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Legacy Twin, Quad and DP twin, Quad

30K views 52 replies 18 participants last post by  Pinza 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
These are legacy twin lnb and DishPro (DP) twin lnb which look identical except for the DP letters. These lnb's have internal switches built in and have 2 outputs.

As far as I know Bell does not sell these. From what I have read legacy lnb's must be 150' from lnb to receiver while DP lnb's have a 200' range.

I have seen these lnbs sell for $25 and less on ebay.

 
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#2 ·
Administrators Note:
I want to thank Q for all his work setting these threads. All of the work below was done by him. I merely helped him post some of this information (hence why it appears to be posted by me). Please direct any thanks or questions to him - Hugh

 
#3 ·
These are legacy quad lnb and DP quad lnb. These lnb's have internal switches just like the twins but have 4 outputs. These installations typically are easier than SW44 because there is no external switch.

These are also not sold Bell. These typically sell for $30 or less on ebay.

 
#5 ·
Mixing Legacy/DP LNB or receiver?

I love these "reference" threads. Thanks for putting them up.

So, I was reading the DPP LNB thread, and the limitations on mixing older receivers with a DPP LNB. This seems to make sense, as it seems the DPP does something special to allow the use of separators with dual tuners.

Does a similar situation exist for Legacy/DP receivers or LNBs??

ie: I currently have two legacy dual LNBs with a legacy receiver, and maybe 30' of RG6 from my dish to the receiver. Could I do either of the following:

i) I want a twin LNB to do away with the SW21, but buy a DP twin LNB, not a legacy twin. Will the legacy receiver still work, or will I have to upgrade to a DP receiver?

ii) I get a legacy twin LNB to go with my legacy receiver. I later decide to replace the legacy receiver with a DP receiver (eg 5900). Will that work with the legacy twin LNB, or will I have to upgrade the LNB at this point?



The thread above seems to imply the LNB's are almost identical (other than the DP provides for a greater distance between receiver and dish) But it doesn't completely say that.

Thanks
 
#7 ·
Thanks,

I didn't know about the DP adaptors.

(This is getting complex. Makes me glad I have DirecTV not DISHnet down here in the south!)

So, I guess the best bet is to get a Legacy-Twin.... will work with everything until I get a DPP dual-tuner receiver and want to run both tuners off a single line with a DPP seperator?
 
#8 ·
BEVinBOS,

Why not just get the legacy quad. It will give you 4 outputs instead of the 2 with the twin and they are about the same price.

Later if you upgrade to a dual tuner receiver just run two lines to the receiver and you still have two extra.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Legacy quad question

As suggested above, I have gone and obtained a legacy quad. It was listed as "new/unused" by the ebay seller. It appears to be unused - everything is very clean, and there is no sign of weathering or chipping of the housing.

However, there are a couple of large gaps between the white LNB cover and the gray housing, one on each side of the device.

See my photo at: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/album.php?albumid=97&pictureid=505

Now, I thought water was one of the greatest enemies of LNBs, and the housings were designed to exclude water from getting into them. Is this going to function OK?

My dish is accessible from a 2nd floor window, and will have to be unpointed and spun around so I can replace the LNB. I just wanted to check before I replace something functioning with something that may not.

Thanks
 
#15 ·
Adding another receiver

Hi All,

I'm feeling like a fish out of water when it comes to this stuff so please forgive me if this has been asked a hundred times. I've searched and I can't seem to find a scenario that is exactly like mine.

I have what I believe is a DP (or DPP) quad LNB. It's part number AK74-S. It has four lines coming off of it that currently run to two 3100's and one 9100 (using two lines). I'd like to add a 5th receiver or perhaps another dual tuner receiver.

Can you suggest what I need to do in order to add additional receivers?

Thanks!
 
#16 ·
BELL 9242 with dish pro quad LNB

Can someone help me. I have a regular 18" bell dish pointed to 91 if I replace the existing LNB with a Dish Pro quad will it work to get 91 and 82 for HD programming? If it will work do I need to reposition the dish which is currently set at 91 for the existing LNB.
I know that I need to run a second cable for the 9242 receiver.
 
#18 ·
If it is a DP Quad, LNBF. I think you will need a DP34 multiswitch, fed by 2 lines from the LNBF which will give you 4 outputs, plus the remaining 2 on the LNBF, total of 6 outputs.
 
#19 ·
Thank you. I read something about skewing does that apply to me. My existing dish rotates on the arm and can be moved up and down it can't be rotated or skewed as I read. Will the 20" dish work without the skew. secondly Do I have to reposition it or just replace the LNB
 
#21 · (Edited)
I believe you can also use a DishPro Plus switch with a DishPro LNB like the AK74-S. If a DP34 multiswitch is hard to find look for a DPP44. You can cascade a second DPP44 to get additional outputs, and with DishPro Plus you can use a DPP separator to feed a dual tuner receiver like the 9200 using a single RG6 run.

I've got two DPP44 switches feeding 6 receivers, one of which is a 9200 using a DPP separator. Works great, and if I ever convert any of my other receivers to dual-tuner units all I'll have to do is stick a $10 DPP separator on the existing line.
 
#22 ·
I have read conflicting reports about the Dish Pro dual quad LNB working with 3100 receivers. I understaand that it works with the newer 9242 but not sure that it will work with the older 3100's Can someone that knows for sure please let me know if it will work with both receivers.
 
#25 ·
Quad increases signal strength?

Last weekend, I swapped out my two legacy duals and SW21 for the Legacy Quad. My dish is accessible out a 2nd-floor window. I had to loosen the two bolts at the back, and swing the dish around to reach the LNB's. I marked (with a Sharpie) the dish alignment before moving it. Once the Quad was in place, I just swung it back and re-aligned the sharpie mark - nothing more careful than that.

After doing the check-switch, everything worked instantly. The thing I noticed, however, was that many transponders showed much higher signal strength (10-15% higher) than with the legacy duals. Here's a summary (data taken on a sunny afternoon with light cloud, using a 5100 receiver):

Two legacy dual LNBs, SW21

91W
01-08: 89 95 81 87 99 78 100 82
09-16: 100 78 100 83 80 79 91 86
17-24: 96 76 88 87 100 75 100 78
25-32: 96 75 88 85 88 85 87 91

82W
01-08: 76 75100 96 75 75 71 93
09-16: 81 75 65 92 80 76 72 92
17-24: 79 75 70 91 80 75 68 93
25-32: 80 75 66 93 79 75 68 94

Legacy quad, no SW

91W
01-08: 100 100 88 88 100 80 100 85
09-16: 100 83 100 88 89 85 100 91
17-24: 100 83 100 97 100 82 100 86
25-32: 100 84 100 94 100 91 100 98

82W
01-08: 86 78 100 100 85 77 82 100
09-16: 96 77 76 98 96 78 82 97
17-24: 96 76 81 91 98 76 78 99
25-32: 94 76 76 97 95 76 76 99

The odd tps, especially, showed the highest gains. I also now have more 100%'s than I do on my DirecTV system that was installed professionally. I was ecstatic! Should a transition like this make such a difference? Were my connections to the SW21 or the jumper cables from the LNBs to the SW21 that poor?

Of course, every silver lining has a cloud for me. My tuner glitching issue, described in detail here:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=99454 (posts 5-6, 8-9, 13-15)
is now more prevalent that before - rather than less prevalent (which was most of the motivation behind making the swap!) I'll have to deal with that issue separately.

But it would be good to know if upgrading to a Twin/Quad LNB is expected/known to increase signal this much - in which case I'll never bother playing with an SW21 again!

Thanks
 
#26 ·
the signal you see on the screen isn't the actual signal strength, it's more of a signal quality without the units of measure. the signal quality is a measure of how much more signal than background noise you have. i've often seen the signal quality measure higher when the actual signal strength was near the minimum. what happens is the receiver is not able to measure the background noise level as it is too low to measure, so it takes the signal which was still strong enough to measure and subtracts zero from that, and tells you that the signal is better than what it actually is.
since you now have a stacked signal, 1/2 of the transponders are now a much higher frequency and the higher the frequency the more loss per foot you will have in your cabling. i suspect this is what is causing your signal meter to read higher, it's not more signal, it's the background noise getting too low for the receiver to read. you may have too much cable length in the system or you need better quality cable.
 
#27 ·
Lonnie,

Thanks - I'd never heard of this before.

I could certainly understand this scenario if I'd switched from a 18" single-sat dish to the 20" dual-sat setup - but I already had the dual-sat setup with an SW21. Doesn't the quad LNB do the same thing that the SW21 used to do? In both cases, I had/have one cable coming from the dish to the receiver - its just that now it comes from the LNB rather than switch that was cable-tied to the dish mast.

My set-up is also a little unusual - the receiver is probably physically only ~ 10 feet from the dish. There's maybe 20-25' feet of cable between the dish and receiver by the time it winds it way into the house. Not sure if its Quad shield, but it was spare cable left by the DirecTV installers when they put that dish up for me after we moved here 2.5 years ago.
 
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