c band dish - ABA DSS

eddieblue · September 26th, 2009

i think i know where i can get an old c band dish it looks about 6 or 8 feet my ? is do i have to have special equip or can i use it with my ku recievers can i put a linear lnb on it if so due to its size can i recieve more than one sat at a time

**MgGibson2** · September 26th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by eddieblue

i think i know where i can get an old c band dish it looks about 6 or 8 feet my ? is do i have to have special equip or can i use it with my ku recievers can i put a linear lnb on it if so due to its size can i recieve more than one sat at a time

That dish would be great....your current receiver is disigned for C & ku just scroll down the sat list and find the C band sats...you will want to Leave the C band lnb intack.... only one sat at a time...but with a motor hooked up you will be all set (most stbs have programming for motor)

I just placed an ad in the local classifieds yesterday for anyone wanting to give away there old C band 6ft-8ft. dish...(hopefully I will get a call to come pick one up myself) That is the way to go for true FTA right now....

**bill of oz** · September 26th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by MgGibson2

but with a motor hooked up you will be all set (most stbs have programming for motor)

most FTA receivers will only power diseqc operated motors which have a maximum dish size of 1.2M.....very few FTA receivers will power and move a c-band dish.....you need an external power source/supply in most cases.....

to the original poster....would be best if you got a combo lnb linear/c-band

HyperMegaSat · October 6th, 2009

Defenitely get that C Band dish if you can. There is a lot on C Band, including HD content.

Now as far as moving a BUD with an FTA receiver, any FTA receiver will handle it just fine but you need a V Box 6 positioner/controller.

The BUDs use 24 or 36 Volt actuators to move the dish and the V Box 6 is made to do this either with your FTA receiver or as a stand alone positioner.

You can also replace the LNB on your BUD with something like the BSC621 or DMX741 C/Ku LNB. Now you can get C Band and Ku Band on your big dish.

Here's a link to the V Box 6 with more info

hxxp://www.hypermegasat.com/v_box_6.htm

Check it out. With a few items like the V Box, a C/Ku LNB, a new actuator if you need one, and a FTA receiver you can get every sat in the sky.

zilog80 · October 24th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by HyperMegaSat

Defenitely get that C Band dish if you can. There is a lot on C Band, including HD content.

I agree. I am still using my 10 foot mesh dish (now called a BUD - Big Ugly Dish). I do it a little bit differently though.

I use my old tried and true c-band receiver (not even an IRD type) to power the LNB with the old Shapparele feed horn still on it. The receiver actually does two things. One, it powers the LNB and two, it controls the "polarotor." That is the device that controls the polarity of the LNB using a mechanical rotator located in the feedhorn. So, in short, my old c-band installation was left totally intact. The drive for the actuator was always a standalone power supply with built in limits and digital tracking.

So with those two boxes I get to look at the entire spectrum of c-band satellites up there.

Next I needed to get the l-band signals to my IRD. I am using a Pansat 2700A for this part. What I made was a DC current blocker and inserted it in the coax feed from the c-band receiver to the LNB. To make that, I gutted a TV splitter. Soldered a direct link (piece of wire) from the input F-connector to one of the output F-connectors. Then soldered a 10pf capacitor from the input F-connector to the other output F-connector. Mark the outside with a line to remind you wich side is the DC side. (Connect that to the c-band LNB and the capacitor side to the Pansat.)

This allows my old receiver to power the LNB and split off the signals it sees to the Pansat without and conflict between the two.

There are many ways to skin the cat but this method worked well with the stuff I had on hand.

Next I set up the Pansat to use a 5150 L/O frequency and named the user satellite c-band.

Now little paper work was neded. Using the bar indicator ont he old c-band receiver to tell me where the singals were (and in gaps where there was no indication I just did blind scans) I started scanning the skies. Each time I would move the dish about 2 degress and scan again. I did this over several nights. When channels were found (and there are tons of them!) Inoted the positioner indication so I could find my way back. Since the old LNB had no electronic polarity control I did each scan twice, once for vertical and once for horizontal.

Now this may seem like a lot of effort but that is waht "Testing" is all about. It is the chase not the capture!

The reward in this case was at least 200 hundred channels, some in HD which I now feed to my nfusion, but many just open FTA channels. I get most of the networks that feed Alaska and Hawaii.

The first signals I received were from 72 degrees west and there I found 8 digital channels from NASA. They also have an HD channel there but I have not seen it yet.

One more thing to try. I also mounted a standard LNBF on the side of the c-band feedhorn and fed that directly to the IRD. Now a couple of things here. The c-band dish is a true parabolic dish with a focal point where the feedhorn is. It is not really intended for multiple LNB's attached to it simply because the focal point diminishes once you are out past the normal (old style) feed horn. (The small dishes we use are spherical reflectors, a small piece of a sphere. They work fine with multiple LNB's becasue they act like a bent mirror. Not a parabolic.) But there is enough signal there to make use of with todays low noise amplifiers. The draw back is the offset focal point and the fact that the current LNBF's probably do no "illuminate" the big dish enteirely. (they don't see siganls off the dish as much as the old c-band feedhorns would.) Now you can scan the entire satellite belt, visible in your area with the big dish. So, this means you can receive all the 3chostar satellites, B3V, and a hockey sock full of others!

So good luck with it and hope this helps in the chase.
Z

**painterguy14** · October 24th, 2009

Hello & Welcome to Aba!!!!! Thanks for sharing your info with us

Quote:

Originally Posted by zilog80

I agree. I am still using my 10 foot mesh dish (now called a BUD - Big Ugly Dish). I do it a little bit differently though.

I use my old tried and true c-band receiver (not even an IRD type) to power the LNB with the old Shapparele feed horn still on it. The receiver actually does two things. One, it powers the LNB and two, it controls the "polarotor." That is the device that controls the polarity of the LNB using a mechanical rotator located in the feedhorn. So, in short, my old c-band installation was left totally intact. The drive for the actuator was always a standalone power supply with built in limits and digital tracking.

So with those two boxes I get to look at the entire spectrum of c-band satellites up there.

Next I needed to get the l-band signals to my IRD. I am using a Pansat 2700A for this part. What I made was a DC current blocker and inserted it in the coax feed from the c-band receiver to the LNB. To make that, I gutted a TV splitter. Soldered a direct link (piece of wire) from the input F-connector to one of the output F-connectors. Then soldered a 10pf capacitor from the input F-connector to the other output F-connector. Mark the outside with a line to remind you wich side is the DC side. (Connect that to the c-band LNB and the capacitor side to the Pansat.)

This allows my old receiver to power the LNB and split off the signals it sees to the Pansat without and conflict between the two.

There are many ways to skin the cat but this method worked well with the stuff I had on hand.

Next I set up the Pansat to use a 5150 L/O frequency and named the user satellite c-band.

Now little paper work was neded. Using the bar indicator ont he old c-band receiver to tell me where the singals were (and in gaps where there was no indication I just did blind scans) I started scanning the skies. Each time I would move the dish about 2 degress and scan again. I did this over several nights. When channels were found (and there are tons of them!) Inoted the positioner indication so I could find my way back. Since the old LNB had no electronic polarity control I did each scan twice, once for vertical and once for horizontal.

Now this may seem like a lot of effort but that is waht "Testing" is all about. It is the chase not the capture!

The reward in this case was at least 200 hundred channels, some in HD which I now feed to my nfusion, but many just open FTA channels. I get most of the networks that feed Alaska and Hawaii.

The first signals I received were from 72 degrees west and there I found 8 digital channels from NASA. They also have an HD channel there but I have not seen it yet.

One more thing to try. I also mounted a standard LNBF on the side of the c-band feedhorn and fed that directly to the IRD. Now a couple of things here. The c-band dish is a true parabolic dish with a focal point where the feedhorn is. It is not really intended for multiple LNB's attached to it simply because the focal point diminishes once you are out past the normal (old style) feed horn. (The small dishes we use are spherical reflectors, a small piece of a sphere. They work fine with multiple LNB's becasue they act like a bent mirror. Not a parabolic.) But there is enough signal there to make use of with todays low noise amplifiers. The draw back is the offset focal point and the fact that the current LNBF's probably do no "illuminate" the big dish enteirely. (they don't see siganls off the dish as much as the old c-band feedhorns would.) Now you can scan the entire satellite belt, visible in your area with the big dish. So, this means you can receive all the 3chostar satellites, B3V, and a hockey sock full of others!

So good luck with it and hope this helps in the chase.
Z