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1. What is an satellite LNB?

LNB stands for "Low Noise Block Converter". It is the part of your Satellite dish that hangs off of the arm and looks like a flashlight. It is what captures the digital signal from the satellite.
 
 
2. How does an LNB work?

There are many transponders on each satellite that send channels. They are numbered 1-XX. Each transponder sends a group of channels. An LNB on a satellite dish can look at either odd or even transponders at any given time. It cannot see both at the same time. If you change the channel to one that is on an odd transponder, then the LNB switches to look at the odd...if you change to a channel on an even transponder, then the LNB switches to look at the even.
 
 
3. How does the LNB know which side (even or odd transponders) to look at?

This is done by voltage changes that your receiver sends.
 
 
4. What is a Dual LNB?
 
A Dual LNB is just two LNB's...each connection can operate independently of each other so you can have two receivers each looking at different stations on different transponders. They both look at the same satellite. A single LNB only has one coax connection and cannot be used with more than 1 receiver.
 
 
5. Can I use a splitter to add more receivers or add dual Tuners to my setup?

NO....this is where multiswitches come into play. You cannot use regular splitters. From the explanation of LNBs above, you should understand that if I split an LNB with a regular splitter, then I will have two receivers using the same LNB and fighting over looking at odd or even transponders. One or both receivers will only be able to see half of the channels.
 
  
 6. What are numbers during installation?
 
Satellites are in a geostationary orbit. This basically means that they go around the earth in exactly 24 hour periods, and therefore stay in the same place in the sky all the time. The only place they can do both of those is above the equator (physics.. you can't escape it). So, generally, positions are referred to by the longitude of the place they are above. Longitude, on the globe, are the lines that run from pole to pole. 110 West is the orbital position directly above, you guessed it, 110 West longitude. At 24,000 miles above the planet, this is a bit of a wide area, a couple hundred miles or so across. So, there's not one satellite there, but several. But to your dish, it's all the same. In order for your dish to see them, it has to point at them. That's why aiming is so critical. Less than a degree off and you see a completely different section of the sky with or without any satellite.
 
 
7. Why are the dishes round or oval and NOT square or any other form ?

See, the signal coming from the sky looks almost like a point source. Imagine a bunch of lines drawn from a point in space to your round dish. The lines are all parallel, so when they hit your dish, they bounce in different directions. Your round dish is a curve, so all those lines bounce to come together. The point where they all come to is where the LNB is. It's at the focal point.

8. Why is my dish falling apart and why is my signal so bad ?

Most likely, your dish was build in CR with fiberglass and aluminum foil, these are the same ingredients you use in your kitchen daily.

The aluminum foil is needed to reflect the signal from the satellite back to the LNB, but also works as a separator between the layers of fiberglass on your dish's surface.

Nothing really sticks to the aluminum and the fiberglass is seperating over time on your current dish. Bubbles, big or small, are building up and the signal is reflected everywhere else other than to your LNB.

This results in a poor reception and signal loss as an end result. To avoid this from happening, the satellite dish manufacturers in Costa Rica began to leave some space between the aluminum foil to create some sort of contact space where the fiberglass from the rear of the dish can stick to the front portions of the dish and vice versa.
Obviously, more contact space means a more solid dish, but due to less aluminum foil reflecting the signal to the LNB, less signal is send to your receiver and we all know what this means.

The bottom line is without getting too technical; a 2.4 mts dish with aluminum foil is only as good as a 2.1 mts dish because of the contact space needed to keep it from falling apart, which results in a portion of the signal being lost or reduced to such an extent it is eroded and non-usable.

9. Why is the Martin 265 so powerful ?

The Martin 265 is a real 2.65mts dish, built with wire mesh as were the original dishes we own. It is clear to everybody that fiberglass or the resin penetrates the mesh and makes the dish considerably stronger than all others manufactured here and because of our mesh to mesh procedure, our entire dish is ultimately mesh covered. We don't do a partial covering or a partial covering with aluminum foil here and there like our competition.

EVERY MANUFACTURER IN COSTA RICA USES ALUMINUM FOIL IN THEIR DISHES – WE DON’T ! We have a better manufacturing method for our dishes and the performance in ours out perform all the others considerably.

Check out the Video to see one of our dishes performing in heavy rain.

Martin 265 in heavy rain


10. Why are we using fancy connectors ?

Those connectors are Quad shielded water proof connectors to avoid even the smallest signal loss. We do the same thing with our cables, we only use quad shielded Coax cables with a solid copper wire inside, not just copper coated. Others use regular antenna cable, if you are lucky, double shielded. This is not enough, the Coax is most likely to run next to a powercable somewhere, every power cable has a magnetic field around which affects YOUR signal and can make a difference between watching TV or not. The cable and connectors we use cost twice or even tree times as much as others.

Some connectors or cables look the same to the untrained eye, take our word for it, it’s not the same! The best is all we provide for our customers at all time! It pays off for you and for us in the long run with superior signal. When you own one of our products and you are happy, we are happy.

10. Why don’t we need a TV to adjust/align a dish ?

We use the latest Digital instruments to align your sat/dish, this is done in a matter of no more than 2 min. We don’t sit on your roof for hours with a receiver and a TV trying to find a signal SOMEWHERE out there by using an already weak aluminum foil dish. We zero in on the satellite so it isn't a guess or a by gosh about where that satellite is, using modern state of the art equipment to set our High Gain custom built  dishes.

Our sat/dishes are becoming the state of the art in Costa Rica. There are many satisfied customers we have made installation for, and the other guys are unable to compete with the quality of our product, or our technical abilities, and most of all our expertise in both manufacturing methods and our customer care.

DishCR

Mike Martin