Dishes supplied by Sky

[captainglassback]

I had a 1m fixed dish pointing at 28 and an elderly relative at the other end of the country (UK) had an 80m also pointing there. Using my meter I peaked both and we both had identical disappointing results on certain beams! I had my prof installer round and he moved my 1m slightly. There is an improvement but should be better when weather is poorish. I read somewhere that the actual sky dish can be better than a large normal dish! Should I try putting a couple of Sky dishes and lnbs up and if so is there more than one size?

[Detlef]

Elsewhere I have read that the 80 and 100cm Triax dishes are some of the best when used with a Inverto black LNB.

The only way a Sky dish can outperform a Triax is if someone has used a Sky LNB on the conventional dish. Sky LNBs have scalar rings that are specifically designed for their horizontally*, elliptic dishes.

[ * horizontally elliptic means the width is greater than the height ]

[Mickha]

Are both these dishes only fixed on 28.2E?
Were the problem channels being broadcast from 28.5E?
Did you skew the LNB correctly?
I doubt a 45cm sky dish can out perform a 1 Metre dish, unless, as mentioned, the LNB is not correctly fixed.
Can you please provide some signal quality readings, and frequencies, of the problematic channels.

[captainglassback]

Hi Gents. I can't find my readings or the Satpimps Thread that they were on a couple of years ago. I went up and down ladders with my meter around 20 times. (Plenty of skew adjustments!). What was strange was that both of us at different ends of the country had an identical problem which I narrowed down to beams. (Fresh cable and lnbs!!!). Both dishes are fixed. My 1.2 motorised gives a good signal.

[Mickha]

Check on lyngsat.com to see which satellite, and beams, the channels are on.

[TonyO]

There's something strange about this thread, a bigger dish has to be if its installed correctly better than a smaller one, sty mini dishes are cheap Chinese junk, they should be under the water, permanently.

Using several lnb's on one dish changes everything, deflected signals are prone to going out of line.

Cheap diseq switches are also a problem, some frequencies don't tune in the crossover between bands.

[digicon]

You will also find that using a Larger dish on such a power satellite position will not yield miraculous results due to the fact that the power of the Satellite signal is too strong for your receiver this is where AGC comes in and attenuates in the tuner so as not to drown it out. the so called 43cm Sky dishes are enough for the job if aligned correctly.

[Barney]

A sky dish with thier cheap crap 0.3db Lnb's with around 45-50db gain max [ thats being very kind ] will never be better than a triax dish with an inverto LNB 0.2db with 70db gain ..for example my next door neighbour has a sky dish and lost Zone horror due to rain this evening
which happens a lot on sky dishes especially weak freq's like this , where my father with his 78cm triax dish and inverto lnb could still continue watching with a perfect 67% signal , my neighbour actually had to call to our house to watch tv and her sky dish was even fitted by a sky engineer .
so to say a sky dish is better than a larger dish is just utter nonsense there is something else at fault im not exactly sure but with a fixed 1meter dish if its of any decent quality with a good LNB there is no logical reason for poor preformance other than a bad gain LNB or cable or possibly tuner on sat box because if the dish was peaked by someone with a sat meter properly and LNB gain and skew measured for percentage strength which can be done with any modern sat meter that leaves only Sat Cable or Tuner in sat box
maybbe Capt.Glassback can let us know what exact channels are giving these issues ??
and if a different sat box has been tested yet or not to rule out a faulty tuner which might be the real issue here .

[digicon]

I never said they where any better i said they are adequate for the Job, This also depends on where you live in Central UK they should be OK Scotland should be using a Zone2 and Ireland most likely the same. As for the problems with Zone Horror is due to the fact that it is still broadcasting from Eutelsat 28A and until 2G goes up and Eutelsat transfer over to there agreed storage spots with Astra this satellite will always be weaker.

I took this from the Wiki:
The AGC circuit keeps the receiver's output level from fluctuating too much by detecting the overall strength of the signal and automatically adjusting the gain of the receiver to maintain the output level within an acceptable range. For a very weak signal, the AGC operates the receiver at maximum gain; as the signal increases, the AGC reduces the gain.

as you can see from the explanation once you reach max power of the Signal AGC reduces to compensate or weak increases.

as a test i have 28° east on an offset of 9° on a multi bracket system and my receiver say on Ch4 HD brings in around 19.5db on the same receiver on a 1.2m dish its exactly the same figure due to AGC doing its job

[mdt]

sly install the small mini-dish as much for how it looks as to how it performes which to say is fine on the powerfull astra craft of 2E/F... personally id go with a td64cm for extra rain margin but thats me id always choose the next size up than whats recommended. if a tuner needs 6db to display a picture then 10db should give enough rain margin. cbs action maxx,s out at 11.5db on my 1.15cm dish.regards mdt

[captainglassback]

Thanks for all guidance. I have now found my original post _https://www.satpimps.co.uk/showthread.php?129355-Dish-peaking-at-28E&highlight=

[Bbigfoot]

Hi All, 55n 1,6w

@captainglassback, I found a
Zone 2 S@y dish (60cm) pulled
in a higher Sig Quality than that of
my 80cm dish.

28e Zone 2 pulled in 100% Sig.
28e 80cm dish pulled in 92% sig.
Scew spot on, on 80cm.

But Zone 2 had Black screen on 7e.
80cm dish pulled in 62% Sig on 7e.

30w Zone 2 pulled in 98% Sig
30w 80cm dish pulled in 78% sig.

Motorised Zone 2, using 2 exhaust
U bolts from gearbox.
She who must, wanted Dish to look
like a none motorised System, and
it does.

BF.

[Detlef]

@Bbigfoot I can only think that the LNB on the Zone2 was much newer than the one on your 80cm.

I have been playing with a brand new Zone2 plus new quad LNB in the fringe area (Tignes) in the French alps and got surprisingly good results. Nevertheless I would expect an 80cm Triax plus and Inverto black would perform better.

[Bbigfoot]

Hi Detlef,

Both LNbs the same age, the
Zone 2 LNB came with the dish.
Its a S@y LNB, on the
S@y dish.

Best LNB I ever had was a
Invacom, it had an orange
plastic cover on the pickup
end, not solid plastic.

Remember the old TV1000
on Siirus 4.8e the Signal
used to die of at night, down
too 15% and that was on a
1m Dish prime LNB pointing
at 4.8e.
Black screen after 10pm and
in poor weather.
Fitted an Invacom LNB, this
was in the (1980s). The
Sig Quality at 10pm rose
to 25% never lost Sig again
even in a snow storm in
December.
On the old Humax 5400ip
any Signal above 17% meant
Viewing tonight, Below 17%
meant Black screen.

BF.