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    #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by el bandido View Post
    The Titanium lnb appears to be having problems with my antenna system. I have a 3X4 multiswitch installed so I can feed 4 receivers with a dual lnb.
    I have not had any problems for two years with this system using the Pauxis dro lnb. Now I have to turn all other fta receivers off that are connected to this system when scanning with the Titanium lnb. If I do not turn the other receivers off, the Titanium lnb fails to scan many transponders!
    Hey El!
    Could you please post a pic(s) of your switch? I want to see what kind you have as I am looking for something to feed multi receivers with too. Do you remember where you bought it?
    I always enjoyed half-decent results with Titanium's LNBF, it always seemed to have trouble bringing in a number of weak channels that I thought it shouldn't have that much trouble with. I always figured that's how it was for the past year I used it as Titanium's LNBF ranks #1 amoung users in another forum. The large useless heat sink did seem to take up alot of tuning room and wanted something that wouldn't be prone to leaking eventually. Since I never signed any type of Loyalty Contract with Brian Gohl that I know of, I felt that I was free to try other LNBF'S out there; despite getting a not so kind or accurate private email from Brian regarding your other thread. I never responded to Brians email, it was so over the top wrong and insulting, it wasn't worth stooping to his level. Anyway, I was rather surprised to find better performance with a Chaparral DRO C-Band LNBF for a short time before switching over to a GeoSatPro C2 C-Band LNBF with similar results of the Chaparral! I am still using the Geosatpro LNBF, and I still want to test out how many channels I can get with it. [emoji2]

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    #12
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
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    Atlanta, Ga.
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    You are free to post the email if you think it is something worth sharing. Otherwise keep it to yourself. I post what I find about products, so it is expected that some will not be happy with the results.

    There is a lot of over-rating of the pll lnb for fta use. In a perfect world, a pll lnb would perform better on a skinny transponder and that is all. We have heard that the pll lnb performs great on all transponders, regardless of size, and then some. I have seen writings where a pll lnb will lock a transponder signal three degrees away, and how a pll lnb will lock transponders that a dro lnb is not capable of. Most of these things are myths or misguided judgements because the professional lnb makers will tell you a dro lnb will perform as well as a pll lnb except on the narrow or skinny transponder signals. I think most of the professional lnb makers would also say it is better to have and not need than to need and not have. So by all means get a PLL lnb if you think it will help you.

    Any decent 3X4 switch should work. I have attached a picture of one I am using.

    To be clear, The Titanium lnb seemed to have a problem with port separation at one point. I cannot remember exactly why I was having problems with it right now, but the receiver ports did have enough isolation where they were Not interfering with each other.



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    #13
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    Thank you for the pic! :-) Have you noticed any frequency drift in a DRO LNBF due to age or high summer tempetatures yet? That was my main concern about using a DRO LNBF, but I do like the PLL Geosatpro LNBF I'm using now. I do enjoy reading your posts, your reporting real world results like I do, I appreciate that. :-)

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    #14
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    I have dro lnbs that are at least 20 years old and they still work!

    Frequency drift can be a concern when transmitting or receiving narrow signals such as data from a has station, oil company, or a weather station. Frequency drift is not much of a concern when receiving signals designed for television. Television signals usually produce a much wider signal when compared to a data only signal, so frequency drift is not as critical for television as it is for small streams of data.

    It could be said all lnbs have frequency drift. But again you are receiving pictures for television so a small amount of lnb drift does not matter.

    You may test this yourself by moving any transponder frequency 1 MHZ at a time until you lose signal. Most of our satellite transponders are extremely wide and the transponder frequency can be changed by several MHz before losing the signal. Try it yourself and see.
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    #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by el bandido View Post
    I have dro lnbs that are at least 20 years old and they still work!

    Frequency drift can be a concern when transmitting or receiving narrow signals such as data from a has station, oil company, or a weather station. Frequency drift is not much of a concern when receiving signals designed for television. Television signals usually produce a much wider signal when compared to a data only signal, so frequency drift is not as critical for television as it is for small streams of data.

    It could be said all lnbs have frequency drift. But again you are receiving pictures for television so a small amount of lnb drift does not matter.

    You may test this yourself by moving any transponder frequency 1 MHZ at a time until you lose signal. Most of our satellite transponders are extremely wide and the transponder frequency can be changed by several MHz before losing the signal. Try it yourself and see.
    That's interesting, thanks for the info! :-) I have tested the C-Band frequency margins before on a receiver, and found that I had 10Mhz either way before the receiver lost the signal. I have read different stories from guys who would just lose satellite signal out of the blue to their DRO LNBF, they figured the DRO drifted too far out because of age and hot/cold. But like you would say, it could be pretty much anything. I still have a couple of good quality DRO LNBF's, maybe I will go back to those someday on a different project. But in the meantime, I want to try this new PLL GeoSatPro LNBF for the winter season, where the signals tend to come in the strongest it seems. I am also testing out a new receiver for my C-Band dish that claims to have a VERY sensitive tuner.

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    #16
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    Dro lnbs can drift enough to upset the television picture signal, but this is not a common problem. usually something else causes the loss of signal besides a drifting dro lnb. Dishnet and Direct Tv have used dro lnbs for many years. You could expect these companies to use pll lnbs if there was an advantage to them.

    Keep testing because that is how we learn. You can use a hair drier to warm a lnb if you want to see how it performs in hot or cold weather. Dry ice or ice packs can be used for cooling tests if needed.

    I played with c band on a 1.2 meter dish several years ago. I bought every c band lnb that was available to test on a 1.2 meter dish. A few years later, I bought every c band lnb that I could find that was already not in my inventory because of c band transponder problems in enigma2 fta receiver systems. So I ended up with a pretty good collection of c band lnbs. More or less, all of these c band lnbs performed the same when tuned to the same dish. These lnbs (lnbf's) all contain a single dipole antenna for each of the two polarities. So in reality, they all use the same antenna, which explains why they more or less receive the same stuff.

    To obtain the best signal possible, my experience has been that it is more important of how the dish is set up and how the lnb is mounted to the dish than it is as to what brand of lnb is being used. The feedline that is used to connect the dish to the receiver is also important. Just a little bit of water or moisture inside the feedline or its connectors can cause all sorts of received signal issues. The way the lnb is mounted in the scalar ring is also important. Mount the lnb too loose and the received signal may abruptly change for no apparent reason. Mount the lnb too tight and you distort the waveguide or the lnb tube which usually results in a small loss of signal. One sign of mounting the lnb too tight inside the scalar is having the plastic lnb cover pop off during installation.

    There are a lot of little things that can make a satellite antenna system good or bad. But for the most part, the choice between using a dro or pll lnb will make little to no difference in received signal strength. You can watch tv using either one of them.
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    #17
    Join Date
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    TRON 2.0, No need to suggest any impropriety... You have my full permission to share the recent email in response to your posting in the other thread. I had felt that it was more appropriate to respond in private as I had not been contacted by you regarding and issues. I continue to offer you a full refund if you really feel so poorly about me or feel that you were duped or purchased a poor performance product. I have always tried to assist you with your projects on other forums and sent you install goodies as you were starting out. I love the hobby and enjoy helping folks figure out the technology. If I have failed you, sorry!

    El Bandido, Enjoying the wealth of information that you share. I agree that DRO and PLL LNBs both provide similar performance on the fat and easy to receive muxes. In addition to the advantages of a PLL on skinny bandwidth SCPC services as you mention, a PLL really helps on high FEC transponders or signals near the threshold.

    An engineer friend does contract work with Dish Network and he indicated that they are currently testing some PLL LNBFs for the next generation development. The previous generation of PLL ICs had significatly higher current draw, generated higher noise, more heat and were quite expensive. About three years ago the new RDA PLL chips were introduced. These have really been a game changer for lowering the power demands, increased performance and at a low cost very close to a DRO build.

    I'll add my observations on the frequency drift. Most receivers have excellent AFT circuits and track the typical amount of LO thermal drift. DRO drift is most noticeable in the temperature extremes as they may cause the LO frequency to drift beyond the auto tuning capability of the receiver. Many Norsats, NJR and other brand LNBFs running strong and on exact frequency after 20+ years! Speaks volumes to their quality!

    Have a great weekend!
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