[AIstudio]

Hi,
Please bear with me here as I am quite new to all this satellite stuff. I realise that I may need a motorised dish to do what is required here.

I have built a very powerfull HTPC that can run full HD 1080 bluray and HD. It is also a semi gaming rig with lots of grunt for that to.
I am using media portal as the front end and currently have a dual digital tuner in there.
I am wanting to now venture into the world of free satellite reception.

I was looking at the cheap dishes with a quad LNB for different feeds.

Having now done some reading it is becoming quite clear that this wont suffice as the dish will need to be moved around to pick up the different satellites.
My questions really are which dish to go for and what I will need?

Will I need a motorised dish with just a dual LNB? what would the advantages of quad LNB be?

I don't really want to spend to much on a dish as I have spent far to much money on the HTPC and screen etc.

I also don't want a dish the size of a football pitch either as it will probably have to go on the front of the house (judging by the direction all the dishes are pointing in my street).

Any pointers here would be good as I can then plan the installation.

Kev

[AIstudio]

Damn I was in the wrong section when I wrote this

Can a mod please delete this and I will re post in the satellite forum.

Thanks

Kev

[Rock Da Bass]

[SamRadford]

A quad-output LNB has four independent "universal" outputs to feed up to four satellite tuners.
A Dual LNB has two feedhorns and usually one output, with the satellite being selected by a pulsed 22kHz DiSEqC signal from the receiver. But you probably meant "twin-output" LNB, which has two independent "universal" outputs.

It's fairly easy and common to fit three LNBs on an 80cm dish to receive signals from Astra-2, Astra-1 and HotBird. If that will get all the programmes you are likely to need then go for it. Use single-output LNBs unless you require more than one feed for each satellite. A DiSEqC switch can be used to select the required feed.

If those satellites won't suffice then a motor-driven dish will be needed. This will normally use a DiSEqC controlled horizon-to-horizon motor. In theory, this is easy to set up but a lot of people have trouble in understanding the principles. The receiver must have DiSEqC capabilities and, preferably, include USALS software.

That's it in brief. Now you can go and search for those key words and learn more about it.