Dish size and direction?

[ezryder]

Hi,

I'm thinking about getting a satellite dish to pick up premiership football. I will face some opposition due to the size and ugliness of the dish Ideally I would put up the smallest dish and it would be a mesh. From what I have read I can get a mesh 80cm motorised dish that will do the trick but I may not get a great signal.

What general direction do they need to point relative to a normal sky minidish? and do things like trees in the way reduce signal strength? would clouds also affect my viewing with such a small dish?

Thanks.

[Yorks]

Hello ezryder,

If you want premiership football then one option would be to get a receiver, dish and official sub for Digitalb @ 16E. The dish would point approx 12 degrees to the left of a sky dish (when viewing from the front) and be slightly more inclined. I think the annual subscription for the football package is around £230. In the UK an 80cm dish should be OK but you may expierience drop out during heavy rain. Trees are a definite no-no if in direct line of sight.

Yorks

[Robbo]

Mesh dishes apparently are usually of inferior quality and may cause problems on 16E. A solid 1m would be better.

Remember, you don't have to stick the dish on the wall of your property. If you can find an inconspicuous place in your garden that has line of site, you can put it there.

[southernsatellite]

Also depending where you are 100cm is recommended if you are north of Birmingham

[ezryder]

Thanks,

I've been looking a bit more and seen these, would either of these be suitable / as good as a solid 1m dish? or at least better than a 80cm mesh?

Brymar Satellite Satellite Dishes

H10D SelfSat Mini Satellite Flat Antenna

See-thru Poly Carbonate Satellite Dishes

[ezryder]

Manchester

[southernsatellite]

I would recommend the Orbital 100cm dish, then again I would as I sell hundreds!! and it performs really well. The ones you mention are not up to the job

[Matty_Black]

I'm just a newbie to all this but according the "what satellite" magazine, you only require a 70cm dish to recieve 16 Degrees East (Eutelsat W2).

As for the mesh vs solid dish issue, I found this quote from Satellite TV support forum & Digital TV support forum. - Mesh or Solid Dishes

"If the holes in the mesh are smaller than 1/2 a wavelength then the incoming signal will "see" a solid dish. If a solid dish and a mesh dish were made from the same perss there would be no difference in signal gathering efficiency."

I have read a similar thing before, in that, as the wavelength of the microwave signals gatherered by the dish are "relatively large" compared to the holes on the dish, they all get reflected anyway. I guess an analogy would be to imagine a football being shot at a goal net and the ball bouncing back rather than passing through.

Does anyone know performance/signal differences with similar sized mesh and solid dishes based on actual trial/experimentation?

[southernsatellite]

Take NO notice of what the magazine says as you need a min of 80 for the south and 100 for the north. I know that the clear dishes are not up to the job as we have tested them

[Robbo]

Originally Posted by Matty_Black

I'm just a newbie to all this but according the "what satellite" magazine, you only require a 70cm dish to recieve 16 Degrees East (Eutelsat W2).

As for the mesh vs solid dish issue, I found this quote from Satellite TV support forum & Digital TV support forum. - Mesh or Solid Dishes

"If the holes in the mesh are smaller than 1/2 a wavelength then the incoming signal will "see" a solid dish. If a solid dish and a mesh dish were made from the same perss there would be no difference in signal gathering efficiency."

Hi yes, Theoretically if the holes are small enough compared to the wavelength of the carrier, they will make no difference. However this assumes that everything else remains equal. In practice mesh dishes are generally of poor quality than solid ones, so mesh dishes, generally=worse peformance.

Yes you can also pick up Eutelsat 16E on a crappy mesh Sky minidish, but only about 2 or 3 transponders if you are lucky.