Signal strenght on C-Ku band antenna?

[Mannysur]

Hi guys,just with a question in general.What component on a C-Ku band antenna its responsible for the signal going to the receiver?It is possible that the LNb going bad is responsible for this ? The antenna that I have its about 25 years old and I don't think had ever been serviced at all.Any help greatly appreciated.Thanks:rolleyes:

[Costactc]

Manny, in my opinion, there could be 3 problems. First, what type of coax wire is attached? I use RG 6. Secondly, what type of lnb are you using? If it's one of those old school ones, you'll need to change it. Are you using a switch? Finally, since the dish has not been in service for so long, it might not be tracking the Clarke Belt-arc.

[Mannysur]

Costa,thanks for the replay.I installed this setup with RG-6,and also I didn't replace the lnb wich I beleive is a Chaparral(old one),and no swicht on this.Do you beleive that replacing the Lnb,will increase my signal quality or not?The dish was donated to me,and was locally installed(3 blocks away)so I don't think that the arc was changed at all.Myself took it apart and didn't move any settings on the frame.And one last thing,what type of Lnb will you recomend?And also should be a good idea to replace the feedhorn with a newer one?Thanks once again for your valuable time.Manny.:thumbsup:

[TurboPirate]

Mannysur, is this the LNB you have on that BUD?

[Costactc]

Manny I have a couple of old school lnbs in the garage. If your looking for an lnbf I would suggest the geosat. Depends what you want to see though, I have a wideband coroter with seperate lnb for ku and c so I can pull in circular c band on the Atlantic sats.
If you took the dish apart and reassembled, how do you know your on the arc? You need an lnbf to test to see ifr you are getting any Quality signal. I would say in 99% of all installs some tweaking is neccessary.

[Terryl]

If that coax is 25 years old and out in the sun and weather it maybe time for some new stuff, the PVC jacket will get hard and crack over time, this could let the rain in and the conductivity and inductance will change, so the signal strenght could drop.

[Mannysur]

Turbo,Costa and Teryl,thanks so much for your help.To begin with Turbo,I'll tell you that the Lnb shown on the pic looks almost identical to the one on the antenna,just a litlle different.Now with Costa,I'll tell you that when I removed the antenna from the donor.I made sure to mark all alignements(bracket for the antenna in post and bracket itself )didn't move,just to let you know,I hire a sat guy to make sure that the antenna was in the arc on the new location wich he verify and corrected(I made a mistake on the wires connected to the receiver GI Super350i)after that I was able to hook up this to 40,45 and 55 W birds with no problem,but like I mentioned on a previous post the decreased on the signal lately its very noticable,that the reason that I beleive that the decrease on signal q its because a hardware problem.And to Teryl,I ordered brand new RG-6 ribbon cable so the wire it's only a couple years old(no,I didn't take the old cable).Guys thanks so much for your time and once again greatly appreciated from a new guy on this fabuolus hobby.Lets see if I can resolve this issue thru new feedhorn and Lnb,just need a little bit of guidance on the best on the market for both.Thanks a million.Manny.:yes:

[Costactc]

I'm using Chaparral wideband feedhorn with Aspen Alpine ku lnb and Chaparral 11-7100-1 c band lnb. This comes equipped with servo motor so you would need an stb that can control that like the pansat3500.
On the Atlantic side, many sats are circular, that is what you would need to pull in those channels:

L= Horizontal
R- Vertical
With an lnbf at 40.5w I pulled in 20 channels of which 6 were open but with wideband corotor I pull in 188 channels of which almost 100 open.


http://satfix.net/showthread.php?t=6501

[Bowhunters]

I've had BUD for some years and from what i've seen and read LNB's go bad extreemly rarely if they are under the hood and kept out of the weather, its much more likely the cable went bad as they are out in the elements.

I would also look and see if the Feedhorn has a plastic cap over the open end pointed at the dish?

What can happen if there is no end cap on the throat of the feed horn is that wasps, mud daubers, spiders, etc can get up inside over time looking for a dry place and make a nest or crawl up inside and die and it doesn't take much of that to block the signal coming from the dish so besides the other very good ideas given by others that may be another possibility to add to the list if you know the feedhorn has no end cap.

If you aren't sure if it has a cap you should be able to see it from the ground.

I would also mention that even your old BUD LNB will probably work just fine for 4DTV if that is your intention, back in the days of analog only BUD people replaced them with better LNB's to help the picture quality as the cheap LNB's were bad about increasing the amount of snow, etc on the tv picture, I know my old C-Band LNB that came on my BUD years ago was very old (1970's or 1980's) like in that picture in one of the posts and it worked for 4DTV, I replaced mine only because I was buying a whole new feedhorn to add KU and so I bought newer better quality LNB's to go with it.

[Mannysur]

Costa and Bowhunters,thanks for you help.And Costa I would like a little bit of help on the decision about the Lnb,I would like both bands(C-Ku),as you can see I'm interested in international programing(spanish),and if I can get the best,better.And Bowhunter,thanks for the advice,I haven't checked the cap for critters,yet,but for sure that will be my next project.If I can I will be posting pics of what I have over the next few days.And Costa,my antenna its controlled thru a GI Super350i and also thru a Sonicview 8000HD with a 500GB HD.Guys thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!!!!:thumbsup:

[Costactc]

Manny, if your interested in Spanish channels, you must make the investment in a wideband feedhorn. Atlantic sats from 22w-58w are mostly all Spanish.

[Mannysur]

Costa,thanks for your help.I will be trying to get a wideband corotor.Just let me know if its gonna take any mod on my antenna or a direct replacement.The one that I have now,its one like the one in Turbo pic.Thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!:thumbsup: