Can Hotbird be received with a 6M dish?

Zaphod · 31-10-2005 2:44pm #1

In Sri Lanka??
http://216.239.39.104/translate_c?&u=http://board.satbook.de/wbb/thread.php%3Fthreadid%3D2031%26threadview%3D0%26hilight%3D%26hilightuser%3D0%26sid%3D0fcd22b99f031c63922a1091e883b5bb%26page%3D2

L1011 · 31-10-2005 2:59pm

Well, theres the old story of "a mate of a mate of a bloke my installer met down the pub" posted on DigitalSpy about a Brazilian getting Astra 1 on a -9- meter dish....

Zaphod · 31-10-2005 3:47pm

That would be Herr Schumacher with his 8M. He happens to own a ceramics factory which was handy for the reflector panels. His work was covered in an old issue of Tele-satellite. If I can find it, I'll scan it and post it.

Zaphod · 31-10-2005 3:54pm

You can download the German language version with pics of the TSI article here.
http://board.ump2002.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=3309&sid=4f97b5b07815c255d35f354c2b5d40fd

L1011 · 31-10-2005 4:12pm

I can cope with German, danke.

Sponge Bob · 31-10-2005 6:00pm

The pictures are enough, what a simply monstrous dish

philologos · 31-10-2005 6:16pm

**** that thing is ****ing huge :eek:

watty · 31-10-2005 7:45pm

But I think maybe 6m not in Sri Lanka.
Perhaps Iraq, Iran.

Also POINTING a 6m dish is not trivial. It may even need a motor to drive elevation up/down over 24 hrs as all satellites have a very slight inclination (does not matter even on 2m dish). The bigger the dish the narrower the "beam"

Gain for 6m dish at 11.7GHz is 56dB (74% efficient assumed)
Gain for 60cm dish at 11.7GHz is 34.5 dB (65% efficent assumed)

Thus about 21dB gain compared with dish for normal footprint.

I think you find Sri Lanka more than 21dB off the footprint...

Zaphod · 31-10-2005 9:39pm

If you read down through the threads, there's a link to another forum where reception of the Hotbird widebeam on a 12ft mesh dish is reported in Southern India, so they should have a fair chance with a 6M solid.

The dish appears to have dual-axis control. If you examine the 6th photo down (of the back of the dish) you can clearly see an actuator to control elevation. In the 13th photo there looks to be an azimuth motor, although the cables seem very thin for a motor that has to shift a dish that big.

lawhec · 31-10-2005 10:50pm

Eutelsat several years ago said that it was possible to receive Hot Bird 1 in Bombay with a 4.5m dish so I guess that something would be possible.

Also I remember seeing a photo of a German ex-pat in Nigeria who had a 12 metre dish to receive Astra 1 signals near the equator - and still complained that rain killed his signal! :eek:

As the link already shows, it is possible to recieve (for those hardcore enough) Astra 1 analogue signals in parts of South America, I remember hearing of an English ex-pat in Argentina who was able to was Sky News from the satellite!

Zaphod · 01-11-2005 12:28am

http://www.dxandy.de/afrika.htm

Zaphod · 01-11-2005 10:30pm

Xvid videos of one guy's dish farm in American Samoa, including his 7M dish which has a trapdoor to enable walk-on access to the LNB/F! (Posted on the Australian Vetrun sat forum.)

HQ 256MB AVI.
http://www.vetrun.com/downloads/samoa.avi

LQ 100MB AVI.
http://www.vetrun.com/downloads/samoasmall.avi

Zaphod · 09-11-2005 1:45pm

Scan of the english language version of the Tele-satellite article on the Brazilian 8M dish:
http://members.boards.ie/zaphod/schub1.jpg
http://members.boards.ie/zaphod/schub2.jpg

A previous article on the same dish with some additional info:
http://members.boards.ie/zaphod/schu1a.jpg
http://members.boards.ie/zaphod/schu2.jpg

Article on Hotbird reception in Nigeria with a concrete 9M dish:
http://members.boards.ie/zaphod/1nigeria.jpg
http://members.boards.ie/zaphod/2nigeria.jpg

Ronan|Raven · 09-11-2005 5:01pm

Now that is improvisation. Be interesting to see the neighbours if one was to plonk that beauty on the lawn..

Mossy Monk · 09-11-2005 5:28pm

maybe Directv in the states is possible

watty · 09-11-2005 8:12pm

Not even the big dish Nr. Cork City (Middleton?) would get Direc TV. Beam wrong way and Sat too far west.

C Band, maybe some USA stuff as it illuminates nearly 1/2 the planet, 1/3rd anyway.

What about an array of 90cm dishes?

jmcc · 10-11-2005 1:37pm

Actually it can be possible. It is the side lobe effect. I remember Steve Birkill writing about it in an issue of Orbit [1] (around 15-20 years ago). The article had some examples and and footprint maps with transponder sidelobes. Some of them showed that, theoretically at least,, some European satellites boresighted on Europe can often be picked up far outside the target areas on sidelobe.

Regards...jmcc
[1] One of the satellite mags that was among the first to carry satellite TV schedules that was mainly read by techies.

jmcc · 10-11-2005 1:42pm

watty wrote:

Not even the big dish Nr. Cork City (Middleton?) would get Direc TV. Beam wrong way and Sat too far west.

C Band, maybe some USA stuff as it illuminates nearly 1/2 the planet, 1/3rd anyway.

What about an array of 90cm dishes?

Well the phasing harness was always the biggest source of loss for a phased antenna array. (Again some ops in South America outside the main US footprint used to use phased arrays of smaller antennas to pull in a usable signal. The C-Band losses would be less than Ku and it might be an interesting experiment. The big problem though would the the visibility of the satellite because it would be rather low on the horizon.

Regards...jmcc

lawhec · 10-11-2005 6:53pm

watty wrote:

Not even the big dish Nr. Cork City (Middleton?) would get Direc TV. Beam wrong way and Sat too far west.

C Band, maybe some USA stuff as it illuminates nearly 1/2 the planet, 1/3rd anyway.

What about an array of 90cm dishes?

Watty, I remember hearing an unconfirmed report of someone in Tenerife receiving some of the DirecTV channels at 65 west on a 2.4 metre dish (and someone in Iceland with a 4 metre dish) so I suppose someone with a clear western view and a big enough dish just "might" do it.

In part of Eastern England, especially in the south-east, reception from satellite as far as 70 east is possible though at such low elevation angles is more subject to rain-fade.

Zaphod · 10-11-2005 10:10pm

There's a guy based in the UK on the satellites.co.uk forum who has received analog C-Band TV from AMC6 72West by way of a 4.2M dish and threshold extension.

Zaphod · 14-07-2007 4:42pm

More on Herr Schumacher's dish in Portuguese.

EricM · 20-07-2007 12:12am

Zaphod wrote:

You can download the German language version with pics of the TSI article here.
http://board.ump2002.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=3309&sid=4f97b5b07815c255d35f354c2b5d40fd

lol he has that huge dish but only a 14" tv

Can Hotbird be received with a 6M dish?

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