African Satellite World and Sat Gear

Helllo forum!, Here is one thing that I still need to understand about motorizing sat dishes.
[emoji666]️How do you get maximum signal ( or any signal at all) if the motor only changes the azimuth and elevation of your pan??. We all know that LNB skew+ depth are the other key issues during the quest and I'm not sure if a motor deals with those two during it's operation [emoji848].
 
For me the motor only changes elevation because I'm near the equator I'm on straight line I'm using offset dish. freq he can explain on using prime focus
 
Skew:
For most satellites especially ku band have got roughly similar lnb skew requirements. For example lnb skew for 8w, 7w, 4w, 3w, 3e 5e, 7e 16e ku are all roughly similar and mostly you would not need to tweak your skew while jumping from one to another unless the signal is very dim and needs extra tweaking.

For Cband skew is a problem because lnb skew for one sat is often not same as the next. Or even one sat may need biscuit the next may not need it.
Solution to this is to put 2lnbs skewed differently next to each other to meet the unique requirements of those sats.

Luckily on the Eastern arc. 68e, 72e,76e 91.5e use the same skews and do not need biscuits so you can cruise accross using a single lnb..

But if you want to add 57e C or 45e C to that set up, you'll need to fit another LNB with the biscuit inside.

Azimuth/Elevation:

This is the East-West movement of the dish while tracking an imaginary line above the equator where satellites are located.

Now you just need to set your dish to move along this imaginary line for instance while jumping from 7w to 7e.

With cband you will hardly need to adjust your azimuth while switching sats. I used to move from 57e to 91.5 without any problem.
But ku band is quite unforgiving especially fringe sats like 4W. Azimuth setting for 7w will work for 4W but youll have to compromise signal strength for 4W. 7e 5e are ok because the beams are very strong. But by the time you hit 16e, you're completely off. And you will need to adjust elevation (North - South movement from the Equator line)

The solution to this is to use a very large dish 10ft + or use a dual-axis motorized setup which adjusts both Elevation and Azimuth for each sat.

You can also change skew automatically while switching sats. But this is hardly ever necessary and requires complex positioners like this Titanium ASC1 I use. Here the 45° show the LNB skew setting. But I've never used that feature.



And finally if you're going to motorize your set up get a large dish .. 8ft onwards to compensate for misalignments caused by the movement.

But small dishes can also work for short movements eg 7W to 5e
 
Thanks for informative explanation freq, if I got it well; geo location is also a favourable factor as you have said you used to move from 57 to 91.5 without great adjustment of left/right dish position (Azimuth). As for where I'm located (far south) from the equator, it's a different story. The overall dish location for 57 and 91.5 was completely different as it required huge adjustment in Azimuth.
In the picture below,
Dish no. 1, 46e (C) is primary with 36e parasite
Dish no. 2, 16e(ku) is primary (alone).A 30 degree difference and they almost face each other. I couldn't even combine 16e & 36e in one 6t pf (perhaps I need to try more and more).
Dish. No 3 & 4 are 76+72+68 combined and 5e respectively. I'm planning to merge 5e with 16e to save some space.
Still learning guys, I stand to be corrected.
 
freq said:
Stumbled on a bunch of FTA Oga/Hollywood movies, religious , , sports and music channels on 7e probably a package from Ghana.

Can't see them on lyng or flysat

View attachment 1503979View attachment 1503976
Click to expand...
Been watching these for a couple of months via a 5e/7e combo since the persians moved from 52e.Along the same lines,those ASASians who are fond of sat hopping can check out em-en-ex english movies @ABS3w. Can be interesting,though SD.Whereas most of the 'juicy' channels here are usually'service not available',the sat also has 2 mbc's,2 zee tv indian movies and english cartoons/kids channels.Sadly natjio was removed.Both lyngsat and flysat seem to have horribly outdated info for this sat,just like 7e
 
Hello guys,

Can anyone recommend the best satellite receiver that i can buy for freesat?, so far am living in Arusha and new to world of freesat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…