Motorised satellite newbie queries

[the_midfield_enforcer]

Hi all,

I’ve just bought a house and are I’m considering getting a motorised satellite system installed, so have a few newbie queries.

My house currently has a (60cm) dish on the side of the house, and is pointing (I assume) towards 28.2E Astra2/Eurobird 1. I’ve been on Dishpointer and it seems that I have a clear line of sight to Easterly satellites, although due to the positioning of the house and the neighbours, I might not be able to pick any of the Westerly satellites such as Thor or Atlantic Bird (although I do need to double-check this ‘on the ground’).

I’ve already got a Dreambox DM800 and DM600, so will be using that as the receiver. It seems that the Inverto black ultra LNB and SUPERIOR DARK MOTOR METAL GEAR DiSEqC 1.2 / 1.3 USALS | eBay highly recommended, so will probably be buying those.

The main issue is the dish size. The house is very small, therefore don’t want a huge dish on the side of it (and don’t have room in the garden for it), but at the same time want to have one of a size which would make use of the motorised system.
* Would a 60cm dish be a satisfactory size?
* What satellites would I potentially pick up with a 60cm dish (Location: Mid Wales)?

The types of things that I’m looking to pick up is Discovery / History type channels, UK Horse Racing, occasional EPL / Champions League (with or without English commentary), decent boxing and ‘Sky Indie’ type movies.

* If I decide to upgrade from a 60cm to a 80cm dish later, is it easy to do that upgrade (i.e. new brackets etc needed)?
* I’ve seen that you can get transparent dishes. Are these recommended?
* Is there a particular 80cm dish which is recommended?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[kegnkiwi]

The bigger the dish you can get away with the better, I once motorised a sly dish got some good results and also used a very small 39cm dish and even managed to get 1w. With a smaller dish the accuracy of the alignment needs to be spot on or you will not get any slightly weaker sats. Most of the common sats are in the east the only west sats I used to be interested in was 7w with my 1.2m and 30w for tv cabo ect. This is not to say i did not check most the sats now and then. Inverto black ultra and a motor are like the tm2600 is not bad. I'm sure a 60cm dish will get you loads of channels but an 80cm will get more and a 1m will get more than that.

 

[the_midfield_enforcer]

Thanks for the reply.
I've been trying to do some more research and I think that I've confused myself! One other question regarding motorised setup - how does the motor of the motorised bit work and more importantly does it need an electrical installation to power the motor?

I've also been reading about multi (ie Quad) LNB's and got the impression that with a fixed (60cm) dish fitted with a quad LNB that I would be able to pick up more than one satellite. Is that correct?
Also been reading about 'shotgun' wiring. When is it appropriate to use this wiring instead of normal sat co-axial cable?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[Abu Baniaz]

A quad lnb, has 4 outputs but only receives from a single satellite. Purpose is to send to more than one tuner. (sky + has two tuners). You can therefore supply to two dual tuner receivers, or one dual and two singles. An Octo LNB has 8 outputs.

Shotgun wiring is two co-axial wires glued together. The ones used by Sky have a smaller core and some people prefer not to use them and use two proper cables. Their purpose is to provide two feeds from the LNB to one location.

With modern motors, you only need the one coaxial cable from receiver to the motor. The receiver sends a voltage up the able to move the motor. The old motors used to need another 4 core cable to power the motor. Most people do not use this any more as it is adequate for vat majority of people. People still use the 4 core cable when they have very large/heavy dishes which a regular motor cannot cope with.

You can use one dish with several LNBs to receive from different satellites.The cables are connected to a Diseqc switch, one cable goes from the switch to the receiver. The benefit of this is that channel change does not have to wait for the motor to move and you can provide signal to more that one receiver. With a motor you can only send one cable to a receiver.

 

[the_midfield_enforcer]

Thanks for the reply.

I think that I now have even more questions!

A quad lnb, has 4 outputs but only receives from a single satellite. Purpose is to send to more than one tuner. (sky + has two tuners). You can therefore supply to two dual tuner receivers, or one dual and two singles. An Octo LNB has 8 outputs..

Does the ‘size’ of the LNB really affect anything? Does having a quad or an Octo LNB reduce the signal compared to a single LNB?

Shotgun wiring is two co-axial wires glued together. The ones used by Sky have a smaller core and some people prefer not to use them and use two proper cables. Their purpose is to provide two feeds from the LNB to one location.

So if you run two co-axial cables instead of a shotgun cable, does this use up two connectors on the LNB as opposed to one? So if your on a new install, is it a new-brainer to use shotgun cable?

Does the quality of shotgun cable vary? Anyone care to recommend a good quality manufacturer of shotgun cable?


With modern motors, you only need the one coaxial cable from receiver to the motor. The receiver sends a voltage up the able to move the motor. The old motors used to need another 4 core cable to power the motor. Most people do not use this any more as it is adequate for vat majority of people. People still use the 4 core cable when they have very large/heavy dishes which a regular motor cannot cope with.

You can use one dish with several LNBs to receive from different satellites.The cables are connected to a Diseqc switch, one cable goes from the switch to the receiver. .

So if you have a motorised satellite with STB’s in different rooms, and change the satellite that the dish is pointing to, does this change the channels that everyone else in the house is watching? i.e. I can want to watch football on 10e whilst the Mrs watches Eastenders on 28.2e?

One last question; are there different dishes depending on whether it is for a motorised or fixed setup?

Thanks everyone for the continued assistance!

 

[mdt]

Thanks for the reply.

I think that I now have even more questions!



Does the ‘size’ of the LNB really affect anything? Does having a quad or an Octo LNB reduce the signal compared to a single LNB?


So if you run two co-axial cables instead of a shotgun cable, does this use up two connectors on the LNB as opposed to one? So if your on a new install, is it a new-brainer to use shotgun cable?

Does the quality of shotgun cable vary? Anyone care to recommend a good quality manufacturer of shotgun cable?


With modern motors, you only need the one coaxial cable from receiver to the motor. The receiver sends a voltage up the able to move the motor. The old motors used to need another 4 core cable to power the motor. Most people do not use this any more as it is adequate for vat majority of people. People still use the 4 core cable when they have very large/heavy dishes which a regular motor cannot cope with.


So if you have a motorised satellite with STB’s in different rooms, and change the satellite that the dish is pointing to, does this change the channels that everyone else in the house is watching? i.e. I can want to watch football on 10e whilst the Mrs watches Eastenders on 28.2e?

One last question; are there different dishes depending on whether it is for a motorised or fixed setup?

Thanks everyone for the continued assistance!

1. no although multi port twin/quad/octo lnb,s can have slight variances
2. both methods use 2 connections.. shotgun is a easir/cheaper method used mainly by s*y installers
3. yes like anything else. standard rg6 will suffice for a normal run but quality cable is made by webro/triax
4. a motorised dish can only point at 1 satellite so with a twin/quad all stb,s view from the same satellite its pointing at. if you require truly independent multi-room a multi-lnb set up with twin/quad lnb,s is needed or a motorised as main and multi-lnb/[email protected] ect
5. no although larger dishes are usually used for motorised whereas 45cm to 90cm generally for fixed although of course you can use any sized fixed dish you want within planning laws/line of sight/structural safety


regards mdt

 

[the_midfield_enforcer]

Thanks for reply.

4. a motorised dish can only point at 1 satellite so with a twin/quad all stb,s view from the same satellite its pointing at. if you require truly independent multi-room a multi-lnb set up with twin/quad lnb,s is needed or a motorised as main and multi-lnb/[email protected] ect

One (hopefully) last question - So a quad LNB allows you to run four different cables to different parts to different parts of the house allowing different STB's to watch different channels from the same satellite, but what does a quattro LNB with a multiswitch do?

 

[dannydariel]

when you say multiswitch, what are the present signal you will like to switch?

 

[Abu Baniaz]

Thanks for reply.


One (hopefully) last question - So a quad LNB allows you to run four different cables to different parts to different parts of the house allowing different STB's to watch different channels from the same satellite, but what does a quattro LNB with a multiswitch do?

There are four polarisations that the LNB receives signal from. Low, High, Horizontal and Vertical.
With a normal LNB, the receiver sends a voltage to tell the LNB which one to go to. You can only use one polarisation at a time on each output. You can have a single, twin, guad or octo LNB.

With a quattro LNB, it receives all four polarisations, there are only 4 outputs. These are then sent to the multi switch. The switch can now send to as many receivers as there are output ports. There will be no direct cable between LNB and receiver.

 

[the_midfield_enforcer]

You got a bit too technical for me there!

I suppose what I'm asking is that for a fixed dish where I want to have satelite in many different rooms (up to 7 rooms), which has separate STB's, with the full range of channels on freesat and each person watching a different channel, which is 'better' - a quad (or an octo) or a quattro and a switch?

 

[Abu Baniaz]

Both options are viable. Octo or quatttro plus switch. It depends on your cable runs, locations and also what other works you have going on in your place.

If you are gutting your place and are running network cables to a single place, the I would say put a quattro and switch. Oh yes, you can also add an aerial feed to the switch.

If there is no major work going on and it is easier to run cables from a dish to all seven rooms then go for the octo.

 

[headwest]

If you are thinking of using any boxes with proper pvr then you will need 2 feeds to each box making your total more than 8 so you would need a multiswitch and a quattro. If using a quattro don't use a sky zone 1 dish go bigger to max c/n.