Mininum dish size

[stephenw4]

Hello and I'm wondering since I looked at various sites to try to figure out the smallest dish that I could use for FTA that covers whole clarke belt from east to west but it was a pure challenge to me to make right dish size choice that are smallest as possible but reasonable, based on the info I gathered over the weeks, if you use a 0.3 noise figure LNBF, you could use smaller dish right? if so and based on my location (LAT=39.8 / LOG=75.0 - Zip code 08021) it looks like I should use either 80cm (31") or 90CM (36") dish for that purpose, I'm not sure how small I can go down with reasonable quality signal in my area. Do you have any hints that I should be aware of so I could choose right dish size.

Thank you!

[elgemcdlf]

Go with the 90cm. The difference in signal strength is worth every penny of the $20.00 extra it costs. I had a 76cm dish that did the job but am much happier with the 90cm.

[stephenw4]

Oh! I understood!

[rainman]

go with the biggest dish you can use. I would not go less than a 90 cm.

[stephenw4]

Alright, I just checked the online store of Sadoun and checked the shipping cost to ship the dish with motor which is $159 carries a little hefty shipping cost of $30 via DHL Ground but I noted that this company is also a member of eBay so if I could find a standard 90 cm dish I would take adventage of lower prices in effort to keep costs down to within my belt-tightening budget. I guess for a plain dish (no LNBF nor motor) is $65 so shipping should be about $20-25 - I need to check and see if it is cheaper.......

[elgemcdlf]

I still say you are looking at this backwards. Ok so shipping is $30.00 and your order is $159.00, which actually has no bearing whatsoever on shipping costs. How much does the local dealer want for the same equipment? Higher than $189.00? And you have to pick it up. As one who actually negotiates with shipping companies if you can get a price of .2854 per skid area on a truck per mile you are doing very good. Unless you are buying the whole truck. Costs drop considerably then. You are roughly 495 miles from Sadoun's place. So we do the math. $141.27 for a skid floor to ceiling and no more than 1667 lbs. Knowing the size of the 90cm container I would have to say $30.00 is not bad at all but again it all depends on what you can find closer and costs associated.

[keebs]

i noticed in your descriptions of different dish sizes you have for sale you state that this dish is good for this satellite and that satellite and most satellites in clarke belt or on ku? what is preventing me from getting all the satellites instead of just most of them? is it the dish size? im wanted a 90cm.

[rainman]

with a 90 cm dish you can get all of the ku sats in your line of site. It is to small to get the c band sats.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by rainman

with a 90 cm dish you can get all of the ku sats in your line of site. It is to small to get the c band sats.

But not the ones beamed elsewhere. Ie need to look at footprints.

Also, if the modulation modes change from QPSK to 8PSK, and even higher orders, the 90 CM may not be big enough to collect the high quality signal required, even on KU.

Basically, there are a lot of satellites up there. To see any of them they have to be line of sight, but then they are on different bands, Ku, Ka C-band, L-band, etc, each requirring different LNBs, and some requiring different receivers. Then some sats have transponders aimed at different continents or different parts of the same continent, so you can't see them. Then the various transponders use different modes, like analog, QPSK, 8PSK, etc, and use a variety of formats like DVB, DCII, DSS, etc, etc, etc. Plus some are sending video, others are sending data.
With the consumer FTA equipment sold here and elsewhere, we can't see ALL the sats, and can't see ALL the signals on those sats we can see. But with the 90 CM you can see all the FTA QPSK beamed your way, and with additional receivers might pick up a few other things, like analog and DCII.