 Sky minidishes with extra LNB A dual "monobloc" LNB is designed to provide a 6 degree separation on an 80cm dish. Usually for Astra-1 at 19.2°E and Hot Bird at 13°E. It can't be used for any other satellite separation and it's totally unsuitable for a Sky minidish. For that you'd need two separate LNBs on a bracket. This is possible but requires some ingenuity, as shown in the photos below (originally displayed on the "digitalspy" forum). Note that a Sky minidish is very small and there's a risk of signal loss in bad weather - especially if you are not situated near the centre of the "footprints" for the relevant satellites. A better bet would be the "zone 2 minidish", which looks almost identical but is significantly larger - nearly 70cm wide. Note, also, that the distance between the LNBs is related to the distance of the focal point away from the dish. In other words, to the length of the arm. On a minidish, the arm is quite short so the minimum angle between satellites is about 9 degrees - which means that reception from Astra-1 at 19.2°E and Astra-2 at 28.2°E is just possible. |
|  | Sky zone 1 minidish with additional LNB held by cable ties. Picture by "Keicar". |
|  | Sky zone 2 minidish by Raven with additional LNBs. Rain fade margin better. Multi LNB holder is off eBay from a seller called 'vortech_trading' myworld.ebay.co.uk/vortech_trading |
| Hi Martin Mine's the photo above. I was pleased to see someone else had bought the same bracket and had it working. I have to say on the Zone 2 dish the signal is excellent with no rain fade. The one tip I have is that the bracket is a little tricky to ft. It's a tight squeeze for the centre LNB and all the Sky LNBs are under 40mm neck diameter, so you need to wrap some tape around them before fitting, otherwise the bracket won't grip them tightly enough. Once set up, though, it's solid, reliable and does the job perfectly! I hope more & more people take inspiration and have a go. Richard |
|  | Sky minidish with 2nd LNB held with tape. Photo by "Carvell". |
|  | Sky minidish with 2nd LNB held with tape. Photo by "PsychoTherapist". |
|  | Sky minidish with 2nd LNB held with duct tape. Picture by "Keith-in-France". |
|  | Sky minidish with a second Zinwell quad-output Sky LNB added by Chris E. |
|  | This ingenious "bodge" is by James E. Note, however, that it is on a larger dish (not a Sky minidish). |
|  | This arrangement appears to be German or Austrian and was labelled "Schnuffi". (Not a Sky minidish.) |
|  | An ingenious LNB arrangement by "Ghostleader". See image below. |
|  | One of the clamps on the bracket is used to hold everything to the LNB which is attached directly to the dish arm. |
| If you have any questions, please ask the experts on the "digitalspy" forum SatCure Bracket |
|  | SatCure's own 60cm dish can be used with the bracket shown immediately above. Click for more info... |
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| Return to SatCure index page Copyright ©1997-2012 Martin Pickering Updated on February 13, 2012 This file may be downloaded for private and personal use but NO part of it may be published in any form without the prior permission of the author. |