Toroidal Dish Info

[Rockin' Rick]

Since my pal Nrmf asked...

<---The Toroidal dish.
This neat thing can see 40° of the arc all at once, no motion, it even works spanning the peak elevation across the arc at your location.

Ideal if you look at more than 2 satellites spread out a little in the sky.
It also offers a fair amount of gain over some others.

There's 2 sizes, 55cm and 90cm. They both cover the same 40° but the larger one offers quite a bit more gain and you can mount more LNBs on it, up to 16.
With the 55 you cannot use satellites closer than 4° apart, and it holds only 8 LNBs (perhaps 9 to 10 depending on type).

Now, because of the design, the additional reflection causes circular polarized signals to switch directions, L to R and R to L (linear is fine). They produce special reversed LNBFs for use with these and an IRD. Boxes like DishNetork or ExpressVu require these special LNBs. However this isn't a problem for a DVB card and most FTA boxes.

The real deal is available through http://www.multilnbdish.com/

Or you can find knock-offs at Ebay.

I quite like it. It performs very well, great signal.

Rather difficult to align. Be prepared to put some time into setting one of these up, especially if you want to cross over the apex.