Quote Originally Posted by Hebridean View Post
I live in zone 2 as you will gather from my pen name. I'm looking for a bit of advice on the most suitable Zone 2 dish for me given what equipment I have and what I'm trying to achieve.
I have the following:
S*y HD Box
TM5402 box
S*y fixed dish
S*y Octo Lnb
Multimedia PC

Once I have everything setup the way I want it I would like to move forward and look at some of the nearby sats and see if there is any channels that are of interest to me. It is possible that longer term I may want to look at some of the more distant sats so I was thinking that it might be best to move to a motorised 1.2 meter dish so it will satisfy my future needs if I decide to go down that road.

Because of where I live, I don't think I will have any issues with planning and neighbourly complaints. What would members suggest the best dish setup is for me. I've been told to go for a 'better dish' but that didn't help as I'm not sure what spec I'm looking for.
a "zone 2" dish is normally a 59cm dish made by raven and supplied by sly when you take out a subscription in scotland and northern ireland
a "zone 1" dish is a 39 to 42cm dish used in england and wales, its smaller than a zone 2 as we get a greater signal

so I would assume you have a zone 2 living in scotland, meaning you have a specialised sly dish of around 59cm, usually oval

the point about dishes is generally thus "the bigger the better"

now assuming you go motorised, and want diseqc control as well, you would tend to buy a diseqc motor and generally they can take a load of a dish that is up to say 1.1 metres, so usually something like a triax td110. but there are other makers of dishes like andrews and gilbertini and others, different dish sizes too

or you can use a polar mount , vbox to control the actuator, and go much larger, usually on a ground mount , so say 1.8 metres or 2.1 metres etc (planning permission usually required)

so lets assume you can have 2 dishes, one being a zone 2 sly dish already installed, you would look at a dish of say 1 metre , and a suitable motor like a darkmotor or technomate motor, and an inverto ultra black lnb (or similar lnb). this would be fine for 28.2e, but also give good choices on the other satellites you may receive in your location, subject to no trees or walls or buildings causing obstructions

add on to that shopping list T-K brackets for wall mounting (or a ground mount), scaffold pole etc and you have the basis for a good system, and is what I use although I am in england, not in scotland or its islands

so a "better dish" is a non-sly dish , of say 80cm to 110cm in diameter, and an inverto ultra black lnb, motorised being preferable to fixed

but if you wished to push the boat out with a much larger dish, you need specialist help (and a vbox, and an actuator etc as well)