LNB advice?

[steeb]

Dear all,

although I have been operating my GB-PVR/NextPVR system for many years via satellite I never really got to know the intricate workings of an LNB!

I am now in a hurry to upgrade some stuff as some scaffolding is going up for people to work on my roof.

My question?!

Would I be better keeping one dish and sticking an octo LNB on it (currently quad) or having a second dish with a further quad LNB?

My thinking is that I would be better off with 2 x dishes and 2 x quad LNB's as opposed to putting all my eggs into one basket (as it were) with one dish and an octo? But this is not based in any scientific theory on how LNB's work, just my sort of belt and braces approach!

any advice would be most appreciated as my finger is twitching over whether to buy a quad or octo LNB (I have a spare dish)

cheers all

steeb

[martint123]

After losing my signal a couple of weeks ago, I panicked and bought a dish+quad LNB from fleabay (somewhat surprised at £11 and it was new in a box, looks like sky installers have "surplus"!). Panic over, the dish had been moved by the window cleaners and their ladders!.

I put it on the garage roof for messing around with, seeing what else is available and to see who else in Europe might have live F1 when the Beeb loses theirs next year.

I suspect you would get more reliability with a pair of dishes and LNB's in case lightning or one of your tuners zaps an LNB.
Get the best of both worlds and put the second dish on a motorised mount ??

Not forgetting planning permission required for more than one dish <cough>

[steeb]

Thanks Martin,

exactly the advice I needed to steer me on the right course.

If I <cough> didn't worry about the planning permission (no-one round here bothers) the most important thing you have reminded me of is of course the F1 coverage and the BBC cut backs.

So I guess the question then is if one dish is motorised, will the spare (standard install BSkyB dish, oval type) I have knocking about suffice for that? Or should I be looking at a different dish? I really don't want to have something 1.2 metres wide stuck on my roof

And if the dish would do the job what would be the recommendations for the motorised unit? Are there better makes etc?

many cheers

steeb

[martint123]

My experiment with a standard 80cm Sky dish showed that the satellites at 19.2E and 13E were easily received. I didn't persist too long as the winds started up in force.
The only problem with a motorised dish is the alignment needed. I know when I had a 6 foot dish in the old days, it was a pig to set up, horizon to horizon, but it had a much narrower beamwidth than a sky dish.
A meter/whistler widget is a handy thing to have when up a ladder trying to find satellites. Take care!

Sorry, can't rec any motors - my old one was huge and there are too many to choose from now ;(

[steeb]

My experiment with a standard 80cm Sky dish showed that the satellites at 19.2E and 13E were easily received. I didn't persist too long as the winds started up in force.
The only problem with a motorised dish is the alignment needed. I know when I had a 6 foot dish in the old days, it was a pig to set up, horizon to horizon, but it had a much narrower beamwidth than a sky dish.
A meter/whistler widget is a handy thing to have when up a ladder trying to find satellites. Take care!

Sorry, can't rec any motors - my old one was huge and there are too many to choose from now ;(

Superb Martin, thank you. You have pointed me in the right direction, well somewhere between 13E and 30E anyway

Seriously it is all up there somewhere orbiting with us. I will experiment with a standard Sky dish, a new quad LNB and a motorised unit and see what I can find. Not so keen on the ladder. Look what happened to Rod Hull:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Hull#Death

cheers

steeb

[steeb]

Some more education for steeb please

If I go with a motorised unit then how do I control this through NextPVR?

Or do I not and just get a set top box that can handle the motor alignment and bring that into NextPVR via my trusty PVR150?

cheers

steeb

[martint123]

If I go with a motorised unit then how do I control this through NextPVR?

I don't know (my old dish had a separate positioner .

If you look at the setup page in NPVR for a satellite tuner that supports positioning (my nova hd s2 seems to) you will see a tick box for diseq or similar, that when ticked opens up some pulldown boxes for satellites. I'm guessing that the motor and sub know how to talk to each other and do the business. I also guess that the motor comes with something that makes initial setup possible of the positioner.

The wiki is quiet on this side of things - so an excellent opportunity ................

[steeb]

I don't know (my old dish had a separate positioner .

If you look at the setup page in NPVR for a satellite tuner that supports positioning (my nova hd s2 seems to) you will see a tick box for diseq or similar, that when ticked opens up some pulldown boxes for satellites. I'm guessing that the motor and sub know how to talk to each other and do the business. I also guess that the motor comes with something that makes initial setup possible of the positioner.

The wiki is quiet on this side of things - so an excellent opportunity ................

Thanks Martin,

I did have a look at the card setup but failed to actually tick the DisEqc part, so missed the drop down box! Now that does look very interesting......

The bit I don't understand is what is driving the motor? The one I have been looking at requires a coax connection. But surely that means a separate cable other than the one to each LNB? Hmm this is the bit I don't get......

Yes the wiki is rather sparse here Now maybe once I have worked it all out I may be able to write it up Currently I don't have a clue :eek:

cheers

steeb

[martint123]

From what I have picked up from browsing, I think one of the normal LNB cables goes to the motor and back out to the LNB so power and signalling are superimposed over the cable.

[steeb]

From what I have picked up from browsing, I think one of the normal LNB cables goes to the motor and back out to the LNB so power and signalling are superimposed over the cable.

Ah ha, thanks Martin, your googling is superior to mine

I've been trying to find this out, I wondered if this was the case as I spotted two F-connectors on the motor unit but it said it only needed 1 coax cable connection. So in effect a loop I guess. Coax up to the motor, loop out and into the LNB?

Which then begs the question that presumably I only need a single LNB for the motorised dish? There would be no point having a quad!? I guess the only limitation is that you can only access 4 satellites per dish with NextPVR with the DisEqc dropdown satellite choices? Or is there a way to get more satellites I wonder?

So back to where this all began .... I guess I am best going for an octo on my existing dish (hey I don't need 8 but I have found 4 not quite enough )

and then get myself a motorised set up on the 2nd dish. Ooooh this could be a lot of fun! I always wondered how this all worked and now my excuse is the one you gave, Auntie dropping some of the F1 coverage from next year......

great stuff

steeb