How much will a 4' dish pickup

[glen4cindy]

Hey gang, the wife just gave me permission to put up a BUD. I live in a subdivision so I will have to keep the dish hidden in my backyard. We have a fairly tall vinyl fence and I have a good spot that has good LOS.

How far from the ground is the minimum for a BUD to be? This is going to be a very important aspect that will determine if I can get by with a 4' or if I will have room for a 6' which I think will have better signal.

So, with this in mind, I want to use a diseqc switch if possible to select the C band LNB. I want to be able to use my current FTA receivers with the existing coax cable. I would like to have an actuator or something to move the dish.

Is this something that can be done? How hard will the BUD be to install? I have only installed my 31" and several D* and E* dishes, never a BUD.

Thanks.

[rainman]

it's not to much different from setting up a KU dish same principles. I would go with the 6 foot polar mount as it will do a lot better job than the 4 footer.

[elgemcdlf]

It has to clear the ground There really is no minimum but I have read about ground noise creeping in on low dishes. 6' would treat you much better than a 4' for C Band. It is so funny associating 4 & 6 with big dish The BSC lnbf's would work best for your application IMHO. You could even get rid of the smaller dish if you desired since the BSC units do both C and Ku. The larger dish would make Ku much better.

[glen4cindy]

I will have to do some measurements because my fence HAS to hide the dish from sight. I guess I need to know, before I buy anything, how high a 4 to 6 foot dish will sit considering the tilt that will be present. I would think that a 6 foot dish will not sit 6 feet high due to the tilt, but, these are things I will have to have figured out to keep the dish hidden from view.

[pmb1010]

can I ask, what are your intentions for the C band dish?

4dtv?
C band FTA only?
C band analog?

Can you look thru whats available, and provide a list of what you'd like to watch?

I only say this as C band analog is dropping like flies.
Stuff seems to be moving to DVB-S2, and there are discussions I've read that even 8.5 foot dish won't be enough.

My H180 motor broke in half, so I'm back on my 30" dish Ku only for now.
I'm seriously thinking about NOT putting up the 6 foot dish again.

THere's still some stuff up there, but your intentions make the difference between being satisfied with the results or not.

[William Eng]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

can I ask, what are your intentions for the C band dish?

4dtv?
C band FTA only?
C band analog?

Can you look thru whats available, and provide a list of what you'd like to watch?

I only say this as C band analog is dropping like flies.
Stuff seems to be moving to DVB-S2, and there are discussions I've read that even 8.5 foot dish won't be enough.

My H180 motor broke in half, so I'm back on my 30" dish Ku only for now.
I'm seriously thinking about NOT putting up the 6 foot dish again.

THere's still some stuff up there, but your intentions make the difference between being satisfied with the results or not.

That's too bad regarding your motor. Is it fixable? Didn't you just set this up?

[glen4cindy]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

can I ask, what are your intentions for the C band dish?

4dtv?
C band FTA only?
C band analog?

Can you look thru whats available, and provide a list of what you'd like to watch?

I only say this as C band analog is dropping like flies.
Stuff seems to be moving to DVB-S2, and there are discussions I've read that even 8.5 foot dish won't be enough.

My H180 motor broke in half, so I'm back on my 30" dish Ku only for now.
I'm seriously thinking about NOT putting up the 6 foot dish again.

THere's still some stuff up there, but your intentions make the difference between being satisfied with the results or not.

I just want digital FTA. Looks as though I am not going to have enough room though.

[Vitruvius]

Hey Glen4Cindy, Check out the website Satellite Dish Pointer / Alignment Calculator with Google Maps. It has a real great program that when you put in your location and the satellite you want to point to you can search which FTA channels are available and what size dish you need to receive it.
I too had a 6 ft. dish with a H180 motor sold by Sadoun in one of their kits that broke in the wind. The bottom of the H180 motor was cast metal that just snapped. If you do find the 6 footer will work, get the actuater kit and not the H180.
Good luck...

[pmb1010]

Originally Posted by William Eng

That's too bad regarding your motor. Is it fixable? Didn't you just set this up?

Its not repairable. It lasted about 6 months.
See this thread:
http://www.sadoun.net/forums/4dtv-c-...-dvb-dcii.html

[Powrline]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

I only say this as C band analog is dropping like flies.
Stuff seems to be moving to DVB-S2, and there are discussions I've read that even 8.5 foot dish won't be enough.

My H180 motor broke in half, so I'm back on my 30" dish Ku only for now.
I'm seriously thinking about NOT putting up the 6 foot dish again.

There's still some stuff up there, but your intentions make the difference between being satisfied with the results or not.

I noticed that the C-band analog is indeed dropping like flies, but why wouldn't the 8.5' dish be enough? Doesn't the digital signal do a good job, possibly better than the analog signal? Isn't the reason that we can use smaller dishes because of the switch to digital?

I realize that C-band and Ku Band are two completely different animals, and Ku band can use a smaller dish, but could you use a 6' solid metal dish to receive both c-band and Ku band to receive FTA programming? or would the minimum be 8.5 foot and above.

I am thinking that I may be able to talk my wife into letting me get a 6 footer, (even though I would love a 12 footer,) but I don't know how much talking I would have to do to get the 8 and a half footer.

My tongue may snap out of my head trying to talk her into the 8.5' dish!!!

Bill

[elgemcdlf]

As I understand it there will be less error correction in the signal sent. This will require more signal to be trapped. Thus a larger dish. A very simplistic way of saying it but that is the interpretation I get. I believe they may be trying to kill us off. If you look at legislation and then stir in the costs of running a real big dish. Then the more expensive equipment.

[rainman]

It's very simple Bill tell her that you can probaly find the larger dish for free where you will have to pay for the smaller dish one thing that women understand is money.LOL

[lumpkin666]

Originally Posted by glen4cindy

I will have to do some measurements because my fence HAS to hide the dish from sight. I guess I need to know, before I buy anything, how high a 4 to 6 foot dish will sit considering the tilt that will be present. I would think that a 6 foot dish will not sit 6 feet high due to the tilt, but, these are things I will have to have figured out to keep the dish hidden from view.

The dish will be nearly straight up and down when you go to the extreme east and west locations.

[Powrline]

Originally Posted by rainman

It's very simple Bill tell her that you can probably find the larger dish for free where you will have to pay for the smaller dish one thing that women understand is money.LOL

Ha! I agree Rainman, at least for most women all they understand is money. For my wife however, she stresses that the B and U in BUD means "Big" and "Ugly"!

I find the BUDs are "Artform", but I have a warped sense of humor.

Bill

[Powrline]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

As I understand it there will be less error correction in the signal sent. This will require more signal to be trapped. Thus a larger dish. A very simplistic way of saying it but that is the interpretation I get. I believe they may be trying to kill us off. If you look at legislation and then stir in the costs of running a real big dish. Then the more expensive equipment.

I didn't think about error correction, so that probably is right.

I am hoping that the 6' dish is big enough for what I want.

Thanks,
Bill

[1captain]

Originally Posted by glen4cindy

I will have to do some measurements because my fence HAS to hide the dish from sight. I guess I need to know, before I buy anything, how high a 4 to 6 foot dish will sit considering the tilt that will be present. I would think that a 6 foot dish will not sit 6 feet high due to the tilt, but, these are things I will have to have figured out to keep the dish hidden from view.

Hi Glen; That can be done with a 6-foot dish, an did a job a wile back for a big time tampa lawyer that moved into a dead restricted subdivision, where we set up a 7 1/2-foot channel master mess dish, that was not seen at all in his back yard from the 6-foot wood fence that went around the back of the home. an it took 2-men 2-days to complete it with lots an i mean lots of digging. an this man wanted his big dish an his DSR-922, he also had DTV, but like the 4DTV better.

An this is what we did an how. 1st found a site where dish could go, an not being blocked by any buildings trees ect. then droped the ground level by 1 foot lower then dug a hole, for the satellite pipe 3 1/2foot deep an put a 5 foot section of pipe in an concretted it in, with only about of 20 inches of pipe out of the ground. then we built the dish an set it on the pole, an seen where we needed to dig a swale for the lower satellites to get. then we dug a swale about 8-foot wide an about 2 1/2 foot deep so the dish had full movement from AMC-7 to galaxy-6 (down in Fla have sand an very good drainage with water). then after all that left an came back the next day to finish up an get it running. then after getting dish peaked an on the arc, back to diggiging agin, to get clear the ground level for the rock garden the landscapper was going to put in where we dug it up. an it all came out nice looking with nothing seen from any of the other homes next to him, on any satellite. when that dish was on AMC-9 our thru south satellite you could reach out an touch the noise cone of the dish an the edge of the dish at knee level.

Now his dish we moved had a polar mount, but could not use it, reason why the actuator would hit the ground, so got a channel master Horz to Horz mount an replaced it . we knew this going into this job. and all in all Glen that job was a pain in the --- for all the digging, but if you seen it with the rock garden an the plants, that the landscapper did it look real nice.

Would of been easer if we could of got a Bobcat back their to do the digging, but no way even had to park the van in the garage an carry every thing tru the home to the back yard, so no one knew what was going on. Hope all this helps you out Glen on getting a C-band system up an running, Good Luck...