Fortec 80cm vs. 90+ cm dishes

[dblackia]

I'm up and running on FTA with a Fortec Ultra, SM3D12 motor and 80cm Fortec dish from Sadoun. I ordered a 90 but because of a packing error received an 80. Not wanting to go to the trouble of sending back the 80, I talked with Sadoun and he said he'd credit me for the difference in price.

With the 80 there are some sats/transponders that seem kind of weak at times (low 40s quality), and more signal would help. A heavy rainstorm also pretty much knocked out all the FTA Ku signals. The dish aim is well peaked with about 70' of RG-6 to the receiver. How much difference in the level/quality indicator would I see with a 90, 100 or 120 cm dish in its place? The gain figure on the 90 vs. 80 is only ~1 dB more on the 90... that's not much.

I'm thinking I have to go to 100 or 120cm to really see a difference from the 80. Is that reasonable? But esp. at 120cm I'm concerned about overloading the motor and unwanted flex or movement in windy conditions. I really like the ability to move to different sats, and don't want to give that up.

[bobkat]

Going to a 90 cm from an 80 cm won't make too much difference. Increasing to a 1.0 or 1.2 would make a significant difference but I suspect your motor would choke. I suggest to go with the 80 cm and take the credit from Sadoun.

kat

[ZeroBeat]

The LNB wil play a role in signal quality too. You might consider upgrading.

[dblackia]

Thank you both for the replies. A neighbor of mine has a no-name 120cm dish fixed on IA-5. I looked at it and decided it was probably too big and heavy for my motor. (He was also thinking about getting the same motor.)

Sadoun also subbed a Fortec dual LNB for me because they were out of the singles. The NF is a little better on the single, 0.4 dB vs. 0.6-0.7 on the dual. I'd recently been reading that LNBs vary quite a bit in LO stability and true NF. Do you have any recommendations on high(er) quality linearly polarized LNBFs?