Petal Dish / Fortecstar Satellite Dishes

The simple advice is AVOID!

These Fortecstar Satellite 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.

The Fortecstar Satellite Dishes 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 2.4m Fortecstar Satellite Dishes perform worse than a solid 1.8m (or smaller) Prime Focus satellite dish!

And on many internet satellite TV 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 expect 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”

“I wish I has seen this website before, as I have spent a fortune in time and money on trying to get this dish aligned to work satisfactory, but even after 3 other installers have been to visit and try to align this dish, I gave up, counted my losses, and bought a solid single piece dish from The Sat and PC Guy instead.” – via email

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.

Perhaps the best use I have seen for a Fortecstar Satellite Dish is as the roof of a pergola!