Cheap C Band Dual Feedhorn (AliExpress)

[el bandido]

I need a cheap lnb for a c band dish install, and decided to try the dual feedhorn arrangement that is currently sold at AliExpress. An order for this dual lnb feedhorn was placed yesterday. My cost for this dual lnb feedhorn including shipping was $60.26 and is supposed to include to c band lnbs.

It is interesting to note that Tek2000 sells a China dual lnb feedhorn with lnbs included. Tek2000 wants $266.00 for their version of the China dual lnb feed horn which is $200.00 more than a comparable setup from AliExpress. I do not mind paying a bit more for the product if I can buy it from a North American vendor, but I will not pay 4 times the price, which is what Tek2000 wants.

The drawback to buying from AliExpress is the shipping time that usually takes a month or longer. First, you place the order, and then it may take several days for the vendor to get paid. Shipping does not occur until the vendor is paid. Most items purchased from AliExpress are shipped by ePacket, and may take a month or longer to arrive.

Most c band satellite systems in North America will use a lnbf for c band. The difference between a lnb and a lnbf is the lnbf has the feedhorn built into the lnb whereas the lnb has no feedhorn. So the c band lnb system I will be getting from AliExpress should consists of 4 parts which are: the dual lnb feedhorn, two c band lnbs, and a scalar ring.

I do not expect to see much if any performance advantages when using the dual lnb feedhorn as compared to using a lnbf. The reason being is that both the dual lnb feedhorn and any lnbf are cheap parts. All of the fta satellite dishes that report the best performance are using the dual lnb feedhorn on satellite systems that are capable of receiving two polarities at the same time. But the satellite systems that have the best performance are using parts that cost five or ten times what I paid for the AliExpress package.

Here is what I purchased from AliExpress:
[Only registered and activated users can see links] 2YnV
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Here is what Tek2000 wants for the same or similar products Without Shipping Costs:
[Only registered and activated users can see links] %20Band%20(3.7%20-%204.2%20GHz)&categorylevel=2
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I will compare the dual feedhorn to a lnbf when the product arrives. Most likely, this will be a month or more. I also suggest to avoid purchasing anything from Tek2000 due to high product cost. Everything they sell is overpriced and usually over-rated. These Are Not Commercial Feeds, but Tek2000 has them listed as such.

[MikeB]

I've ordered multiple times from Ali Express. Shortest shipping time for E-packet to Michigan, was 7 days! Longest was 3 MONTHS! Average is 1 month.

So, you just never know.

[el bandido]

Shipping is another reason I would buy from the U.S. or North America if the price is reasonable.

Another version of the dual feedhorn is available on Ebay for about twice the money of AliExpress. The origin of the ebay piece is China.
More than likely, there is only one or two lines that produce these feedhorns & lnbs. Then different labels (if any) are put on the parts. Doing it this way makes it seem like there is more variety or different brands, but in reality they are all the same parts. Cheap Vodkas are done in a similar fashion. A batch of cheap Vodka is made, and then the bottling assembly line is stopped as needed for label changes. So there are many different labels of cheap Vodka that is actually the same batch.

[Only registered and activated users can see links] f
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[el bandido]

Shipped with a note from the seller:

Dear friends,your goods have been shipped within the specified time and are being transported normally.We will continue to track the logistics information.If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us, we will provide you with the must satisfactory solution,if you are satisfied with our products,please give us a five-star praise.
Due to the epidemic situation, the country has strict control andslow logistics. Please wait patiently. If you have any questions, please contact me at any time.
Have a good day!


This type of shipping ends up in the U.S. Postal Service which has been intentionally wrecked. I expect a long wait...

[eastof111]

A year ago, before the pandemic, I ordered an item from China. It arrived in LAX quite quickly, but for some unknown reason, it was transferred to a postal station in NYC. Finally received it. But, it was a long wait.

[el bandido]

The item has arrived without lnbs.
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An order for (2) 8 dollar lnbs from the same place has been placed.

This feed seems to be identical to what Tek2000 is selling. But the Tek2000 feed is a hundred dollars more which is ridiculous.

The Tek2000 salesman made a video about this feed and it can be seen in the link below. Comical for me


[Only registered and activated users can see links]

[MikeB]

Is he the guy that actually RUNS Tek2000?

[el bandido]

Who really knows? Tek2000 Is very secretive, and you have no idea who you are really doing business with. No phone number. No physical address....etc. Shady!

[eastof111]

"Is he the guy that actually RUNS Tek2000?"

Must be, he's always happy.......

[norman881]

He is Robbie Strike, the happy satellite nerd. He has lots of videos on his YouTube channel.

[el bandido]

All of the Robbie Strike videos I have seen advertise for Tek2000. So there is probably a relationship.

[MikeB]

"Is he the guy that actually RUNS Tek2000?"

Must be, he's always happy.......

Lol, I think he's just high on something.

[ViP3R]

Shipping is another reason I would buy from the U.S. or North America if the price is reasonable.

Another version of the dual feedhorn is available on Ebay for about twice the money of AliExpress. The origin of the ebay piece is China.
More than likely, there is only one or two lines that produce these feedhorns & lnbs. Then different labels (if any) are put on the parts. Doing it this way makes it seem like there is more variety or different brands, but in reality they are all the same parts. Cheap Vodkas are done in a similar fashion. A batch of cheap Vodka is made, and then the bottling assembly line is stopped as needed for label changes. So there are many different labels of cheap Vodka that is actually the same batch.

[Only registered and activated users can see links] f
16948

You seem to know an awful lot about vodka!! :hmmm:

[el bandido]

This lnb and feed combination is a Poor Performer on my c band dish. I lose at least 2db in snr. Some of the weaker transponders over the Atlantic will not lock with this lnb and feed combination.

I will try something else. Either the feed is bad, or the lnbs are bad. Then again, possibly both could be bad.
My plans include getting some decent brand name lnbs and another feed for c band in the future. Maybe we can install a mix of the cheap China parts alongside the good brand name parts and see how things work.

I do not recommend the feed and lnbs shown below. They performed very poorly on my dish. Ample time was used to install and test this lnb/feed.

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[el bandido]

2021 Is the year for upgrading my lnb feeds.

Performance of the cheap China feed is questionable. I have purchased a couple of Norsat 8115 DRO lnbs, and will install them on the cheap China feed as a measure of performance. DRO lnbs have performed well for me over the years and I see no advantage to using PLL lnbs. DRO lnbs generate less noise than the PLL type, which means extra circuitry or more electronics are needed in the PLL types. A commercial grade PLL lnb will require roughly twice the power needed for a commercial grade DRO lnb. IF I was looking to lock transponders with extremely small symbol rates, then I would pay the extra monies, and do what was needed to provide power for the PLL lnbs. I do operate PLL lnbs on my fixed 2.4 meter ku dish, and have not noticed any increase in performance on satellite television transponders as compared to the Norsat DRO lnbs they replaced.

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Is the China feed any good??? We will see...

[rrob311]

I can't wait to hear of the results eb. I have a motor control for polarity and skew on my feedhorn and I just put one cheap dmx211 lnb on it. One of them had a frequency drift out of the box. Haven't really had anything to compare it to.

[el bandido]

Seems the seller was and is advertising lnbs that he does not have. I got a message stating the 8115 lnbs had been discontinued for years, and were replaced with the 5150 pll lnb. So I settled on a pair of 8000ri lnbs instead.

The 8000ri lnbs have a range of 3.625 GHz to 4.8 Ghz and will give me the extended range of c band frequencies which is already in use. To me, it sorta made sense to try this model since we are losing the bottom part of c band to 5G networks. $331.00 is the total price for a pair of 8000ri lnbs shipped. We will see...



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[el bandido]

Code will have to be added to the blindscan plugin for the 5750 l.o. frequency that the 8000ri lnbs use. I do not mind adding the code, but I am a bit upset with this seller. First he advertises a lnb he does not have, and tries to sell a different one instead. Then the 8000ri lnb was advertised to be in New York, but is being shipped slowly from Washington State. I am not impressed with this guy at all...

[el bandido]

A proper dual polarity c band feed was ordered from SATELLITE ENGINEERING GROUP or SEG today. Talk with the sales rep led to a discussion about lnbs where I found two things about the Norsats I ordered. (1) The lnbs were reasonably priced as compared to other sellers in the professional satellite industry, and (2) The Norsat lnbs shipping from Washington State adds legitimacy to the seller as that is a known shipping location for Norsat. Granted, the Ebay seller is a reseller, but I personally would probably have a hard time buying directly from Norsat at discount prices for a 2 lnb purchase.

Now comes the question of WHY the cheap Made in China feed performs poorly against a lnbf? Since we now have cheap parts, and not so cheap parts, maybe we can find out? One thing I have noticed is most lnbf for c band are shipped with a scalar that is designed for a much higher frequency than the lnbf is designed for. This is easy to see when a scalar ring designed for 3.4-4.2 GHz is set alongside a scalar that ships with most lnbf's.

Lower frequencies require longer antennas, so the thickness or how tall a scalar ring is and the distance between the rings inside the scalar will dictate the frequency it is designed for. I will try to get some pictures to show the difference between a scalar ring that is designed for our satellite tv frequencies as compared to one that is not. It looks like the lnbf manufactures save money by making their rings smaller, which saves a bit on material. How much this effects our signals is questionable.

My guess on the China feed as to why it is a poor performer is the probes on the inside that dictate Horizontal or vertical polarity are cut wrong. I base this on what I have seen with the China made scalar rings. Perhaps the probes inside the feed were cut shorter to save a bit of material, which in turn moves the effective range of the feed up a GHz or two? This is only a guess, but after thinking about their scalar rings, cutting the probes a bit short sounds like something they would do.

[el bandido]

Here are some scalar ring pictures. The brown or tan ring came with a lnbf. The white or light colored ring was originally installed on a c/ku satellite dish in the mid 1990's. There are many differences in these two rings such as height, distance between the rings, and diameter. The differences are small and would need to be measured in millimeters. The differences are much larger when considering the operating frequencies of around 4 GHz. It is easy to see the China scalar ring costing less money to manufacture as less material is used.

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[el bandido]

FedEx sent a message saying the Norsat lnbs would be delivered today, and showed the lnbs in Kennesaw, which is not a great distance. No FedEx delivery truck was seen here today, and the tracking number now shows "pending" for a delivery date. Looks like it is time to get the blindscan plugin ready.

The quoted line below sets and activates the c band scan in our Edision enigma2 receivers:

[Blind scan] prepared command : [blindscan --start=950 --stop=1650 --min=2 --max=60 --slot=0 --i2c=2 --vertical --cband]

What happens in the plugin is it takes either the default frequency information or the frequency information you enter, then converts it to line frequency values, which are around 950 MHz to about 2150MHz. The Output Frequency for the 8000RI lnb is 950 - 2125 MHz. So my new Norsat lnbs should work with Edision blindscan, and maybe it will only be a bit of math conversion to make the 5750 l.o. work in place of the 5150 l.o. in the blindscan plugin.

Work on the 5750 l.o. has begun:
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We will see...

[el bandido]

The Norsat lnbs arrived, and did not disappoint me!
I have already tested the cheap China feed with the other lnbs, so I have an idea as to where it should be mounted.
The Norsat lnbs were attached to the China feedhorn, then the lnbs and and feed horn were set into the dish. Settings were "eyeballed". The arrangement shown below is equal to the Pauxis lnbf it replaced. I would expect maybe a bit more signal if the China feed were tuned, and will try that later.

I can pretty much say at this point the China feed works and performs. Apparently I bought crappy lnbs with it. Some tuning needs to be done, and then change to the other feed when it arrives to see how the China piece performs against something that costs more.

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[el bandido]

The test would not be complete without trying the high end of the band.
Locking a 4712 Transponder at 65w was no problem.

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[el bandido]

Blindscan is working at both ends of the band. Shown below are blindscan results from 65w.
Too early to tell if more adjustments are needed in the blindscan plugin.

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[el bandido]

The "professional" feed arrived today. Here are pictures of both feeds.
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My conclusion:
The feeds are almost identical in appearance, weight, and performance.
The "professional" feed has the word "Chaparral" written on the scalar ring.
The "professional" feed included a decent scalar ring, but cost 3-4 times as much.

These China feeds will probably disappear. I suggest to anyone wanting to try one of these Made in China feeds to purchase one (or two). Just stay away from their lnbs. The lnbs I purchased to try on the China feed were very poor performers.

[skink]

el bandido Are you able to scan SES 6 at 40.5W,namely transponder 4521R for those 4K feeds that are suppose to be there?Just curious

[el bandido]

What is supposed to be on 4521?
I do not have any circular polarization capability with these feeds, but I will try to add it.
I do get one transponder above 4200
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A pair of those Norsat 8000RI lnbs cost $330 U.S. dollars delivered. I have been pleased with them so far as it is nice to have upper band capability.

[skink]

It is suppose to be 4K feeds including NASA.I only have a 2.4m reflector with linear polarization.I hope to upgrade soon.Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

[el bandido]

I will try to set the system for circular and see what I can get.

[skink]

BTW el bandido What size reflector have you been using for the feedhorn test?

[el bandido]

The dish is a Prodelin 3.7 meter. Link: [Only registered and activated users can see links](8-Participants)

I modified a plate to give a bit of circular polarity. The only place I found Nasa was 45 west, and did not find any channels on the high band that was 4K. 40.5w scans found only one transponder above 4200MHz.
Scan logs for the various satellites are attached. All of these scans were done with the new feed and lnbs. The logs may be viewed with Geany, Notepad++ or similar. They may also be viewed with any text editor by changing the file extension from .xml to .txt.

[skink]

I was looking at the source I was using as a reference of those 4K feeds and it is dated 2019 and I checked Lyngsat and it shows the channel you found el bandido out in that extended C band range,but no 4K feeds.Maybe they are gone?

[el bandido]

I dunno.
There are transponders in the extended c band frequencies at 40.5w, 61.0w, and 65w. I think those three satellites are the only ones with transponders above 4200 MHz. I did not find 4K on any extended transponder.

[Terryl]

The dish is a Prodelin 3.7 meter. Link: [Only registered and activated users can see links](8-Participants)

I modified a plate to give a bit of circular polarity. The only place I found Nasa was 45 west, and did not find any channels on the high band that was 4K. 40.5w scans found only one transponder above 4200MHz.
Scan logs for the various satellites are attached. All of these scans were done with the new feed and lnbs. The logs may be viewed with Geany, Notepad++ or similar. They may also be viewed with any text editor by changing the file extension from .xml to .txt.I have a dish and receiver fixed on the NASA channels at 127W, transponder 3920 V. THey have a UHD channel in Mpeg 4 UHD.

[el bandido]

Yes. We know about NASA at 127w. The references about Nasa were made to the Atlantic satellites.

[Terryl]

I'd scan 40W but I have a super volcano in the way, cant see anything beyond 50W, darn mountains.

[armadillo_115]

Elbandido, concerning your 8000ri lnbs:
How well do they perform with a low stability of +/- 500 kHz and Temp of 20 K?

I understand about better stability and lower temp numbers. I just don't understand what is actually necessary for our viewing needs. We don't do radio, data, or feed hunting. We do want all video formats when available.

I'm considering purchasing a Norsat 8525RF DRO lnb BUT the low stability is +/- 500 kHz and Temp of 25 K.

We discussed this before but I'm still concerned about pushing enough power for 5150RF's (PLL) on my systems. (5150RF DOES have better specs) I want to avoid a powered multi-switch.

For those who missed the old discussion at LFTA:
I previously had switching problems using lnbf's on two C band dishes with multiple receivers. I purchased 2 cheap dual lnb feed horns with lnbs upon Elbandido's suggestion several months ago. My switching problem was solved. As expected, the Chinese lnb's were low quality. They function to some extent but are periodically failing. Of the four: 2 are still usable - 1 is dead - 1 (spare) still works but weak/slow to receive signal. So far I have bought 2 cheap used lnb's for replacements. I'm ready to step up my game on the next purchase. :smiley14:

El bandido, thanks for the previous advice... and for any future advice.

Any one else have any thoughts?

[el bandido]

My Norsat 8000ri lnbs perform just fine. The only complaint I would have about them is they are not quite s sensitive as I would like, but you are going to trade a little bit of sensitivity for the extra frequencies above 4200 MHz. A more sensitive lnb would also have a narrow frequency range if all other things were equal. The 8000ri lnbs have performed exceptionally well on all frequencies that I have tested including some radio transponders with a small symbol rate around 350.

We are constantly lied to when it comes to consumer lnbf's. The noise floors given for a lot of them are not realistic, and some of the other performance specs of lnbf's seem to reflect 'wishful thinking" than true specifications that are the result of controlled lab tests. Norsat specs showing a stability of +/- 500 kHz and Temp of 20-35 K is fine for the wide signals that we use in fta. The only way a pll lnb will help is when the signal is weak and narrow. A pll lnb will not help much if any on a weak signal with a symbol rate of around 1000 or higher.

PLL lnbs generate more noise when compared to a dro lnb, so more filtering is required in a well designed pll lnb which means more current is needed. A pair of Norsat dro lnbs will usually draw 250 milliamps or less , which is fine for our fta receivers. A pair of PLL Norsats may draw 500 or more milliamps which is the reason for a powered switch, or multiple receivers running to the same multi-switch and powered On at the same time.

Your mileage may vary, and opinions may vary. But I say get a decent set of Norsat or other quality made lnb for your system and enjoy the results. Consumer pll lnbs are more of a gimmick and an opportunity to sell something new than anything else. DRO lnbs work just fine for our fta satellite signals unless you are after data signals or very low symbol rates.