Minimum dish size needed for hotbird & astra 1

[argonaught]

Hi everyone,
I've been happily using my fixed-dish system to get 19.2E from an old oval-shaped Sky Minishdish for some time now. I'm unable to mount the dish on the house as I'm only a tennant - and I tried putting it in the back garden at first, but due to the huge church next door, I can't get a view of the South-Eastern sky. However, I've got it mounted on a 1m Maplin 'Patio stand' in the front garden, it works fine like that. I can point it at Hotbird and my Technomate shows the signal jumping from around 30-60% - so I'm pretty sure I can 'see' the satellite. What I wanted to ask is what is the minimum sized dish I could get away with on my 1m patio stand, with a monoblock fitted, to get 19.2E and 13E?

I'm located in Reading, Berkshire.

Thanks guys! :clap:

[BGonaSTICK]

A good 70cm dish will do it. You could try the excellent Gemini Raven G70 and a pair of LNBs on a multi-LNB bracket, and then you can try for one or two other sats as well.

You might even get away with a 60cm dish with those two birds as powerful as they are now, but I would always recommend a little safety margin. People would soon start getting cheesed off if we recommended borderline dishes and they lost reception every time it rained!

STICK

[argonaught]

Cheers for the advice. Do you think a 1M patio stand will be able to accomodate a 70cm dish? It's currently held in place by a few bricks on the base plate! I think my neighbours would be horrified at such a big dish in the front garden....the dish out there at the moment already gets strange looks from people!
In an ideal world I would love to be able to get Digitalb...but I hear you have no hope unless you have a 90cm+ dish.

Here are a couple of pics to illustrate my (rather pathetic!) setup:

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/ima...6dd4694777.jpg
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/ima...59fb089366.jpg

[wod]

80cm dish with monoblock lnb would work well for this

[BGonaSTICK]

Looks like it might be OK from the pics to me.

You could mount it 18" lower and closer to the house maybe, plus the whole lot would point away from the road by another 12 degrees or so. Is there a pathway where the second picture was taken from?

[nanochickin]

A bit of self amalgamating tape wouldn't go a miss on the connection between the coax and the lnb

Get any rain in the connection and it likely your lnb won't last very long

Oh by the way, i'd double check the lease agreement. It usually only states that you cannot do major modifications.

Fitting a dish to the wall isn't usually classed as major, if it is looks like i'm up sh!t creek without a paddle :roflmao:



Nano

[BGonaSTICK]

In the time honoured 'Spot the Ball' fashion, I've estimated where I think your dish may be pointing currently (green) and where a 13E/19E dish might point (red). It's probably higher than I've indicated, but I ran out of both space and patience!

[argonaught]

Thanks for all your help guys. The end of the street when my dish is pointing (South-eastward) is pretty narrow, but I'm fairly sure I can see Hotbird with a bigger dish. I'm at a loose end this weekend, so I'm tempted to get the budget priced 65cm dish from my local Maplin: _http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?TabID=1&ModuleNo=47161&doy=21m7 as it's in stock apparently.

Yeah and I should get that connection taped up really! Just got fed up of continaually unscrewing it to attach my finder meter when I was setting up!

[barr6868]

Originally Posted by BGonaSTICK

You might even get away with a 60cm dish
STICK

I've a 64cm triax dish up here in Jockland.
I've got a monobloc for 13E and 19E and most of the time it works ok.

The only probs I've got are with some of the Premiere direct channels which start breaking up in severe rain.

The rest are ok , showing 75-80% signal on my Technomate receiver.

The reason for a 64cm dish was that I've also got an 80cm motorised dish for my Dreambox.

Purchased a 110cm triax dish, but haven't put it up yet ops:

Got the 3m stainless pole and the postcrete but not the energy yet

I need to make the straps I'm going to use at work, but can't seem to find the time >

Regards

[madrat]

I'm sure you can fit a dish to a rented property. I have, my sister has, my son has. Loads of rented property's have dishes fitted. It would be far safer than having it where it is.

The maplins fortec star dish is great. I have one