How do I align a dish with a dual LNB?

[Doug_M]

Hi,

I'm starting out with a Shaw Direct elliptical dish and their 75E dual satellite LNB. There are four feeds coming off this LNB, two for what is marked as SAT A and two for what is marked as SAT B. The LNB's are approximately 4 degrees apart in order for the dish to be tuned to Anik F1 and F2 at the same time.

What I haven't been able to figure out from the manuals I've found online is when aiming the dish and tuning in a satellite (mine is way out of alignment) does one aim for F1 or F2 and does that correspond to SAT A or B on the LNB?

Now obviously I won't be aiming at F1 or F2 for ku band FTA. But I still need to wrap my head around this. If I wanted to tune in 97 West and 101 West, which one do I tune to, and using which LNB, A or B?

Cheers,
Doug

[Terryl]

OK, to properly align a dual LNB (or more) dish, you set the dish to look in-between the two satellites, for 97W and 101W you take and deduct 97 from 101 and divide by 2, this gives you an offset of 2 degrees, you then set the dish to 99 degrees.

As to what satellite to tune up on, look at the programmed switch settings you have for the #1 Diseqc switch for the first LNB for what ever satellite. (Diseqc port #1= 97W?? or Diseqc port #1= 101W??) Then pick a transponder on that satellite that is in the open.

And if you need to adjust one or the other LNB for a satellite, remember that the signals are criss-crossing each each other, the LNB for 97 would be on the right hand side of the LNB mount, and the LNB for 101 would be on the left. (looking from behind the dish)

[Doug_M]

Okay, that makes sense, thanks. I’ve got a meter coming, I’ll give it a shot when that arrives.

[Costactc]

Are those the lnb that you were using to watch Shaw? If so, they are circular and cannot be used for fta. You would need to purchase a linear lnb.

[Terryl]

Yes that would be a problem...But, why do they list the Shaw transponders on F1 & F2 as H & V and not R & L like Dish or Bell, or did something get changed and never got updated??

[Costactc]

I used to be a Shaw customer years back, it was called something other but cannot remember the name. My lnb were circular, been a while maybe they changed to linear.

[skink]

I think (StarChoice)Shaw had a lnb that was both linear and circular polarities?

[Costactc]

That would be like the invacom quad, 2 ports for circular and 2 for linear. Been too many years since the StarChoice days.

[Doug_M]

The Shaw LNB's do both horizontal and vertical, they're not circular. Still, I'll be replacing the dish and LNB with a 36 or 39 inch FTA dish and LNB down the road.

[ViP3R]

Shaw does use linear.

The Shaw Direct 75E (37") elliptical satellite dish is used to receive Shaw Direct (formerly Star Choice) satellite TV.

This is the official 75E (37") elliptical satellite dish used for the reception of Shaw Direct satellite television in ANYWHERE in Canada. This antenna is designed for the reception of all 3 Shaw Direct satellites at 107.3°W & 111.1°W in linear Ku-Band (11.7-12.2 GHz).


For sure I would get a bigger dish at least a 39 inch..The invacome quad is still a nice lnb if your going to have a motor, but due to the weight of the lnb a good brand dish is needed. the cheap ones with a quad will shake all over the place with a good wind.

[pa28pilot]

Sorry if I'm late to the thread, but I used to subscribe to Star Choice from the "lower provinces" for about 5 years.

I don't know the degree to which it has changed, but I do know some things about the satellites they were using.

When you're doing aiming and setup, please don't assume that because it's a service that transmits TV to residential customers, that it is similar in technology to
the DBS (direct broadcast satellite) services with which you may be familiar. Star Choice/Shaw Direct is a DTH (direct-to-home) service, not a DBS service. At least it wasn't when I had it.

DBS satellites like D!SH and DirecTV use very high-power transponders (I like to call them "flamethrowers") in order to be able to be received on the 18" pizza pan. They almost all universally use circular polarization in North America, though I know when I was a D!SH subscriber they rolled out a couple of LNBFs that had both circular and linear LNBs inside. If I had to hazard a guess, it was because they were trying to cobble together transponder space to support
a set of channels that wouldn't fit on the available built-for-purpose circular DBS transponders, and had to backfill with either other available linear transponders on the same satellite, or from those on closely neighboring satellites.

DTH services may be power-optimized or may just use available transponders on existing satellites with a goal of using a receive-only dish that works, but isn't too large.
As a result, you'll see a range of dish sizes for DTH services, but in general, they'll generally be larger than the pizza pans.
PrimeStar was another DTH offering and their elliptical dish looked rather similar to the Star Choice/Shaw Direct dish.

In the case of the initial Star Choice service, they were using transponders on the Anik satellites that were decently powered, but nowhere near the output of say, the TPs on the Nimiq birds that Bell is using for their D!SH clone service.
When I was a subscriber, ALL of the transponders in use for Star Choice/Shaw Direct (they rebranded when I was a subscriber), were linear, and they were using DigiCipher-II, just like home C-band TVRO customers, and customers in the U.S. that were subscribed (whether they knew it or not) to what used to be called HITS, or the Headend In The Sky service. Some of you may remember that their music channels were run for years in ZK (zero key) modes, a.k.a. in the clear. There was even a modestly-sized Motorola receiver, the DSR-410, that was pretty good for receiving those, and nowhere near the size of the original Star Choice HD receivers.