What size dish?

[cdssh]

I live in Northern Wisconsin,what size dish & Motor would I be able to get by with? I am on a fixed income and money is tight. Thanks for all your help.

[William Eng]

Most people here will recommend the M1 package with an upgrade to 90 cm dish.

[rainman]

as William Eng stated i would recommend the M1 and for the cost i would upgrade to the 90 cm dish it will help you pull in the weaker TP.

[elgemcdlf]

Just chalk me up as the same. M1 with an upgrade to a 90cm dish. There is a considerable difference between the 80cm and 90cm dish as far as picture quality goes.

[William Eng]

I brought the 80 cm dish, and I compared the picture with my neighbor who has a 90 cm dish. Personally, I see no difference in the picture quality, but that may depend on what transponder you are looking at especially if it is weak. The channels I normally watch are fair (40-60%) signal strength which gets you a great picture. So consider what channels you are interested. Look at the satellite footprint to see the minimal dish size required. Anyway, I get all the broadcasted satellite channels with a 80 cm dish. Another point is that with a bigger dish, you are less likely to experience rain fade or snow if you are in Wisconsin.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by William Eng

I brought the 80 cm dish, and I compared the picture with my neighbor who has a 90 cm dish. Personally, I see no difference in the picture quality, but that may depend on what transponder you are looking at especially if it is weak. ..

Yeah, I agree. Unless the signal is so weak that you're getting lots of uncorrected errors and you're getting pixelation, and are close to not locking, there should be no difference with respect to picture quality. With digital, it's pretty much a case of you either get nothing or you get a perfect picture.
But there are always those borderline transponders that are right on the edge, and the picture will freeze, and get little squares all through it, and other digital artifacts.

[elgemcdlf]

I have used both a 76cm and a 90cm. I found the 76cm to have a good picture. When I upgraded to the 90 I noticed a considerable improvement along with less problems with loss of picture due to snow, rain, wind, ... When I swapped out the Fortec Platinum receiver for a MercuryII I again noticed a considerable increase in picture quality.

In all fairness if you (William Eng) and your neighbor are not using the same receiver it is not a fair comparrison. I will also say that when I swapped dishes I also swapped lnbf's which may have played a role also BUT the new lnbf was rated with a higher noise level than the lnbf on the 76cm. So you would need lnbf's that were equal also to make a fair comparrison.

[glen4cindy]

One thing to keep in mind pertaining to dish size is the digital nature of the signal. It is nothing like standard OTA NTSC that can be affected by weather, rain, lightening and the like.

You should have the same picture up until the time it begins to break up and pixelate due to fade, unlike a picture that will get progressively worse and worse. That is not to say that you will not begin to lose stability more quickly, but, a 40% signal should give the same picture as a 90% signal except that a 90% can tolerate much more fade than the 40% can before it begins to pixelate and become too unstable to watch at all.

My DirecTv can handle a good solid moderate rain before the picture begins to pixelate and break up, but, I know the sats that carry DTV are much stronger than the other Ku that carry FTA.

[rainman]

bigger dish means better quality and signal more room for fade also will pull in the weaker TP and get a lock when the smaller dish won't.