How To Look For & Find 5G Interference in C Band

[el bandido]

Aluminum foil was attached to a piece of cardboard. The cardboard was then wrapped around the scalar ring on the dish and held in place using zip ties. ALL satellite signals disappeared in the test, but the 5G C band signals were still present. The dish was rotated through the satellite arc during this test, and the results were basically the same. Putting a rf fence around the rim of this dish will probably do absolutely nothing to help quash the interference.

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[ArloG]

I read fast. Got interested.
People praise or cuss comparing understanding electricity to water. Works for me. And when somebody with a brain asks and is intrigued in learning, well. They do.
Even a state cop at a convenience store got interested when I got on a friends case because he bought $1500 speaker wires. And swore that they made his home audio system sound better.
Wait a minute! So the pc board traces are maybe .003" thick and less than 0.5" wide leading to those huge binding posts.
And then inside of the cabinets wiring "maybe" is 14g.....if you're lucky.
So, you're feeding a fire hose leading to your garden that is hooked to the hose bib on the side of your house.
And the plumbing in the house to the bib is ~1/2" diameter. And the fire hose is spliced to some 5/8" garden hose at the garden.
My friend chimped-out. The statie smirked and bobbed his head up and down.

Oh. Back on track. Microwaves/optics. Why do reflector telescopes that are exposed to extraneous light have a tube around them all the way past the eyepiece mirror?
Cantennas. "Cylindrical monopole microwave waveguide antennas". Can-stinkin-tenna.

By obscuring the scalar, you defeated it's purpose. It's entire circumference should have been exposed to capture and re-reflect the signal and hopefully concentrate it in phase to the lnbf throat.
I just notice all of the tower microwave link antennas have a ring around them. And a birdshit cover.
Commscope publishes youtube videos and docs. explaining sidelobe interference. And the solutions to them.

Instead of shielding the scalar/lnbf and losing all weak C Band signals. Instead, making a cage with rim extension rods.....those cheapassed fiberglass driveway marker poles you see at Tractor Supply. Grabbing a roll of window screening. Fasten the poles extending from the dish rim. And wrapping a layer of screen around those.
Hell. Make the screening movable so you can slide it up the the feed point.
Yeah. I guess living out in the boonies has advantages. Like freezing your ass off in winter, no tomato can mufflers and bass pumping down the street at all hours. Hitting deer.
No 5G....yet...even though Verizon said I "had to" get a 5G phone. 40 mile drive to get any 5G at all.

Oh. I have a question. Next post.

[el bandido]

Put very very simple, The 5G C band cell signals are most likely hitting my dish at the same or similar angles as the satellite signals. If True, This means you can go to any Hardware Store you want and purchase anything you want to put on my satellite dish and you will still have 5G C band signals on it. If I was gonna do something in the way of rf shielding, I would simply cut up a couple of the 7.5 foot mesh dishes and install them around the rim of the Prodelin C band dish.

Signal analyzers help to give a view of what a rf signal looks like. It is a visual tool. I purchased these cheap analyzers to keep from making hardware changes that have no chance of working. As an example, you have no way of knowing the the C band cell signal is still on the dish with the satellite signals removed unless you have some sort of signal analyzer that works.

So far, the only place I find near the satellite dish that has little to no C band cell signals is in a canopy of trees. A canopy of trees blocks the signal overhead, which means the satellite signal would also be blocked.

A bandpass filter is supposed to arrive Monday. I will install it on one lnb and then figure out what I want to do. It is possible that shielding the rim of the satellite dish would decrease some of the 5G C band signal. But if the c band satellite dish is getting hit straight down or angling down with the C band cell signal, then the party is over except for filtering the unwanted signal.

[ArloG]

I'm compelled to add. Back when lna's were hand built and 1 in 10 gasfet's made the cut.
Sun shielding and temperature stability was very important. I traipsed up on our little CATV dish farm while hunting one fall.
With maybe 12' dishes with Cassgrain feeds, pressurized mylar windows with a tank and regulator of nitrogen strapped to the pole.
All of the 'guts' were behind the dish out of the way.
And although nobody in the fta world probably remembers those setups. Or has one to slap up for a test. Seemed like a good idea.

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[el bandido]

Installed the Eagle ECB-5G-4042E Bandpass filter Monday and find that it does what it is supposed to do. I notice a signal loss of around 1 db(SNR) according to the FTA receiver I am using. The bandpass filter's performance has been good other than the slight signal loss. Here are a couple of before and after analyzer screenshots of 101w-Horizontal:

101w-Before filter
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101w-After Filter
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The 5G C band cell signals are in the Noise Floor with the Eagle Filter installed.

[el bandido]

5G C band filter prices need to be looked at a minute as they are Ridiculous. IMO, these filters should sell for around 100 dollars or less a piece, but that is not what we are seeing yet. The Eagle phase 1 C band filter is already 100 dollars less than the phase 2 model, which shows the mark-up for this product.

Rick Caylor wants about 400 dollars for ONE Alga filter with shipping included shown Here:
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The price for Rick's Alga filter with Hardware kit included is $423.00. This is ridiculously high, and is pricing people out of the market. There is a thing called Greed I guess.

I paid $276.93 for the Eagle filter with a hardware kit included. There is a big price difference between the Alga Rick sells and the Eagle filter I purchased. Most of us need two filters, one for each LNB. More price comparisons below.
$553.86 = 2 Eagles
$846.00 = 2 Alga

So if you buy a pair of bandpass filters from Rick, you will pay about 300 dollars more, or about 150 dollars more a piece. Ridiculous when you consider both items do the same job. It should be noted that you get 10 extra screws for about 15 dollars a piece when you purchase Rick's Alga filter.

There is a cheap SatMaximum filter from China on Ebay that is in the high hundred dollar range and ships directly from China. I don't know anything about this filter, except that it looks cheaply made. The Eagle filter is supposed to be 100% Made in the U.S.A. Easy to see why I purchased the Eagle.

I feel certain the price of 5G bandpass filters will come down in time. Anybody that purchases 5G filters right now will pay a steep price when compared to what we pay for FTA receivers and other parts.

[el bandido]

The Vertical side of my C band satellite system will have to be dealt with. One thing noteworthy is : If the satellite signal is strong enough, then it is not effected by 5G C band interference. Shown below is CV Shopping on 93w-Vertical. the SNR for that channel is around 17db, and it is directly in the 5G C band cell signals.

Analyzer screenshot of 93w-Vertical.
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CV Shopping channel running in the interference.
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Go Figure...

[eastof111]

Glad to to see you got half your problem resolved, albeit at a fairly high $$.

[el bandido]

Here are some Eagle bandpass photos:

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[el bandido]

Shown below is a filter, probably from Satmaximum that only allows 4.0-4.2 GHz or 4000-4200MHz. This is a two hundred dollar filter that I know nothing about, but am sort of tempted to try. On the other hand, I find the Eagle filter to be apparently well made, and performing as advertised. Ebay charges tax, so the real price for the China filter would be about $214.00 as compared to $276.93 for the Eagle.

These bandpass filters are "tunable", and could be adjusted or set by a competent Radio Repair Shop, or by anyone having the proper equipment. The price to set or re-tune one of these filters would probably be at least half the purchase price of the filter. There have been some reports of bad filters. These reports mostly come from the Alga type filters that Rick Caylor sells. In general, you don't put a filter like this on a satellite dish and have it working, only to have it Not Working later.

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