Zone 1 Sky dish in Waterford City?

Kotek Besar

Will this work? I'd rather not have to put a zone 2 dish up, for aesthetic reasons mainly (have little option but to put the dish slap bang on the front of the house).

I was in Wales the past couple of days, they use zone 1 all over there - even in the far West, like in Fishguard, for example. Waterford is only 100 miles West of Fishguard.

Any thoughts?

They work perfectly well in Arklow if thats any help.
I'd imagine,they are the first to lose signal though in a downpour-even in fishguard.

Kotek Besar

Thanks man! I'd say if they work in Arklow they'd work in Waterford city. Does bad weather really have a detrimental effect though?

watty

yes.

It's almost stupidity.

Fit a 55cm Solid Dish at least if you don't want breakup and artifacts during heavy rain.

Sky always do the minimum.

A solid 55cm 60cm dish is better than Sky's mesh dishes and will last longer.

You can put the dish on rear of house on a pole, elevation is about 22 degrees, so with bottom of dish a few cm above the gutter it will "see" over the roof.

You ar'n't allowed a dish on the front of the house, but there is little aesthetic difference between a Sky Zone1 or Zone2 dish. A non-Sky solid dish painted colour of choice to blend in is better anyway.

John mac

there are quite a few zone 1 dishes around Foxford (9 degrees west).

dont know what the reception is like though.:D

Kotek Besar

Foxford, Co Mayo? Wow - that's interesting.

I found this:


If it's accurate, it indicates that a 50cm dish is suitable for all over the British isles, save, perhaps, the very far South West tip of Ireland and the Shetland isles. In which case, it's quite logical that a 43cm Sky zone 1 dish might work perfectly well in Waterford City.

I'd like to know from anyone who is using a Sky zone 1 dish in WC, how it performs in practise.

snaps

I know people that use those camping 40cm dishes here in Ballinrobe, Mayo but they have serious signal loss in bad weather.

watty

There is more than one beam. Only Astra2D is OK on 45cm

but you will lose some other beams, esp. the Eurobird beam.

Don't spoil ship for sake of saving a few inches.

Real signal levels can be up to 6db lower than the Contours here. These contours illustrate an absolute maximum possible power with perfect clear sky, full uplink power, 100% performance of transponders and batteries.

Signal contours assume transponders are driven full power, many are not as this is more costly.
Signal contours assume clear sky.
Cloud even without rain can lower gain by 6dB as can high level Ice Crystals

With age the maximum power of the Transmitters (Transponders) drops by at least 3dB. With age the batteries may not be so good in the dark and power maybe reduced when the satellite eclipsed once a night with aging.

The "link budget" also varies with Symbol rate and FEC. Higher Symbol Rate or Lower FEC needs more dish (more signal) for same power.
Astra 2D is all SR 22000 @ FEC 5/6
Eurobird is all SR 27000 @ FEC 2/3
So for SAME power received Eurobird needs bigger dish

For Astra 2B recommended sizes are
52dBW 45-50cm
50dBW 50-60cm
49dBW 55-65cm


Eurobird (worst)


Astra 2A (North & South)



Astra2B North & South



Astra2D (Best)