty deep canyon in the Sierra Nevada Foothills in CA. From a little bit to the east of due south, to about a little west of SW he has a pretty clear sky view, but from just east of S, he has some pine tree tops in the way of his sky view- will those pine tree tops interfere with the signal? It's not a wall of trees, as you can see sky through the branches, but being new to this, I didn't have an answer for him as to whether or not he'd be able to hit any of the eastern satellites.
THROUGH the branches wouldn't be good. If you check dishpointer.com and put in his address, you can see (more or less) which satellites he should have line-of-sight for. It gives you the option of putting up a marker for an obstacle which tells you how high/far it would have to be to interfere. OVER the trees is ok, but once they get too tall or you try shooting through the branches, it's no good.
My friend found another satellite - a Homesat 8000 perferated aluminum dish, 2.8 meters. How's that sound?
Don't know very much about that brand. Remember answering a question about programming a HomeSat receiver a while back. Dish sounds nice though. Is it in good condition? Any pics?
9' isn't bad, the 9' I have here works real well, but it isn't a Homesat, I never heard of that brand myself. Maybe it's a re-brand of something else, could you post a picture of it?
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