Which dish?

[Red_Dwarf]

I currently have a sky minidish which was installed by someone before I move into my home and I have tried it with a sky digibox but it detects no signal. I do intend getting a dual tuner PC Sat card so will require a Quad LNB for two dual tuner systems.

So rather than waste time messing around trying to get the old dish working I have decided to get a new dish which must give me excellent reception and must not affected by weather. That is the most important thing. I would like to receive from Astra 2 at 28.2E which is the important one and Eurobird 1 at 28.5E.

It will be mounted on the front of my house so I don't want something which is too obtrusive. I did think about a clear dish or if not then I would like to paint it. It does need to be fairly light as the fixing is difficult as there is rendering to my building so I would prefer it not to be steel or if it is then it needs to be relatively small ie less than 80cm preferably closer to 60cm.

So what size dish would do this and what models would provide the best signal in all weathers?

Any particular makes of dish I should look for?

[Wembley]

Hi dear

To get (28.2E ASTRA 2A,B,C,D, EUROBIRD 1) in your region you need one dish of 50cm minimum,you can put 60cm or 80 cm.
About the problem of the wind or bad weather you can do nothing because it is necessary to put big dish (but the law.......)
You can paint the dish if you dont find one transparent.

Good luck

[Red_Dwarf]

Hi dear

To get (28.2E ASTRA 2A,B,C,D, EUROBIRD 1) in your region you need one dish of 50cm minimum,you can put 60cm or 80 cm.
About the problem of the wind or bad weather you can do nothing because it is necessary to put big dish (but the law.......)
You can paint the dish if you dont find one transparent.

Good luck

Thanks for your post. So the bigger the dish the better for signal clarity. A clean signal free from continuity errors is very important to me which is why I mentioned the effects of severe weather on Satellite reception. I don't want a big downpour which can get fairly common in the UK causing continuity errors or signal drop outs. I must have that kept to as low as I can get it.

I am tempted to go for a 85cm clear dish but it really pushes up the costs coming in at about £75 inclusive plus LNB and brackets etc. Another £40 for a good quality Icecrypt quad LNB and £10 to £15 for brackets with extra for bolts & fixing resin. So around £140 for a dish which is a lot of money. I have some doubts about how much an improvement and how unnoticeable they are. Has anyone seen a clear dish and can comment on what they look like in real life situations? The pictures that sites post of them shown against sky is a very unrealistic IMO.

A house 4 houses from me has two dishes, one being a fairly big dish of about 1.2+ meters I would guess. Both stuck on the front of the house. Not a sight I want on my home.

There is a 68cm Funke dish which is claimed to function very well and be as good as 80cm dishes, costing around £46 to £60 depending on source. dvbdirect I have no confidence in using for the £46 Funke. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of Funke dishes? Are they worth considering over other dishes?