Petal / Fortecstar Satellite dishes for the Costa Blanca

The simple advice is AVOID!

These dishes may be cheap (£199 in the UK but I have heard of them being sold for over 400 EUROS!!) but they do not perform as a well as a solid professional 2.4m dish. They are poorly designed, with poor "flimsy" material, and not the best for accurate and precision alignment. Even the LNB that comes with the dish is not the one that should be used.

In fact some installers suggest a 2.4m petal dish performs worse than a solid 1.8m (or smaller) dish!

And on many internet forums there are people who say that they have has so many problems and issues with them they would advise not to buy one.

These quotes are from various posters on various sites.

"Now if anyone asks about a Fortecstar dish for use in this area – I will tell them - DON’T DO IT. Spend a bit more and save yourself a load of grief and frustration." -

"Forget all about getting a FortecStar 2.4m to perform well- they just are not built well enough. The sheet material is so thin that it distorts easily."

"Don't even think about buying a FortecStar dish"

"There is virtually no support - the LNB arms are not very precise - The engineering is not very good - even the petal holes don't always match up......and there is loads more ---- BUT - it did work after a fashion"

"to all you people thinking of bringing a Maplin special to the Costa Blanca - my advise is DON'T - You should really be spending a bit more to get reliable reception"

"so don't ecxpect too much from a Fortecstar - especially with the weaker Freesat channels. - Good luck..."

"and make sure yours is true and undamaged when you get it - mine was pretty battered in its case when it arrived and had to be returned"

Not all instances of these dishes being used are poor...but they are not the best, especially for the fringe satellite areas like Spain, and in my and many other installers opinion not worth the time or money to use.