Hotbird 13°E on a Zone 1 Sky dish!

[Davei]

Not sure if anyone is that interested, but I thought this might give some encouragement to other newbies like myself.

I happened to have an old Zone 1 Sky minidish (with Quad LNB) lying around (which I'd held onto from a previous house) so I thought I'd play around with it to see if I could get Astra 19.2°E. I put the thing up, and using a cheap sat finder I aligned it on the strongest signal I could get (other than 28.2°E). Fully expecting that to be 19.2° (although the angle didn't 'look' quite right to me) I did a scan on my Dreambox and picked up 400 or so services with good SNR and AGC levels. But the identified providers were all wrong for 19.2°. I did a rescan on 13° and picked up just over 2,000 services (associated with what appeared to be the correct providers for Hotbird). I am amazed and very happy. I thought I would have needed a dish of about double the size to get Hotbird, but most of its transponders are coming in at perfectly respectable strength.

Anyway, the point is that I *was* thinking of buying a new dish and LNB for the purpose of getting either 19.2°E or 13°E (mainly 'coz I wanted BBC World and some French channels to help my daughters' language skills) - but I've managed to sort something out very little cost (though I'll have to invest in a DiSEqC A/B switch in due course). So, my message to other newbies is that you need not necessarily spend out loads of cash (well, not to start with anyway) to take the first steps into multi-satellite TV.

[Analoguesat]

Since Hotbird 1 has been retired most of the 13E channels are transmitted at very high power.. A zone 1 dish should be adequate for most transponders apart from probably in heavy rain.

[Mship]

I have my zone 1 dish permanently pointed at Hotbird as a back up for my motorized kit

No problem's with reception unless we get heavy rain

Might have to lose it in the summer though when we get the house rendered :

Kev

[BGonaSTICK]

Yep, thanks for the reception report

As you say, for the price of a DiSEqC switch and the odd beer maybe, you could have several satellites available to you.

You should also give Hispasat at 30W a try - you should get good results there too.

STICK

[silentalarm]

Do you need to change the skew on the minidish for 30w?

[Analoguesat]

Yes for best results - and it will be the way the lnb wont go! Ideally you would cut the plastic shroud back at the bottom to allow it to move anticlockwise.

[Davei]

Thanks for the comments - and yes, I will experiment a bit more with the dish once I've navigated my way round all the channels on 13ºE.

I think my surprise at getting Hotbird reception on a Zone 1 dish was due to the 'channel check' guide in 'What Satellite and Digital TV', which states the need for a 70cm dish for every transponder listed. However, I get the impression that some of the other info (channels, encryption, etc.) in the 'channel check' is a bit out of date, so I guess the dish size estimate based on radiating power (?) may also be out of date .

[Analoguesat]

Remember theres a 2-3 month lead time for magazines, which is why if you want the latest data you need to be looking at one of the web sites. Something like this one:

http://www.flysat.com/hotbird.php

[Davei]

Thanks, Analoguesat.

I'm also starting to realise how difficult it is to keep absolutely up-to-date (even with www.flysat.com). For instance, I notice that some French channels from AB Sat were FTA at the weekend, but are now encrypted.

[nanochickin]

Do you need to change the skew on the minidish for 30w?

You can get away from having to cut the shroud if you buy one of the Wistron lnbs as they mount the same as a normal lnb in an adapter made for the sky dish.

Got minidish pointing at 5w at the moment, although i do have to run outside to reconnect it when ever i want to watch something off it



Nano