Archive for the ‘Satellite Dishes’ Category

The Sky “minidish” satellite dish is made by several manufacturers and is roughly 53cm wide. (The wider a dish is, the less interference it will receive from adjacent satellites.) A larger “Zone2″ minidish (about 55 x 75cm) is used for northern England and Scotland where the signal (from the Astra satellites at 28.2 degrees East of true south) is weaker than in southern England. It also provides a not-too-unsightly upgrade if you are having reception problems with Sky or Freesat in bad weather.

Several Astra satellites are clustered in space at the same position (within one kilometre of each other but around 22,000 miles from earth).

Each satellite has a number of transmitters or “transponders” which give slightly different “beams”, resulting in different “footprints” on Earth. In England, a strong signal is received from all of these transponders but, outside England, the signal becomes progressively weaker as you get further away. In some fringe areas, it’s not possible to receive signals from EVERY transponder without using a larger dish.

It’s possible to receive signals from more than one satellite position. For example, you might want to switch between Astra at 28.2′E to Astra at 19.2′E or “Hot Bird” at 13′E. The simplest way to achieve this is to put a bracket on your dish and add an extra LNB. This can be positioned to receive the reflected signal from a different satellite position. However, the more offset the LNB is from the true focal point (where the main LNB is) the weaker the signal will be. To compensate for this, it’s advisable to select a larger dish than would normally be required if only one LNB were fitted.

The Sky minidish is too small to use a second LNB and no brackets are available. So it’s usual to buy a 60cm dish or larger – normally 80cm – with an LNB bracket that allows an extra LNB to be fitted.

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