Astra 2E: Canaries & Africa Reports

[DishDick]

Fringe, remember if your Invacom is a few years old, you will likely get at slightly better signal with a new Invacom, as their performance does tail off over time.

Whilst you are doing your checks, can you do them at different times to see when signals are at their strongest and weakest.

 

[FRINGE]

Fringe, remember if your Invacom is a few years old, you will likely get at slightly better signal with a new Invacom, as their performance does tail off over time.

So I understand. Problem is, has mine "tailed off" yet? - no way of knowing.

Whilst you are doing your checks, can you do them at different times to see when signals are at their strongest and weakest.

Yes, that is what I intended to do (started today - clear sky) - 10:00/14:00/18:00/22:00. Maybe we should start a new thread in a few months time to compare results.

 

[timo_w2s]

Sorry for the wordy post but, as promised, here is an update on things since arriving back home (Tenerife) with a new BlackUltra LNB, Technomate F3/5 and Amstrad DRX890 500GB SKY HD receiver(s) - to see if I could improve my 2e reception.

Was the Sky box branded as Amstrad or Sky? How old was it? I have found the Sky DRX595 (non recordable box) to be pretty good, I couldn't really tell the difference from that and the Pace 2600C1. I was under the impression that the Sky boxes now all have a similar tuner.

 

[FRINGE]

Was the Sky box branded as Amstrad or Sky? How old was it? I have found the Sky DRX595 (non recordable box) to be pretty good, I couldn't really tell the difference from that and the Pace 2600C1. I was under the impression that the Sky boxes now all have a similar tuner.

It is one of these: http://cdtronix.com/AMSTRAD-DRX890-500GB-SKY-HD?filter_name=drx890

 

[BLUEPLATINUM]

Just wanted to confirm Fringe, you Invacom LNB is a C120 type with the Laminas feedhorn?

 

[FRINGE]

Just wanted to confirm Fringe, you Invacom LNB is a C120 type with the Laminas feedhorn?

Yes.

 

[FRINGE]

Just wanted to confirm Fringe, you Invacom LNB is a C120 type with the Laminas feedhorn?

The feedhorn is a PO-40 shown here; http://www.laminas.com.pl/page_eng/products.html

Fringe, remember if your Invacom is a few years old, you will likely get at slightly better signal with a new Invacom, as their performance does tail off over time.

Just checked dates and I got this Invacom LNB back in October 2009 - so older than I remembered.

 

[DishDick]

Fringe, I changed mine which was only 2 years old and got a good improvement (though maybe it was just a better unit - manufacturing tolerances and all that). But with our heat, 4.5 years, its done its work. Its an inexpensive upgrade to fit a new one.

 

[LambdaKt]

@FRINGE
Black Ultra is not for reception 2F/2E satellites because there are bad cross-polarity ratio. Invacom Quad QDF031 is great, but only in the horizontal signal. If you want to get both polarizations try Inverto Black Pro C120. It is an excellent and inexpensive LNB and only with him i have all frequencies with 2E satellites ....

 

[BLUEPLATINUM]

I have found an interesting thread http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/threads/best-lnb-for-the-fringe-satellite-reception.156245/ where contributor some888 tests several LNBs on the Amos 3 satellite at 4.0W. He gets excellent results with an MTI AK54-XT2N Quad easily beating the Inverto Black Ultra. Does anyone have any experience of this LNB with Astra 2E/F ?

 

[LambdaKt]

This is my measurement with 10 different LNB few months ago while he was still working Astra1N/2F.
Pictures say more than a thousand words.

 

[FRINGE]

Fringe, I changed mine which was only 2 years old and got a good improvement (though maybe it was just a better unit - manufacturing tolerances and all that). But with our heat, 4.5 years, its done its work. Its an inexpensive upgrade to fit a new one.

Yes, was thinking to try a replacement. Wife goes to the UK next week so the opportunity is there.

@FRINGEInvacom Quad QDF031 is great, but only in the horizontal signal. If you want to get both polarizations try Inverto Black Pro C120. It is an excellent and inexpensive LNB and only with him i have all frequencies with 2E satellites ....

I see very little difference between H and V with my Invacom.

I only see differences between 2f and 2e.

I have found an interesting thread http://www.satellites.co.uk/forums/threads/best-lnb-for-the-fringe-satellite-reception.156245/ where contributor some888 tests several LNBs on the Amos 3 satellite at 4.0W. He gets excellent results with an MTI AK54-XT2N Quad easily beating the Inverto Black Ultra. Does anyone have any experience of this LNB with Astra 2E/F ?

I came across that thread some months ago myself. Interestingly, it places the performance of my LNB well below that of others and calls it "obsolete". Not my experience, so I would (and did) question the value of applying that data to our needs here in the Canary Islands. But I would certainly like to try an Invert Black Pro with my feedhorn. Maybe I should have got one of those instead of the BlackUtra but recall reading somewhere that the Pro was a 'lesser' performer - who knows.

 

[bambule666]

Hello to everybody! iam not english , so i make some mistakes in writing, sorry!
So i tell my experience of the receiving the Astra 2E on canary islands.
I adjusted about 30 dishes in the past 3weeks , 2.9m offset and the 3.1 prmefocus.
1. Nearly all dishes needs to be reajusted to get the max on BBC,itv ch4, but you will lose a bit signal on ch5.
2. For the 2.9m offset dishes is still the black ultra quad or quattro the best. very good results as well with the old tecatel quattro ( the black one) ,but imposible to buy some now in all spain!
3 For the primefocus 3.1m the invacom feed lnb with the adjustable invacom feedhorn.
4. Some dishes are imposible to get to work 24 hours! Worth time of the signal i between 8.30-10.00
at night! Igot about 80% of the dishes work 24 hours.
5.By sistems with boxes Privat or multiswitch i depends very much of wich receiver you use! Ols pace sky receiver ,sky hd and some freeview HD work ok.
6. best sistem is the transmodulation from Satélite to DTT terrestial digital ,(for comunitys and Hotels.......These transmodulators work with a min. Signal!

Maybe someone have foun yet another LNB wich wok better, but i didn see any yet. will informe here if i find one.

 

[BLUEPLATINUM]

Thanks for the info. Have you had any luck with Channel Master/Andrews 2.4m offset dishes?

Sent from my GT-I9205 using Tapatalk

 

[bambule666]

Only 2 chanel master i got to work with black ultra with a bit breaking up on ch4 at 8-9 oclock.
But most chanel master not working at all!
I sold to that people the 3.8m dish, wich Works very good! ( comunitys! )

 

[bambule666]

I wantto try the swedish microwave LNB, but its very exencive ,so i would like to know if someon tryed it yet .

 

[DishDick]

I wantto try the swedish microwave LNB, but its very exencive ,so i would like to know if someon tryed it yet .

Hello bambule666, welcome to the forum.

I wanted to try the SMW LNB (quattro), its very expensive as you know, I was unable to find any reviews on it anywhere and I also asked on here if people had any experience of recent LNBs from this company, but not much luck.

I didn´t risk buying one as really the only way to get better reception is to bite the bullet and get a bigger dish.

I see you have installed a 3.8m. is it prime focus?

Can you give us the readings for Ch4, BBC and ITV transponders on 2E?

transponder, power dbuv, MER margin db, bBER, aBER, Noise margin db

Thanks

 

[bambule666]

hi ,did adjust it 2 weeks ago, i try to go to the client again these days to see the readings of the dish, but i can tell you it wasmore o less the same signal that we had on a good 3m dish beforethe changings to 2E.
I 2-3 weeks arriving 5 more dishes from usa here(3x Prodelin prime focus3.8m and 2 metal dishes prime focus3.8m wich are a bit cheaper) and i can tell you te results of these new dishes.

 

[LambdaKt]

Which models of antennas are ordered?

 

[william-1]

I have found the same problem with some tuners & Lnb's,

The Black Ultra has bad cross-polarity ratio with some frequencies above 12.500 when used with some highly sensitive tuners some transponders on 19.2 east even here in the UK show no signals 12722 H 22000,

So I changed to the 0.3 MTI Blue line & all transponders ok on all tuners @ 19.2 east with my 100cm set up but not so good on weak satellites,

With another set up on a 88cm dish the signals are ok with the Inverto Black Ultra with some tuners,

So I imported the MTI 0.2 High line from Germany & got the same results as with the Black Ultra on some satellites due to the poor cross-polarity ratio some transponders = no signals on the 100cm set up.

Having red through this thread I will now test a few more lnb's over the next couple of months in an attempt to find a good low noise Lnb with a good cross-polarity ratio.