Don't bin your squarial - It works on digital broadcasts

[BGonaSTICK]

Never mind. Someone else will hopefully find a use for it.

[nanochickin]

I'm now encouraged to have a go with my minidish if the weather forecast is correct and its warm this weekend

Did you manage to get anything out of your minidish AS. :?

I was just wondering if next time you get it out (ooh err!!!! ) you can try to see if you can get the horizontal transponders on it. I only managed to get the verticals on my squarial.

I'm just interested to see if the mini dish has any more capability than the squarial. 8)



Nano

[Analoguesat]

Never got around to any meaningful tests. unfortuantely I was totally wrapped up in replacing our computer system at the local high school for the summer, and was so exhausted when I got home the last thing I wanted to do was start playing with dishes in my free time. Possibly over the Christmas holiday now.. Full details will be posted once experiments start!

[jonesjones]

hi there - whats a squareial ..?

[robbo71]

It is a satellite TV antenna for the old BSB company, which later merged or was taken over by Sky.

Robbo

[nanochickin]

Thats the one

[michael01707]

Am I right in thinking that it works as if it is a big LNB feed collecting the signal rather than the conventional dish which collects the signal and reflects it to the LNBF?

[robbo71]

Originally Posted by michael01707

Am I right in thinking that it works as if it is a big LNB feed collecting the signal rather than the conventional dish which collects the signal and reflects it to the LNBF?

Something like that

Yes, there is no separate LNB. I think they are printed patch arrays. The amount of signal collected is still determined by size.

[nvingo]

Inside is a big PCB with a grid of small aerials printed on it. In front of that are some perspex sheets with the polarising elements printed on. Rotating one of these (by 180 degrees?) swaps the circular polarisation from right to left handed.
There is only one band and one preset polarisation so the aerial does not accept switching voltages or tones. It will receive vertically or horizontally polarised signals but IIRC any aerial/LNB set up or adapted for circular polarisation suffers very slight reduction in signal with H/V.
With circular polarisation the skew doesn't matter - as long as the aerial points directly at the satellite it can be any orientation. Maybe with H/V signals rotating it slightly will bring in more signal.
The BSB system used a non-standard intermediate frequency, hence the difference between actual and displayed frequency on a "normal" receiver connected to a BSB antenna. Many modern receivers have the option to choose from typical LNB downconverter values or program an explicit value which would allow correct frequency display.