I a world when everything is getting cheaper and a lot of goods coming from Asia I wanted to see what all the hype was about from this company called Invacom. I have had a few chats with people over the past year and have heard mixed feelings about a lnb with a .3 noise figure and especially a lnb in the $55.00 retail price point. Some one was kind enough to send me a sample for me to put this little wonder through its paces. He knows I can hit the Atlantic sats down to 1 degree although most footprints do not hit me till about 5 deg elevation. I really wanted to hit Al Iraqia on Atlantic bird 1 but as I received the lnb I noticed the channel had left. The channel would have been a good candidate since the channel was just breaking up with a Winegard 76 cm. dish tricked out to get an elevation of 11 degrees. I needed something marginal since everything else I can receive good on any other sat.
Opening the box and taking this LNBF out I was surprised of the weight of the unit a full pound, the F connector protector, and the individual test report for this particular unit. Mostly all of the average LNBF have a little hole in the plastic isolator on the F connector for the center conductor of the coax, but this Invacom had something different I never seen before. The whole F connector is part of the die cast of the complete LNBF and the center hole for the coax probe had a metal ring to keep the center conductor taught also they have a good serface area for the connection. This is a big difference from the average other models where there is just a tiny piece of metal internally to make contact in case you never opened one up before. The throat was covered by a very tight film of plastic which is different than just slapping a plastic cap on. You can tell the film wound not inhibit much signal like the other thicker plastics. Looking down the throat you can see the horizontal & vertical probes.
After sitting on my table for over a month it finally hit me, one of my frequencies on T12's transponders went very weak. On my Traxis dbs1500 I used to have a quality of 80% rock solid without hardly any fluxuation. With a drop of power my quality went down to 57% on my Winegard 1 meter. One day we had a light drizzle of rain or more but enough to knock out the signal to have the video popping in and out. I ported the video to my computer and watched the quality level while it was holding at 57 % and drifting I grabbed my screwdriver, wrench, and umbrella before hiking it down to the dish 150 ft. away. I very carefully marked the centerline on the .05 LNBF I was using and matched the exact point on the Invacom SNH-031
Specifications:
Input frequency
Low Band 10.7 - 11.7 GHz
High Band 11.7 - 12.75 GHz
Output Frequency
Low Band 950 - 1950 MHz
High Band 1100 - 2150 MHz
Noise Figure 0.3dB typ
Gain 50 - 60 dB
Gain Ripple
26MHz bandwidth <+/- 0.5 dB
Low Band <5 dB typ
High Band <5 dB typ
Local Oscillator Frequency
Low 9.75 GHz
High 10.6 GHz
Local Oscillator Phase Noise typ
1kHz -65 dBc/Hz
10kHz -95 dBc/Hz
100kHz -110 dBc/Hz
Local Oscillator Stability
(including Setting, aging and +/-1 MHz typ temp. drift) +/-2 MHz max
Current Consumption 185mA typ
Image Rejection >40 dB
Isolation
Cross polar isolation >20 dB
High to low band isolation >25 dB
Two tone 3rd order intercept point (output) >15 dBm
Output Connector Female f type
Impedance 75 Ohm
Return Loss >10 dB
Operating temperature -40 °C to 70°C
Storage temp range -40 °C to 70°C
Power Supply 13 - 17v
