DirecTV Sat C Kit Information
DirecTV recently announced that Showtime HD will begin broadcasting on April 30th and will require reception of the 110 degree satellite location. This is achieved using the standard 18 x 24" oval dish with the addition of the Sat C kit. This kit contains a special LNB, mounting hardware, a special signal combiner, 2 cables, and instructions. Note that some oval dishes that have the multiswitch built into the Y adapter allow for the LNBs to be pushed on and require only the LNB from the Sat C kit. The installation of the Sat C kit does NOT necessitate a new multiswitch. The Sat C LNB has only one output which is left hand circular polarization, selected by 18V from the multiswitch. This should be combined with the 18V output from the 119 LNB. See the diagram below for the standard hookup of a DirecTV oval dish for HD.
What is Special about the LNB?
The focus of the 110 satellite location is different from 101 and 119, so the feedhorn of the Sat C LNB differs from a standard LNB. Also, the Sat C LNB has a higher local oscillator frequency (11.542 GHz versus 11.250 GHz) than a standard LNB. This results in a shift of the frequencies from what is actually transmitted to that output by the LNB. DirecTV uses transponders 28, 30, and 32 at the 110 degree location. The Sat C LNB moves these to what would be 8, 10, and 12 on a standard LNB. Since DirecTV uses transponders 22 to 32 at the 119 degree location, 21 and below are effectively unused. Thus the output of the Sat C LNB can be combined with the 119 LNB.What is Special about the Signal Combiner?
Although the lower transponders on 119 are unused by DirecTV, there are still signals (effectively noise) that are picked up at these frequencies. Before the output of the Sat C LNB can be combined with the 119 LNB, this noise must be filtered out. The signal combiner has a high pass filter built in to filter out the unwanted signals.E-mail comments, questions, suggestions here
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