Question about lnb's

[Soundwav]

currently i have a multistar lnb. which i dont think is the best.. let alone me being able to find ANY kind of info on it.. starting to think its a standard universal lnb with a multistar sticker on it..

im in the market for a lnb..
Ive been looking at the Invacom Qph-031 lnb but dont really wanna spend $100 canadian on it.. and im not sure i will really need it as i already have 81/92... and can throw up a dish for 110/119 if i want too....

my question is what would be the next best lnb for my Fta dish with HH90 installed...

Thinking about the INVACOM SNF-031 is that a wise choice or any lnb that has a Noise Figure of 0.3 i know nothing about lnb's

thanks!

[elgemcdlf]

The first question that needs answered is what do you intend on trying to receive with the lnbf? You have 3 basic lnbf types. 1.) is Standard which is a linear lnbf. 2.) Universal which is a linear lnbf. 3.) Circular which is circular. When you post what you are trying to receive people here can best help you with which one will best suit your needs.

It would also be nice to know receiver type and model along with motor (if any) and dish make and size.

[Soundwav]

Originally Posted by Soundwav

currently i have a multistar lnb. which i dont think is the best.. let alone me being able to find ANY kind of info on it.. starting to think its a standard universal lnb with a multistar sticker on it..

im in the market for a lnb..
Ive been looking at the Invacom Qph-031 lnb but dont really wanna spend $100 canadian on it.. and im not sure i will really need it as i already have 81/92... and can throw up a dish for 110/119 if i want too....

my question is what would be the next best lnb for my Fta dish with HH90 installed...

Thinking about the INVACOM SNF-031 is that a wise choice or any lnb that has a Noise Figure of 0.3 i know nothing about lnb's

thanks!

i did say what it was for didnt i?? Strickly for FTA.. IE: G25 Etc!
Motor i said was HH90
As for lnb Universal lnb is what i want!
Reciver is a Viewsat 2000 Ultra..
Dish is ariza 33"
Thought i was clear on all of this... my bad!!!

Thanks!

[wejones]

Unless you run into specific problems with your current LNBF, or need extra capability, then I'm not sure that there is any real benefit in getting a new one. All the lnbfs I've seen for sale seem to be just regular consumer lnbfs, unlike the LNBs that you can buy for big dish feeds, which vary in quality from consumer to commercial quality. Ie I'm not sure that you're going to see much improvement in quality.
If however you have a standard lnbf, and want the low band then it might be useful to get a universal lnbf. Or if you have a universal, and want to use it with a DCII or analog receiver, then switching to a standard might be useful. But for quality, I'm not sure you'll see much improvement. I know that the Invacom lnbfs are advertised as being higher quality, but other than being a bit more frequency stable, I haven't seen much difference from cheaper lnbfs. None of the lnbfs I've seen are what is normally considered as being digital ready in terms of stability. However I've never seen the lack of stability being a problem either.
I'd save your money unless you have identified a specific problem. You're better off spending the money on a bigger dish than a new lnbf.

[elgemcdlf]

If it is strictly FTA why are you looking at 110/119 and 82/91? None of which are FTA sats. In which case the lnbf required for any of those sats is not the lnbf you would use for FTA in NA. Concerning equipment, since you state you are receiving 82/91 it was my thought that you were attempting to combine a legal subbed system with a FTA system in which case knowing what all the equipment involved is greatly helps.

If you are attempting to view G25 then either a Universal or a Standard lnbf would be fine. I have noticed differences in lnbf's and it had nothing to do with advertised noise levels. In fact I am far more satisfied with the Universal I got from Sadoun at .4 than the other Universal I have that came from a competitor with an advertised noise level of .3. I personally prefer a Universal lnbf but I do a bit of Atlantic viewing which get down lower in the freq's than birds over the US. From what I have read the lower the noise level the more sensitive the lnbf to ground noise. True or not I can not say.

Have no idea what Sadoun sells the little single output lnbf's for. Mine came with a dish purchase. I do have one of the Invacom QPH-031's in service and it has performed with no problems but I dislike the linear side as it is Standard and I lose out on many channels once you start looking out east.

[Jagee]

Im not trying to hijack anyone but i don't know where to put this,Im sorry and show me where this goes.I looked for new top but didn't find where to click on toThank you When i scan with this LNB your talking about Talking about with my motor I only get 1 sat,And im scanning several and the motor is moving. This is for my 31in Fortec

[wejones]

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

If it is strictly FTA why are you looking at 110/119 and 82/91? None of which are FTA sats. In which case the lnbf required for any of those sats is not the lnbf you would use for FTA in NA.

In earlier message, he said he was using a linear lnbf, but I guess it's possible that there is confusion.

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

Concerning equipment, since you state you are receiving 82/91 it was my thought that you were attempting to combine a legal subbed system with a FTA system in which case knowing what all the equipment involved is greatly helps.

If you are attempting to view G25 then either a Universal or a Standard lnbf would be fine. I have noticed differences in lnbf's and it had nothing to do with advertised noise levels. In fact I am far more satisfied with the Universal I got from Sadoun at .4 than the other Universal I have that came from a competitor with an advertised noise level of .3. I personally prefer a Universal lnbf but I do a bit of Atlantic viewing which get down lower in the freq's than birds over the US. From what I have read the lower the noise level the more sensitive the lnbf to ground noise. True or not I can not say.

Re "gound noise", I'm not sure if you're talking about terrestrial interferrence or what, but regardless, I would think that "keeping other factors equal", having a lower noise figure should always be a good thing. However I really think that noise figures quoted by various manufacturers aren't that meaningful. I'm just guessing here, but I tend to think that some manufacturers get good noise figures by either cutting back on the gain or by quoting the best case figure across the band rather than an average or worst case figure. So I'm not surprised that the .3 isn't better than the .4 , because the .3 probably isn't truely a .3 . I am surprised though that you can actually see a difference between the .3 and the .4 , at least with respect to performance. I think over the years, I've seen noise parameters for C-band go from over 100 deg down to around 15 deg, and have seen Ku noise figures from up around 1.3 down to their current values of less than .5 , and in all that time never really noticed much difference in actual performance, at least with the consumer equipment we use. I'm sure that those with professional equipment could see differences in noise parameters, but it's never made a difference with respect to what I could tune with the equipment I use. When you tune a sat signal, there is a certain amount of noise naturally coming in with the signal, and you need to get a reasonable signal to noise level to get good reception. The noise figure is a measure of internal noise in the amplifier, ie noise not coming from the sky, but noise that will be added to the natural sky noise making the signal to noise ratio worse, and basically putting a lower limit on the signals that you can receive. So a lower noise figure can mean that you might be able to receive weaker signals, however I've never really seen situations where going to a lower noise figure actually allowed me to tune a signal I couldn't get before.

Originally Posted by elgemcdlf

Have no idea what Sadoun sells the little single output lnbf's for. Mine came with a dish purchase. I do have one of the Invacom QPH-031's in service and it has performed with no problems but I dislike the linear side as it is Standard and I lose out on many channels once you start looking out east.

Yeah, the ability to get the lower band is nice, but I'd rather give that up to have compatability with analog and DCII receivers. It really makes no sense to me that the manufacturers of those universal lnbfs didn't choose different LO values. I mean, if they had chosen 9750/10750 instead of 9750/10600, then those universal lnbfs would be compatable with other receivers plus give reception of the low band. But perhaps that would be stretching the capability of the receiver when in 9750 mode, I don't know.

I have an old European lnbf somewhere, that does the low band. I'm tempted to strap that on the side of one of my current feeds to see whether it works or not. This lnbf is probably 17 years old, so it probably has a noise figure greater than 1.1. Might be an interesting experiment. The guy who gave me the lnbf said that he had used it in Europe with one of those saucer type sleds that kids use. That gives you an idea of the power of some of the European sats.

[Soundwav]

im not worried about 82/91 or 110/119 they come in fine!!

my concern is about a universal LNB for my fta dish... i currently have 3 dishes in total... but my main concern is my 33" fta dish.. nothing more.
just wanted to know what the best lnb would be for better signal.. as the current lnb i have i dont think it works very well.. on a clear sunny day outside G25 only gives me a quality of 15 Max no matter what is done with a sat pointer or not.. quality does not go up! now i know that G25 is very weak.. but i figured i should be able to get a bit more out of it! consider i can get 80% signal but quality doesnt wanna move..

[wejones]

Originally Posted by Soundwav

im not worried about 82/91 or 110/119 they come in fine!!

my concern is about a universal LNB for my fta dish... i currently have 3 dishes in total... but my main concern is my 33" fta dish.. nothing more.
just wanted to know what the best lnb would be for better signal.. as the current lnb i have i dont think it works very well.. on a clear sunny day outside G25 only gives me a quality of 15 Max no matter what is done with a sat pointer or not.. quality does not go up! now i know that G25 is very weak.. but i figured i should be able to get a bit more out of it! consider i can get 80% signal but quality doesnt wanna move..

What transponder gives you the 80/15 S/Q ? Ie Freq/SR?
Are you getting a lock on the transponder or is it failing to lock?
Are you sure that you have the proper LO freq set up for that sat? I know you've called your LNBF a universal, but usually lnbfs give the LO freqs on the side, and you should make sure that your setup is the same as listed on the lnbf.

If you are not getting a lock on on any transponders on the sat, then the odds are that you just aren't aimed right, or you have the wrong LO freqs entered in the setup, in which case the low 15% quality isn't meaningful.
If you ARE getting a lock, and are receiving a channel, then the 15% quality is meaningful, if it never improves regardless of which way you SLOWLY nudge the dish. Once I lock on a transponder, I put a meter on the screen, and have my receiver going through a TIVO, then I go outside, and VERY SLOWLY push up, pull down, pull east, pull west on the dish, holding for 10-15 seconds with each pull. Then I go inside, re-run the TIVO to see if at any time during my tests there have been improvements, or if in each case the signal just gets worse.
It may be that your LNBF is bad, but usually they don't get bad gradually, they usually just fail completely. Although sometimes the frequency may be off, so you might try changing the frequency of the transponder you are trying to hit up and/or down by a couple MHz, just to see if it improves things. Most receivers will still lock on channels even if the freq is off, however some receivers will not.

[Soundwav]

i do get a lock on the transponder.. and the reciver identifies all the sats that the motor hits.. ill have to run upstairs and check the settings again for you..

im also going to double check everything and try some more screwing around on the pointing side and see if i can really get the quality up!!

ill try what ever you suggest man.. you have been a great help to me!!

[Soundwav]

well turns out my lnb is ok.. i decided to run all new cable... one of the cables went bad.... all is good now!! thanks for all the help!