Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Two good questions to which I can't give exact answers!!!With the first question, there are a number of other variables that come into play that make it worth while being over-generous with the dish specification. Different frequencies come in at different levels, as more generally do the two polarisations. Then there's the weather, cloud and rain, which if one is determined won't affect reception merits an extra sized dish. Then there's how accurately the dish is installed (azimuth, elevation, skew) and how well suited the LNB is to the dish (all that's not normally a problem). Also of course how "good" the LNB itself is.So individual situations will have circumstances that come into play, making a definitive answer impossible.And of course my magic line is something of a guess!!!!I'll go and see if my Sky region 2 dish is the same dimensions as yours. It's actually pointing at Astra 1 here in Devon.My guess though is that it's equivalent to a GOOD 60 cm "rounder" dish. Certainly I doubt it would do as good a job as an 80 cm conventional dish but I may be wrong about that. Presumably somewhere there are figures for how many dBs of gain the various Sky (and other dishes) can offer - that's more of an acid test of how good a dish is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 [quote user="ericd"]Martin963. Question on the Sky region 2 dish. It's 90cm x 60cm mesh dish........ does that make it a 70cm dish ?? We will be on-site end of February and will be able to report[/quote]Well I'm puzzled now because my region 2 Sky dish appears to be 72 x 57 cms. I've just gone out and measured it - the sun is out here!!! A Sky conventional dish seems to be 52 x 39 cms.I've hitherto taken that (my size of region 2) to be a 60 cm dish equivalent, but yours seems to be a good deal bigger. How odd. If yours is that size then I would guess it's going to be better than a 60 cm conventionally shaped dish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Well one lives and learns.The 52 x 39 cms I gave above for a little Sky dish must have been what they issued in the "old days" (c 1999).Because I've just measured another ordinary Sky dish (that I actually have pointing at AB3) and it is 58 x 43 cms. I'd always assumed that the little Sky dishes were all the same size, but they seem to have got bigger at some point! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wils Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 We are in the Herault, 10 minutes outside Pezenas. Varying results here, we have lost all BBC with an 80cm dish as have most people. A couple of friends are still receiving BBC 1 from various regions (Scotland and North East) with 80cm dishes so I think we are on the cusp with 80cm and will probably be OK with 1 metre dish. This is not from a techie though and I might try to adjust the skew on my LNB to se if that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerekJ Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 [quote user="Martin963"]If you've got an 80 cm dish I guess you'll be fine. I believe Danny is roughly at the same latitude as you.If it's a 60 cm then it might be on the edge. Certainly it would be great if you could let us know when you get out there. I'll be out at about the same time but as we're the best part of one hundred miles north of you we're well above the risk zone.[/quote]I'll certainly do that Martin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Whilst I wouldn't set the greatest store by anything technical coming from ITV, someone did receive this from them:"The new satellite footprints have been designed to meet the requirements of broadcasters who distribute their channels in the UK and hold broadcasting rights for the UK but not for other countries. Viewers in the UK will not be affected by the changes." I still don't think that tightening the UK spot beam just for the broadcasters' comfort was SES's main priority; it still seems to me it has more to do with the fact that a) they can and b) it means they can re-use frequencies, but at the same time I concede of course that it does suit all parties.But if the rights people were THAT worried I think we'd have seen a beam that was a lot tighter.Interestingly it seems that Sky are now more interested in pan European beams than sitting on the spot beams they've been using on 1N hitherto; some are interpreting this as a cynical way of maintaining their subscription base in Europe, rather than trying to queer freesat's pitch (as hitherto) by hoovering up spot beams on 2D and then 1N in order to limit freesat's capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jako Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I think the new UK spotbeam is state-of-the-art for KU band transmissions stemming from a satellite that is more than 28 degrees to far to the east for the desired country. The next step will be a cluster of very small footprints the size of a city, so in London you will receive BBC London and in Edinburgh they will receive SBC Edinburgh from the same satellite and frequency.[:)]But that is 15 years away... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 .... and I reckon that fifteen years will probably more or less see me out, at least as far as hankering after the French life style is concerned.Certainly I entirely agree with you Jako, the increasing cellulisation (is that a word?) of footprints follows the historic pattern of VHF, then UHF, then low-SHF transmitter network planning.Ka band may well by then be the "norm" I suppose.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judith Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 More feedback.In the Herault / Aude borders - we lost BBC yesterday. No idea about Ch 5 as we don't watch it, but a friend about 20 mins away had lost it so was forewarned and has a new dish coming tomorrow. Also at meeting yesterday afternoon, I heard several people talking about loosing BBC "today", and this was over 30 mins away from me, some of them in the hills. We spoke to our techie last night, and he says it sounds like a bigger dish is needed, but we have to wait in line until the end of the month. Sorry, don't know what the current size is, but assume it is no bigger than it has needed to be when it was installed, which was before we bought the house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 My sympathies Judith. You are a long way south and to be honest I'm loathe to recommend a minimum size for you until we know a bit more. If you've got a tame installer (French or English I wonder - without being prejudiced I doubt the French installers are going to be up to speed on all this, although I could be wrong and apologise if I am!) then I'd follow their recommendations. If they know what they're doing they should already have experience of reception of Astra 2F (it's been on for over a year), which is likely to be a useful guide to what's needed for 2E.It's frustrating for you and you have my condolences!!! But having said that I suspect there is a solution to be had in the not too distant future, providing you don't mind investing in a considerably larger dish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrissie Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Here in Mazamet (southernmost Tarn) we can get all channels except Ch5, but we have a 90cm dish. BBC tends to break up with rain much quicker than before.Friends about a mile away are getting nothing at all with an 80cm dish.Chrissie (81) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 At the border of the Lot and the Cantal, we have excellent reception (for now?) with a Zone 2/60cm dish...Mr Clair went up on the roof to check the mast as we were getting a lot of pixels last night in the strong wind...It appears the dish suffered from a bit of a droop and all is now fine, if not better than before! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 [quote user="Judith"]More feedback.In the Herault / Aude borders - we lost BBC yesterday. No idea about Ch 5 as we don't watch it, but a friend about 20 mins away had lost it so was forewarned and has a new dish coming tomorrow. Also at meeting yesterday afternoon, I heard several people talking about loosing BBC "today", and this was over 30 mins away from me, some of them in the hills. We spoke to our techie last night, and he says it sounds like a bigger dish is needed, but we have to wait in line until the end of the month. Sorry, don't know what the current size is, but assume it is no bigger than it has needed to be when it was installed, which was before we bought the house.[/quote]All I can tell you in Quillan a 140cm dish will not work reliably enough, I know because I have been testing one. Being as you are further north it might work for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judith Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 [quote user="Martin963"]My sympathies Judith. You are a long way south and to be honest I'm loathe to recommend a minimum size for you until we know a bit more. If you've got a tame installer (French or English I wonder - without being prejudiced I doubt the French installers are going to be up to speed on all this, although I could be wrong and apologise if I am!) then I'd follow their recommendations. If they know what they're doing they should already have experience of reception of Astra 2F (it's been on for over a year), which is likely to be a useful guide to what's needed for 2E.It's frustrating for you and you have my condolences!!! But having said that I suspect there is a solution to be had in the not too distant future, providing you don't mind investing in a considerably larger dish. [/quote]Thank you Martin. As it happens before we moved to this house we "managed" without any terrestrial TV at all - so it is not too much of a problem as I got a date out of him when I phoned last night. "He" being an Englishman, well trained as it happens in my "ville natale" in the north of the UK, in all these matters, so I am confident it will be solved. He thought a 110cm dish would be ok, and I said, please do what you can and install when you can ... he did not install the previous dish, but other friends who used his information were happy with what he advised last year when they needed a new system ... (they are up in the hills slightly and have to use satellite to get the internet also). I have no knowledge of such matters, nor the technical expertise to know right from wrong, but OH was looking at the BBC site about it all online today "so I know what he is talking about". As an ex-research chemist with good science knowledge, I'll leave it to him!I did become a little concerned about the discussion earlier on the thread about the wind problems with larger dishes, as we are in a very windy part of the world!, but I am sure this has been taken into consideration. It's all a nuisance, but fortunately we are now in the happy position that cost is less of a problem than it would have been before we both retired etc etc, so for us it is just the waiting which is the pain. As you say, I doubt the French installers are worried, though we do have several French friends who are very anglophone, I'm sure they rarely watch the BBC other than the usual news and BBC world or 24 which are available on several French suppliers.Thanks for all this though, it did at least mean that when we turned on last night, I did know why we got no signal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Chrissie - thanks for that report. We should be able to build up quite a picture if people are kind enough to keep sending their reception reports in like you have.Judith - sounds as though you've got something lined up. I wonder whether it would be worth negotiating some sort of "guarantee" on the lines that if a dish that's installed subsequently doesn't measure up (as Quillan has found) that you only pay say the extra to cover a further increase in size (a sort of trade-in if things don't work out). I would have thought that any pro worth their salt would be happy enough to agree not to leave you with something that subsquently (through no-one's fault) ceases to work. Certainly worth having the conversation. Keep us posted please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 Have to say Martin that as the bigger dishes come with a seperate mounting kit my French installer has had two on 'sale and return' (or whatever they call it|) all he had to pay for was the mounting kit (the trade price in nominal) as it always gets marked etc when you use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gardengirl Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 We were told today that a very large dish was needed, up to 1.5m. Or that the changing the LMB head (haven't a clue what that is!) might help if the dish was already large. We don't have TV, so don't need to look into this, but good luck to those of you who need to mess about changing things to receive programmes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulT Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Any recommendations on a quad LNB - on the basis that it is an important item in the chain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
basquesteve Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 HiI am South of Orthez BBC Sat TV is now gone unless you have a 3 metre dish I use normal internet via an amplifier for radio and Filmon to watch TVSome times Tor browser and ExpatShield come in handySteve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gardian Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Pro tem, we're going to get by using Filmon as per friend's advice.Scratched around for the last 2 days to find an installer - found a very local bloke who speaks English fluently (lived in Canada for 4 yrs) and who understands the 'English requirements' - he has a number of British 2nd home owner clients. He knew that all this was coming, but didn't know when.Anyway, we've ordered a 1m dish, which hopefully will do the job. It'll be 2 wks though, because he's about to go in to hospital for an op.What a lark!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin963 Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 @ Quillan - yes I had a feeling you had come to some sort of agreement with your installer.@ gardian - suggest you try and do something similar, that is to say that if the recommended 1 m dish doesn't do the business that you can upgrade to a 1.2 for just the cost-of-dish difference. I'm not in any way casting aspersions on your installer, he sounds as though he's got things under control, but it would be a sensible protection against any future problems if the signal wobbles around, as we know it does on 2F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 [quote user="PaulT"]Any recommendations on a quad LNB - on the basis that it is an important item in the chain.[/quote]I've just bought one of THESE - works well, no complaints. It arrived in France within 3 days from Germany at reasonable cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillan Posted February 8, 2014 Author Share Posted February 8, 2014 [quote user="PaulT"]Any recommendations on a quad LNB - on the basis that it is an important item in the chain.[/quote]I have read in many places (including this forum) that the 'Inverto Black Ultra' range is very good especially in low power areas and reasonably priced. I have one on my French dish and it certainly pulls in the signal much better than the one that came with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mogs Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 I have lost all channels this morning although it was fine first thing. I'm hoping it's just a weather issue. I'm located near Gourdon, anyone else having problems in this area? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soupagirl Posted February 8, 2014 Share Posted February 8, 2014 Lost all BBC as of Thursday night, we thought it was due to high winds. Himself was on the roof all day yesterday tweaking the satellite but to no avail. then I looked on the forum and found this thread. We are in the Landes, with a 1m dish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now