Can a non mini-dish LNB work on a mini-dish ?

[Blizzarduk]

I am looking to replace my Sky octo LNB with a new one for my mini-dish. I thought I would go right to the top and get a ?70 one for best quality in rain and such like. The downside though is it won't be oval shaped feed horn for a mini-dish. Does this matter ? Should I just replace my broken Sky LNB with another Sky LNB ? Or should I got for a 0.1db high quality one ?

Do you think quality will be less because it is not a oval shaped feed horn when using with a mini-dish ?

[ramjet]

no way would I pay that much for an lnb, and I would use and do use a sly lnb on my zone 2 oval shaped sly dish, which cost me about ?12

I suppose you could use an inverto ultra black quad lnb, and the school of thought is that the specific sly lnb,s are designed for their own dishes, but its worth bearing in mind there have been many shapes and designs of "mini-dishes" used by sly over the years, and also many types and shapes of lnb.s too

so if you replaced the sly "mini-dish" with a good quality round dish , like a triax or gilbertini or something similar and used an inverto ultrablack lnb on it you would get a better signal and quality. but as those channels are aimed at the uk and could be had using a large wok or dustbin lid and almost any universal lnb I think you are aiming way over the top when you consider that more than 10 million uk subscribers and freesat owners combined tend to use a sly mini-dish with a sly lnb here in the uk

so if you are having problems I would suggest you look for the actual cause of the problems and not assume you are any different to say 14 million other users in the uk

after all, if the road you lived on was unadopted and full of potholes its pointless trading in your ford fiesta for a rolls royce just to smooth out the bumps a bit

[Blizzarduk]

Thanks. The problem I am having is picking up V polarisation channels, which can be caused by an LNB. So if I do go for an LNB for a mini-dish you reckon the standard cheapo Octo Sky ones are just as good as the expensive ones (unless used with a bigger dish) ? Just double checking.

[ramjet]

Thanks. The problem I am having is picking up V polarisation channels, which can be caused by an LNB. So if I do go for an LNB for a mini-dish you reckon the standard cheapo Octo Sky ones are just as good as the expensive ones (unless used with a bigger dish) ? Just double checking.

no I dont and I never said that either

clearly if you buy the most expensive inverto or technomate or similar lnb,s you get the best quality, no question

but given that sly fit thousands of these standard dishes and lnb,s and millions of users get the channels without any problems in the uk I think you are looking to fix a non-existent problem. if you have problems with certain channels and are in the uk with a good line of sight from 28.2e and 28.4e then I would look for the cause of the problem

in car terms, if you needed a car to go to the shops and everybody near you uses a focus to do so, why buy a rolls royce to do the same job ?

ps:- and as there is no substitute for size in the satellite business, a bigger dish is what gives better signal and quality, and is more weather resistant when it rains heavily, even with a cheapo ?5 lnb on it

[manxspud]

As ramjet says you might be better investing in a slightly bigger dish with a less expensive lnb on it.

[Blizzarduk]

The problem is though signal quality and level is fine for me, it is the problem with the V polarisation that is causing me issues, which is usually LNB related, however this does only happen with my 5402 and not my other boxes. My main concern is the round feed horns on the expensive LNBs may not work as well as Sky specific ones on oval mini-dishes as those have a oval shaped horn within the casing. Although they are better on other things such as low noise and cable distance. If I was told a Technomate ?70 LNB will give me the same signal quality as a ?30 Sky one, then I would go for the ?70 one simply because it will likely be better in heavy rain and such like. But if I was told the round horn on the Technomate LNB (and similar) will mean I lose 15% on signal quality on my oval mini-dish then I wouldn't go for it.

[digicon]

The Standard $ly LNB is feedhorn matched to its own dish, and so if you use a standard LNB on a $ly dish the LNB does not maximise itself in otherwords it will not see the whole 100% of the dish face and may only see say 80% which goes the same way if you use a $ly LNB on a Standard Dish.

For the ?70 cost you would be better investing in a Solid 60cm dish with an Inverto Black Ultra Quad which will come in at a lot less than the ?70 LNB Budget only problem is they only make a Quad and not an Octo.

But your 60cm and the Inverto will out perform any Zone1 dish.

If you need the 8 feeds then look at another brand but ?70 for an lnb is a little excessive for just standard $ly viewing

[Blizzarduk]

Yeah I need the Octo I am afraid. This is my problem, I am getting a very good signal on my dish, around 80%, which is fine, so the size of the dish is okay, but I just don't know whether to risk the round feedhorn LNBs or not on a oval dish. Because the dish is on the side of a summer house, the oval one looks a lot better than a bigger one. I know you can get transparent ones but then you start getting in to the costs of more than the LNB. I could hunt around and probably find the ?70 LNB a lot cheaper, but I am still unsure if it is worth the risk to then end up with less SQ but perhaps better H/V control.

[digicon]

Personally i never liked the $ly Octos when i subbied for them i changed more that i put up due to the failure rate that may have changed in the last couple of years i am not sure, Lets put it this way i would never have one on my property anyway.

I just priced up the Smart Titanium Octo for ?46 so for the rest of your ?70 you should be able to pick up a 60cm standard mesh dish if you want to keep that '$ly' look on the house (?24 for a 60cm mesh)


Regards

[ramjet]

having read the other thread I am not convinced it was a faulty octo lnb, nor am I convinced that changing it will fix those vertical channel issues on your technomate either

by all means change it if you wish, but dont shoot the messenger if the fault remains the same

[Blizzarduk]

Thanks Digicon and Ramjet. But Ramjet, if it is not the LNB then I am unsure what it is. I presumed my LNB was faulty because of the H/V issue, but yes it is weird that it only happen with the Technomate 5402. But then that will work fine with both H/V when my other boxes are unplugged, so I presumed this meant the LNB was acting up. I tried to contact Technomate support but so far they don't know either. So either I return the box, or try a new LNB, and as I like the box I thought I would try the LNB. But I am sure you are probably right, it probably won't help, I almost have "sods law" tattoo'd on my forehead, I mean I broke the blooming LNB arm just trying to change the tightly packed cables on the octo, talk about unlucky. But if a new LNB doesn't help, what the hell is the problem ? I could understand if just one particular other box being plugged in triggers the error, and then I could blame it on that box, but it doesn't matter which of my other three recievers (2x Sky HD and 1x firewire sat box) receivers are plugged in, the 5402 won't work with V channels, unless it is the sole unit connected to the dish.

[ramjet]

that is the million dollar question, and hasnt been answered despite 2 threads on the subject

by all means try another lnb, try a cheap ?6 sly quad and use the tm , sly plus and one other feed all at once, and see if the problem still exists or not. in this case you need to substitute everything until the fault disappears, and reappears when you reconnect the suspect item. thats the way it is, you learn by substitution as you were doing with all the leads. its not exactly something that can be diagnosed by talking about it, as can already be seen. it may go away if you change the lnb, or it may not, but I am not convinced that a new lnb will change the scenario, but am happy to accept it should a new lnb cure the fault

[digicon]

As I previously sated in my other post i am not a great lover of the $ly Octo LNBs especially the MTI and Zinwell brands they are extremely unreliable and that is why i dont have one up myself.

But as has been stated we can talk about this all day but it wont change the fact that you will change something in the system and it looks like the LNB