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Thread: Ku band questions

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    Default Ku band questions

    Gday everyone,
    After reading some of the threads on here I thought it was about time to have a play around with my old foxtel dish on the roof. I think I've got most stuff sorted out but I have a few questions. It currently has a Sharp branded 4 output LNB and I have a freesat v7 and SH-100HD meter.

    Firstly, can my LNB be both 10700 and 11300? I may be mistaken, but on my meter IS19 would only work when I had it set on 11300, and D2 would only work when I had it on 10700?

    Another strange thing is, when using dish pointer information it was correct for IS19, but the skew was totally incorrect for D2 - dish pointer said 0.9 degress, but it really is more like 20+. Is using dish pointer usually correct?

    So far in my experimenting I have found a few things that interest me on IS19 (found a few live sport feeds) and also on D2. Is there any other Ku satellites I should take a look at? From what I read Wize Tv may have been watchable from IS19 but now does not exist anymore...

    I have seen that there is a bracket available that allows you to mount 2 lnbs on the same dish, if I bought one of these would this work to get both IS19 and D2 from the same dish? (I am assuming not - I need to get hold of another old foxtel dish?)

    Thanks



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    If the LNBF is a standard Foxtel type, it should only have an LO of 10700 on all ports.

    A universal LNBF will have hi/lo LO frequencies, but these are usually switched with a 22kHz tone and Foxtel don't use universal types for domestic installations.

    I downloaded and read the little information there was on the SH-100HD meter manual and noted:

    Important Notes: If you need use the Quad or OCTO LNB, please switch the receiver LNB
    power to 18V.


    (18V is for horizontal transponders, 13V is for vertical transponders)

    Are you making sure you have a horizontal transponder on all satellites selected to tune with 10700 LO?

    Dishpointer.com info is approximate... you must make all adjustments using the meter or watching a screen from a decoder, displaying a signal quality scale.

    Azimuth and elevation figures are generally close, but skew is often out and I don't think it takes into account the difference between Optus sats and others.

    Optus sats have a different skew angle.

    Skew varies on your location, which you haven't mentioned.

    As a guide, for Australian east coast states, Optus sats will have an LNB skew of somewhere between the 6-7 O'clock position of the output connectors when viewed from the front of the dish.

    IS19 will have an LNB skew of somewhere between the 5-6 O'clock position of the output connectors when viewed from the front of the dish.

    Once again, these are starting settings only as a guide and you need to peak the signal quality readings by making tiny adjustments.

    Yes, it's possible to have two LNBF's on a single dish but there is a compromise in signal levels and IS19 and D2 are quite a distance apart.

    Dishes larger than the standard Foxtel dish of 65cm are generally required for this type of setup to work well.... and a bit tricky to set up.

    Separate dishes would provide a more reliable result and much easier to align.

    In both instances, you would connect the two LNBF's with a diseqc switch, to select between the two LNBF's.

    What other sats you can receive will depend on your location and if you have a clear signal path to them, if the transponder footprint covers your area and if your receiver is able to decode the transmissions.

    Hope this helps.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Machida View Post
    Firstly, can my LNB be both 10700 and 11300?
    That will not happen. Both those frequencies are for non-universal LNBs with only a single local oscillator (LO), i.e. you get 11300 LNBs and 10700 LNBs.

    The only one you get with two LOs is the universal LNB, but one of the LOs will be 9750, whilst the other LO gets selected with a 22kHz tone as mtv said, and that one is usually 10600 or 10700.

    All this means is an LNB with one LO will only be able to access one portion of the Ku-band, whilst the universal one can access the whole Ku-band basically.

    When your LO is 11300, you can't access frequencies below 12250MHz, if your LNB is 10700, you can't access anything below 11700MHz, but if you have a universal LNB, it lets you get the frequencies between 10700-11700MHz too, so-called Ku "low" band. Other LNBs only let you get (portions) of the "high" band.
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    Great thanks for your replies

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    Quote Originally Posted by AdrianR View Post
    That will not happen. Both those frequencies are for non-universal LNBs with only a single local oscillator (LO), i.e. you get 11300 LNBs and 10700 LNBs.

    The only one you get with two LOs is the universal LNB, but one of the LOs will be 9750, whilst the other LO gets selected with a 22kHz tone as mtv said, and that one is usually 10600 or 10700.

    All this means is an LNB with one LO will only be able to access one portion of the Ku-band, whilst the universal one can access the whole Ku-band basically.

    When your LO is 11300, you can't access frequencies below 12250MHz, if your LNB is 10700, you can't access anything below 11700MHz, but if you have a universal LNB, it lets you get the frequencies between 10700-11700MHz too, so-called Ku "low" band. Other LNBs only let you get (portions) of the "high" band.

    I have a question regarding this if you can help me out - So I am assuming I have a 10700 LNB. If I had a 11300 LNB, foxtel would then not pick up all the channels (some are below 12250mhz).

    So, what is the different uses for a 10700 vs 11300? I have seen 11300 LNBs advertised as the recommended LNB for D2/IS19 ?- Will a 11300 be superior to higher frequencies than a 10700?

    My question relates to my setup in that what I want to receive is from either D2 or IS19. I have realised I have missed some feeds that others have got, and are confused if the reason is whether I have missed them because I have a 10700 LNB, and really I should have a 11300 LNB?? (or issues with dish size or alignment)

    Thanks

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    I posted a long explanation, but it appears to have been lost with the site server shift.

    A lot of recommendations for 11300 LNB's are quite old.

    Foxtel/Austar used to only have transponder frequencies that 11300 LNB's covered.

    When Foxtel/Austar added some channels onto the then-new Optus D3, they were allocated to transponders below the frequency range that an 11300 LO covered, so they required a wider frequency coverage, which a 10700 LO provides.

    Subsequently, all exising Foxtel/Austar LNB's had to be replaced and all new installations also use 10700 LO LNB's.

    So yes, if you were to use an 11300 LNB on Foxtel, you would not receive the channels on transponders below 12.25GHz

    Have a look at to see what you'd be missing.

    The same applies to VAST transponders.

    Optus D2 and IS19 both have Ku transponders which use frequencies that both a 10700 and 11300 LNB will receive.

    You will not notice any difference between an 11300 and a 10700 LNB.... the 10700 just provides a bit wider frequency range.

    A 10700 LO LNB is more versatile, with its wider frequency range, so for your purposes, a 10700 is best.

    There are some sats that have some transponders below what even a 10700 LO will receive.

    This is where a 'universal' LNB is used, as it has a switchable hi/low LO range which will cover the entire Ku band.

    As for missing feeds.... feeds are intermittent and signal is often not present when there is no feed being sent, so for example, if you did a blindscan, a receiver wouldn't even find a transponder if it wasn't active at the time of searching.

    Feeds are often lower in power than full-time broadcast signals, so dish size/alignment and LNB skew is more critical.

    Hope this helps.

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    Yeah, 11300 is just an older type of LNB that used to be used in Australia before because all the frequencies from the Optus satellites for example fell between 12250 and 12750 MHz, so you only needed a 11300 LNB.

    The one to get today would be a 10700 - just makes more practical sense in case they ever decide to launch another sat and co-locate it with an older one or whatever.

    I am not too sure about the gain (what do you think mtv?) - but from the specs I've seen, sometimes these single LO LNBs do have a slightly higher gain than your universal LNB - brands differ but I've seen single LNBs at 65dB gain versus universals that can range from 55-60+ dB gain. But that's on the spec sheet and you can't predict real performance from that, plus the gain differs at different frequencies as far as I know. Between the 10700 and 11300 I don't know what their gain differences are, but I suspect not much.

    For D2 and IS19 the 11300 will still get all your channels because they all fall between 12250 and 12750 MHz. It is on your D3 satellite for Foxtel where the 10700 becomes necessary because there are channels lower than 12250 MHz, with lower limit at roughly 11700 MHz.

    The reason you don't need a universal for these sats is because there is nothing broadcasting between 10700 and 11700 MHz, the so-called lower Ku-band.

    In short: you are not missing the feeds on D2/IS19 because of the 11300 LNB, it is like mtv said, the power on these can be lower or you might have a receiver that cannot process very low symbol rates, or there might be some kind of digital format/medium/incompatibility issue between received feed and the receiver (they have been replacing older standards with new ones over the last few years, and will probably change even more once UHD becomes more popular for example).
    Last edited by irritant; 03-05-17 at 06:49 PM.
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    Great, thank you both for your replies, it answers my question perfectly.

    I may have fixed my issue as after I had worked out I had missed some feeds I used a weak feed to re-align my dish, where I ended up getting a slight boost in power/strength, which sounds like it was my issue. I think I was getting confused as I have been looking at a couple of online sat shops and ebay and they advertise 11300 LNBs as the choice for D2/IS19.

    Now all I need to do is get myself another dish to have both D2/IS19 fulltime

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    It might be worthwhile to keep a universal LNB lying around. The Intelsats have the capacity for transponders in the lower Ku band (10700-11700 MHz) good examples being those over the Indian and Atlantic Oceans (e.g. , ). You never know what Intelsat may be planning for the Pacific Ocean Region (POR), and might start broadcasting on those frequencies. Most of these Intelsats (ex-Panamsats) have that lower Ku band transponder design in them.
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    Ok great, thanks again for the info.

    While I am on a role of asking questions, what would be the recommended dish size and a decent lnb brand/model for D2/IS19 (I am in SE QLD) - There appears to be many different brands and some even unbranded? I believe I now pick everything up with 65cm (now that I am perfectly aligned) but I am sure going bigger would be more reliable? Would 80cm be more than enough - or bigger? Also, can anyone recommend any suppliers with good products and prices who freight?

    edit: also is there any other satellites (ku) I should be looking at for live sport feeds
    Last edited by Machida; 03-05-17 at 09:45 PM.

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    I prefer Azure Shine dishes.

    I recommend 80/85cm as a good size, both physically for mounting and for a bit higher signal capture compared to 65cm.

    As for LNB's, I use Sharp and Strong brands (Foxtel use Sharp).

    will freight to you.

    Can't advise on sport feeds... I don't chase them.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Machida View Post
    ...is there any other satellites (ku) I should be looking at for live sport feeds...
    They keep changing it so it's difficult and near impossible for people to receive.
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    Always useful to check the sub-forum "Free to Air, C Band and Feeds" on the "Satellite Television" forum for that.
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