Advice for rookie, replacement dish, lnbs, etc.

macplaxton

Hi all, New to this stuff and would very much appreciate some wiser eyes to pass comment / help.

Location: Lucan, Co. Dublin.

Problem:

3 groups of people in a house. 2 groups had NTL analogue which finally has been disconnected. 1 group has FTA satellite on Cyfrowy Polsat dish mounted on back wall of house.

Requirements:

1 group retaining Polish FTA / 1 group Polish FTA + UK FTA + Irish / 1 group UK FTA + Irish. No HD requirements (yet).

I've done a bit of searching and think Freeview is a non-starter for being too far inland and too far south. A dish / aerial combo appears to be the best option. One dish with more than one LNB. I think the current dish is pointing at Hotbird 6/7A/8 13E. Working round the planning restrictions, I was thinking about bodging a multi LNB bracket onto the existing dish, but then I thought it would be best to just take it down and get something as large as permitted with a dedicated bracket. I take it that ASTRA 2A-2D 28.2E & Eurobird 1 28.5E would be picked up by 1 LNB? Some would need to be dual output or quads? (Might get a PVR box).

The reason for a barrel of questions is I want to try and buy pretty much everything I need in one hit. So if there's anything I've overlooked or is recommended please add it. Also is it cheaper to buy local or UK?

Thanks

Bozacke

What size is the existing dish? If it's big enough you may just need a multiple LNB Holder(dual), two Quad LNBs and a few DiSEqC Switches (one for each TV) and the wiring. If you do get a DiSEqC Switch, read my warning and power everything off before wiring.

macplaxton

Thanks for the warning.

I'm not sure how big it is, but it appears bigger than the average Sky dish, I will look into it further when I get a chance to get up there with the tape measure.

Bozacke

I'm not too sure what the minimum preferred dish size would be but the main issues are closeness of the Satellites, your location and weather. Since you're in Dublin you may get away with a standard size Sky dish of about 60cm to pickup Hotbird, but you might see some deterioration in bad weather. Also Astra 28 and Hotbird might be too far away from each other to pickup both on a 60cm dish, once you confirm your dish size hopefully someone here can confirm. I have a 80cm dish and I get Hotbird and Astra 28, as well as Astra 19 using a triple LNB holder, with no problems. If each LNB is dual or Quad, each of the LNBs feed to a separate DiseqC switch for each TV in the house.

macplaxton

I reckon it's 80cm, which I think should be enough where I am.

I will look again at the list of bits required. Only just been in the loft testing a crappy €15 B&Q aerial to grab the Irish stations as a stop-gap! Seems to work well enough (17km as the crow flies to Three Rock) with a decent downlead. I'll tidy that up later.

Which dish did you use and which LNB bracket?

Cheers.

Bozacke

Hi,

I have a Lidl's 80cm dish and I bought this bracket for the 3 LNBs:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Multifeed-Trip...QQcmdZViewItem

I read about this holder from another poster on this board at:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054982781&page=17

msg. 245.

Good Luck.