Teresa asks;

Hi there, i own a satellite dish hotbird 60 cm i think, and a decoder Manhattan we are looking to get a motorized system so to be able to watch both foreign and Irish channels. Is my decoder and dish suitable for motorized dish? Your website seems to be well stocked could you tell me what to buy? also how long would the delivery take?

Our answer;

Teresa,

we don't stock motors and for one good reason - they can give problems especially when people are not experts on them.

Do you need a motorised dish ?

It suits you if

• if you want to look at multiple different satellites
• you don't mind a big dish on your house
• you have somewhere to mount it (chimney would not be suitable)

Equipment needed:

• 80cm satellite dish or 97cm satellite dish a satellite dish wall mounting bracket
• a single LNB
• a satellite installation kit
• A motor (we don't sell them)
• Satellite receiver

What satellites do people generally want ?

The 3 most common satellites people wish to access are:

• Astra 2 @ 28 degrees East - BBCs, Sky etc
• Astra 1 @ 19 degrees East - German, some French
• Hotbird @ 13 degrees East - Italian, Spanish, Polish

Single Dish non Motorised solutions

Dish size:

• if you are trying to pick up more than 1 satellite then your dish will need to be:
  • at least 80cm for 2 satellites
  • and 110cm if you are going to add 3 satellites

Mono Block LNB option

If satellites are less than 6 degrees apart e.g. Astra 1 & Hotbird

Have 2 satellite that are very close in the sky you can use a monoblock LNB which has 2 LNBs built into 1 with a built in diseqc switch.

Equipment:

80cm satellite dish

a monoblock LNB

a satellite installation kit

Satellite receiver

Comment: setup is tricky but offers a very neat solution.

2 Satellites & Diseqc Switch

The most common solution would involve a satellite dish with an offset arm that holds a second LNB and join both together with a diseqc swtich

suit: For any 2 satellites (astra 2 & astra 1, astra 2 & hotbird, hotbird & astra 1)

Equipment:

• 80cm satellite dish
• 2 way LNB holder
• 2 way diseqc switch
• single LNB * 2
• satellite installation kit
• Diseqc enable satellite receiver

3 Satellites & diseqc switch

The most common solution would involve a satellite dish with an offset arm that holds a second LNB and join both together with a diseqc swtich

suit: For any 3 satellites astra 2, astra 2 & hotbird

Equipment:

• 110cm satellite dish
• satellite dish wall mounting bracket
• Mounting bolts * 4
• 3 way LNB holder
• 4 way diseqc switch
• single LNB * 3
• satellite installation kit
• Diseqc enabled satellite receiver

Final notes:

Instead of the 2 way diseqc you could use a manual satellite switcher

Look at video on how to set up a diseqc system on a Triax receiver (same principle on all boxes) using a 4 way diseqc switch