Fortec 1.8 Meter Ku Dish Installation

[el bandido]

I am looking to get a bit more signal from the satellites that are located below 61.0 West. My Geosat 1.2 meter dish does a good job of getting these satellites with the upgrades that I have done to it, but I still have some picture break-ups in the rain on the satellites that are low on my horizon. A Real dish gain of about 3db and a narrower beam-width would probably give me a decent satellite signal except in heavy rains so I decided to try an old 1.8 meter Fortec dish and see if it will perform better than my upgraded 1.2 meter Geosat dish.

The Fortec 1.8 meter dish was installed with a feed holder that is designed for Ku lnbs. Some base tests were done using a prime focus lnb from DMSI (BSC321SP) and an offset Avenger PLL lnb (321S-2). Results from the tests of these two lnbs have been discouraging. At best, I have been able to Almost equal the signal on the 1.8 meter dish that the Geosat 1.2 meter dish can produce. The Q signal increased by several points when I swapped the prime focus lnb for the Avenger PLL lnb but picture break-up and pixelation increased by a noticeable amount with the Avenger PLL lnb installed.

An Inverto lnb with a C120 flange has been ordered and I will install it with an adjustable feedhorn from Invacom. It will be interesting to see if these two parts make any noticeable difference in the strength of the satellite signals. EB

[rrob311]

I have similar problems with my 3' Ku systems. I would like to find a 4' dish maybe. I lose weaker transponders on 91w and 97W in the rain and it's a drag.(especially since it rains up here often) I can't wait to see what kind of gains you get with this EB.

[el bandido]

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I think of the dish antenna as a flat circle. IMO, you do not get a much stronger satellite signal unless the surface area of the circle is at least doubled. Look in the above link and enter 3 as the circle diameter, make a mental note of the area, then enter 4 as the circle diameter. The area of a 4 foot circle is not double the area of a 3 foot circle. So you probably would not notice much signal difference between a well designed 3 and 4 foot dish.

[Costactc]

Looking forward to your results EB with the invacom and feed horn. Just curious as to which lnb you ordered? I have noticed a major increase with mine on my 2.4m Fortec solid since I swapped it out with jsc-322.

[el bandido]

There are only two Ku universal lnbs that I have found with a C120 flange. I already have the Invacom quad on my 1.2 meter dish, so I ordered the Inverto Quad for the 1.8 meter dish. The Inverto quad lnb is coming from the UK and may be here sometime this week.

[Costactc]

Just went on the inverto web site but couldn't find the quad flange only the twin, any links?

[el bandido]

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[Costactc]

Thanks EB but this is the message I get with the link:

This listing () has been removed, or this item is not available.


You must have got the last one.

[el bandido]

The link works for me and the listing is active.
Go to Ebay and enter "Inverto QUAD C120 Universal LNB 0.3db HD Ready LMB Sat" as your search.

[rrob311]

Did you get any increase with this setup eb?

[el bandido]

No increase to date! Only losses.
Summertime chores have taken over my satellite time but I am starting to work with dishes and lnbs a bit. I do not know if my 6ft. Fortec Star has issues or if it is just a poor design because right now it does perform even equal to my 1.2 meter Geosat offset dish.
One thing to remember: My Geosat 1.2 meter dish has a professional feedhorn installed on it. The Fortec has an adjustable feed on it but it is not made to the same standard as the Geosat's feedhorn. Still I had expected the bigger dish to perform better, even if the smaller dish had a feedhorn advantage.

[el bandido]

Success!

I finally got the 1.8 meter dish tweaked and tuned for the ku band. My arc track is from 15W to above 125W. Overall average signal quality has increased a couple of points over my 1.2 meter dish, and gains of 1.5db SNR over the 1.2 meter dish are also common.
The 1.8 meter dish is performing at a level that I more or less expected. My 1.2 and 1.8 meter dishes are non-commercial. They will not have the quality or performance that can be expected from a commercial dish with a matched lnb and feed horn. EB

[rrob311]

Do you have some more pictures of your setup? I have a 6' WSI dish that I haven't setup and would like to do something similar for Ku. What kind of feedhorn can I use? I already have the same lnb. Are you using an 18" actuator?

[el bandido]

My 1.8 meter actuator should be an 18 inch, but it has not been measured. I would be surprised if it was anything else than an 18.
Invacom makes an adjustable feed horn for a ku prime focus dish. This feed horn has been available on Ebay at other places.
I will post some pictures as time permits. I do not have any available right now.

[rrob311]

Is the feedhorn that you purchased the same as the ADF-120? I would like to utilize my 6' dish with a similar setup to try and get 30w.

[el bandido]

ADF-120 Is the correct invacom part number and is the feed horn that I am using.

[el bandido]

Attached are a few pictures of my completed 1.8 meter Fortec dish. I have three open ports on the lnb that will be used for other receivers at a later time. These ports are open right now so plugs or caps need to be put on them so the ports do not go bad and compromise the lnb.

I have seen numerous claims about how long neck lnbs are supposed to help improve some kind of adjustment on your satellite dish. Some writings have suggested that you can use a long neck lnb to adjust the beamwidth (F/D) of the lnb to match your dish which is about impossible with a one piece lnb.
There is one lnb company that tells the truth. Here is a quote from Inverto about their long neck lnb.

The Extend TM range was specifically designed to address the need to support multi-LNB
installations on a single dish antenna.
The long neck allows greater flexibility in positioning the LNBs next to each other enabling
access to satellites typically too close in their orbital position to be received with standard
neck LNBs. Manufactured to the highest industry quality standards and designed to meet
strict specifications, this LNB is an ideal solution for the satellite broadcast reception across
Europe.


Look at the attached pictures, and you will see where lnb feed support arms have two possible bolt holes for mounting the feed. I tried both of them and ended up using the second bolt hole. Moving the neck of the lnb in and out would change the signal by a noticeable amount when the feed was in the first set of bolt holes. The position of the lnb neck became less important, with the maximum signal being found at the bottom of the lnb neck with the feed set correctly in the second set of bolt holes.

The Invacom ADF-120 is an adjustable feedhorn. The lnb can be set to illuminate the whole dish without seeing the earth behind the dish by screwing the scalar ring in or out the lnb tube or waveguide. The scalar is almost screwed all the way off the lnb tube on my Fortec 1.8 meter dish. This is where the lnb seems to work the best so I plan to leave it as seen in the pictures.

I am not a fan of installing inline amplifiers such as the Eagle Aspen SA-2050+ 2150 MHz In-Line Amplifiers unless the cable length between the lnb and the receiver is over 200-250 feet. Most fta lnb's already have a line amplifier built into them so adding another line amplifier in a short run of coax will probably not do anything except to drive the noise floor up.

The 1.8 meter dish is currently being fed with a length of decent grade RG11, then split using a diseqc switch with about 30 feet of cheap RG6. At least one future run from the receiver to the 1.8 meter lnb will be all RG11. I like the bigger coax, and feel that it holds up better over a period time as compared to a cheap grade of RG6. EB

[el bandido]

The comparison of received satellite signals between the 1.2 meter offset dish with the Raven feedhorn and the 1.8 meter dish with the Invacom ADF-120 feedhorn will continue. Below are some Android signal meter screenshots of a couple of channels at 87West.

Here is the screenshot of the 1.8 meter dish on LPBHD
5777

And the 1.2 meter dish on LPBHD.
5778

Not much difference between those two.

Now for the Telemundo channel on the same satellite.

Here is the 1.8 meter screenshot.
5779

Now the 1.2 meter screenshot.
5780



All of these screenshots were taken in the shortest time period possible. Neither dish was moved during these shots and the night sky was fairly clear. EB

[rrob311]

What program are you using to measure the signal?

[el bandido]

PKT Enigma 2 firmware with E2 Android Signal Meter. This system works very good for making dish/lnb adjustments without having to connect or disconnect anything.

[el bandido]

I got my first DX satellite with the 1.8 meter dish in the form of Simón Bolívar at 78W. I was making notes where the satellites are in relation to the actuator numbers and ran into the 78W satellite by accident. Several transponders were scanned on this satellite, and i actually watched TVO for a few minutes. This satellite has no signal this afternoon, but I expect it to be back when conditions are at the best such as early in the AM. Below is a screenshot that I took of some scanned transponders when I first found 78W.
I was able to get 78W with a reduced signal on the 1.2 meter dish but I also got several transponders from 77W when I did a blindscan. This did not happen on the 1.8 meter dish which is to be expected because the signal beam narrows as the dish increases in size. A narrow beam usually means a stronger signal, but it also means the dish has to be aimed more precisely.

5786

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[el bandido]

Listed below are a few notes containing positioner counts, satellite degrees, and transponder information. The 1.8m dish has a slight improvement over the 1.2 meter dish until I get to the outer ends of the satellite arc. I will attempt to make some improvements to the satellite arc ends as time permits.

600 125W
615 123W 8.4db 11769V 3361
634 121W 13.9db 11989H 2939 <---> EchoStar Slate Channel
678 116.8W 6.0db 12060V 3062
698 115W 10.0db 12042V 1562
718 113W 10.0db 11992H 10799
735 111W 11.1db 11864V 5000
796 105W 10.0db 12122V 999 <---> EchoStar Slate Channel
815 103W 11.7db 11834H 30000
832 101W 14.9db 12120V 30000
849 99W 14.1db 11800H 30000
868 97W 14.9db 11928V 21999
885 95W 14.9db 11780H 20760
900 93W 14.9db 12002V 2219
936 89W 14.9db 11798V 26659
956 87W 17.4db LPBHD
970 85W 13.9db
987 83W 13.2db RTV
068 72W
107 67W 14.9db
133 ??? 11668H 4999
147 61W
159 58W 9.5 db
173 55.5W 9.0 db
187 53W
203 50W
227 45W
257 ???
267 34.5W
281 30W
312 15W

[el bandido]

I get the db signals using an E2 firmware. I prefer the SNR db signal over the more popular Q signal for a couple of reasons.
The receiver's Q signal is not referenced to any known value. Some receivers will display 100 percent Q signal which makes peaking the dish difficult.
The E2 SNR db signal does not have an upper limit that I know of, so you do not have to worry about hitting a limit when peaking the dish.
E2 also has a couple of free apps for Android phones. These apps make it easy to adjust the dish without having to connect or disconnect anything.


The strength of receiver's Level or S signal does not mean much. The S signal may fluctuate some when you get close to a transponder. Different lnbs may also produce a higher or lower S signal. A damaged lnb may produce a low S signal or no S signal at all. About the only thing the S signal reading does for me is it tells me the lnb is connected to the receiver. EB

5808

[el bandido]

I have finally finished the dish alignment and declination adjustments. The 1.8 meter dish tracks well from 15W to 125W. Listed below are the completed set of notes for the Fortec 1.8M dish.



585 125W 13.4db 12154H 6250
608 123W 10.4db 11769V 3361
628 121W 14.7db 11989H 2939 <---> EchoStar Slate Channel
670 116.8W 7.7db 12060V 3062
687 115W 14.1db 12042V 1562
706 113W 11.1db 11992H 10799
725 111.1W 12.7db 11864V 5000
785 105W 14.1db 12122V 999 <---> EchoStar Slate Channel
805 103W 12.0db 11834H 30000
816 101W 14.9db 12120V 30000
840 99W 14.4db 11800H 30000
858 97W 14.9db 11928V 21999
877 95W 14.9db 11780H 20760
893 93.1W 10.0db 11901H 5800 DVB-S2
915 91W 14.9db 12010V 11574
936 89W 14.9db 11798V 26659
947 87W 17.4db LPBHD
965 85W 13.2db 12195H 3978
980 83W 13.8db 11734H 4439
16 78W DX 11513V 3099 (TVO)
54 72W 13.2db 12053V 6890
88 67W 14.9db 11923V 28887
118 ??? DX 11668H 4999
132 61W
148 58W 9.5 db 12061V 30000
162 55.5W 9.0 db 11154H 23298 8-Sep
176 53W 14.9db 12138H 3111 8-Sep
192 50W 17.5db 11170V 27901 8-Sep
216 45W 14.3db 11608H 1852 RASDTV
252 ??? DX 11533H 1400
260 34.5W 7.7db 11594H 30000 DVB-S2
277 30W 14.9db 11879V 27499
295 22W 6.0db 12076H 5631 DVB-S2 9/8/2013
309 15W 11.7db 11857H 45000

[eastof111]

Looks like you have great coverage there EB!

[ViP3R]

Very nice bro !!!

[rrob311]

EB I am interested to see what the performance of this setup is on the news feed transponders on 103w or 91w. Many are in the 4000 sr range. I have always had trouble receiving them with my 39" Ku dishes.

[el bandido]

Almost everything I watch on the ku band is received using a Geosat 1.2 meter dish. I do not find much difference in signal strength between the 1.2 meter dish and the 1.8 meter dish on the ku band. These are cheap dishes, so they will not perform as well as commercial dishes.

The transponders you are wanting are much weaker than the strong transponders on these satellites. Try to get a 1.8 meter dish if possible, but a decent 1.2 meter dish with a good lnb and feed horn will probably work for you.

If you have one of those cheap pll lnbs on your current dish, then you may want to try a dro lnb. Those cheap pll lnbs do not work as well as most sellers claim they do.

[Costactc]

I have to totally agree with EB on 2 points. First, my commercial Channel Master 1.2m dish puts my 1.2m Fortec to shame and also I'm using my go to dro Invacom lnbs on both my 1.2m ku setups.

[rrob311]

Are the dishes that you both are talking about offset? I have been looking for a better offset one but haven't found any.

[el bandido]

Yes. Offset.

In general or in most instances, any satellite dish 1.2 meters and smaller will be offset. Anything larger than 1.2 meters will be prime focus in design.

[rrob311]

I have nothing but cheap lnbs for all of my offset dishes. If there is one that is much better I would be interested in upgrading.

[el bandido]

I doubt you see much difference in offset ku lnbs, no matter what you do unless matched commercial parts are used.

Changing from a dro oscillator to a pll oscillator does not help performance unless additional circuits are added. Even then, only under certain conditions will a well built pll help.

The trick to better performance from a good or decent small offset dish is to find a lnb that is a good match for it, so it is a bit of trial and error.

Make sure the lnb is positioned on the dish as it was designed to be, and pay close attention to dish adjustment and alignment. These two things will probably make the most difference in received signal strength, provided a decent, healthy lnb is being used. Need more signal? Get a bigger or better dish. The lnb can only be as good as the reflector it is mounted on.