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View Full Version : Ferrite Polarizer, keep or remove?



astageuk
19th-September-2006, 23:41
I have a 90cm Gregorian motorised dish that has given excellent service for the last 13-years. Whilst its been working, I've not really kept pace with current receiver hardware.
Unfortunately, a dumb builder has damaged the two-wire cable to the ferrite (magnetic) polarizer mainly used in the good old D2Mac days for left/right polarized channels at 1 & 5deg West, but still of use to skew and maximize the signal for difficult satellites. I recently changed the LNB thinking it had gone, before finding the broken polarizer cable.
The question. Is it worth rewiring (about 15-metres of cable up to the roof), or would most people now just remove the polarizer?
My suspicion is that newer receivers won't know what to do with a polarizer, so it will be academic if (or when) the old EchoStar AD3000P fails. As it is, I expect the non-DiseQc motor drive (36V direct drive with optical position sensors) is likely to cause enough problems with a new receiver.

NitroB
20th-October-2006, 08:38
Tough one. Most new recievers wont have connections for polarisers. I suspect the new lnb and much stronger signal levels from new satellites make polarisers a bit pointless. I removed mine 10 years ago and found the new lnb gave better performamce than with the old setup. Bearing in mind the weakest signals are now from the nilesat and amos, their location in the near centre make skewing uneccessary.