Thread: 12 foot cband dish

I all. I bought a place in the summer and it came with a 12 foot mesh satellite dish and a gi 2730R analog receiver. There's a whole lot of nothing out there. The odd vc2 channel which is blacked out on g5. What can I do with this setup? I have a vs9000 fta receiver. Can I hook this up to the big dish? And use the analog for moving the dish? Is there anything out there? Or will the viewsat not work receiving in the clear digital cband feeds/channels? Also 4dtv is that dieing a slow death?

Very little analog programming left these days.

I don't know anything about Viewsats but yes, you should be able to hook it up to your BUD.

Yes, the analog receiver should work fine to move your dish, and to switch polarities if you have a servo-controlled feedhorn.

Look here to get an idea of what you could be able to get:


SatelliteGuys.US_TheList - TheList

"4DTV" is not gone, but it's a shadow of what it once was, IMO. Check with SRL and Skyvision for what programming is still available.

Welcome to the site Steve. I have never had a viewsat either, but heck yeah hook it up and give it a whirl. Lots of help here to help you get something going.

You'll need a special splitter. two outputs, one for each receiver. Common port to the LNB. One output passes power to the LNB, is hooked to the analog receiver. The other output is power blocking, This would go to the Viewsat.
Satellite AV, LLC - Satellite Broadcaster Support and Equipment Distribution

{reason- the FTA receiver is set up to run an LNBF, which uses LNB voltage to select polarity. 13[V] or 18[H] volts. At 13 volts, LNB's rarely work. With the power pass port to the analog, the LNB will receive 18 to 24 volts all the time. (Perfect)}
On another note, I'd remove the VCII module from the analog receiver. It's battery is most likely ready to die, and probably leak. That may make a doorstop of the analog receiver.

I have a red grey and black board for the analog unit. Red gives me weather channel as subscription required. Grey and black descramble the only vc2 channel but no sound.

Nice! Get an Openbox/ Manhattan, AZbox etc. for DVB-S2 channel support. There are lots of sports feeds up there along with all of the channels listed on the list. For the money the Openbox is great. I don't think the Viewsat does DVB-S2 but it does many others.

you may not even know if that old lnb is working.....
i'd change it to a newer model and just save the old one to bench test it later if you wish.
dont run that dish back and forth too much without checking that it has been lubed properly.
when i get my buds, they always need lube on pivot points or in the actuator.
the fun level working with buds is awesome!!

Steve I have a viewsat I use it to get the pbs stuff on 125w. It want do 422 or dvb-s2. As has already been suggested the cheapest route would be a Openbox s10 or Manhatten. For the money you cant beat the Openbox for blind scans, But it dont do 422 either. My 2 cents

Check out a website called Ivy Stone Place. I just bought a combination c-band/ku-band lnb there for $15. Two were $30. It cost $10 to mail both. I buy extras to use with old digital fta receivers. It will work with any digital receiver -- including Openbox. A new openbox is $95. It will get you all the c-band and ku-band channels on any old dish larger than 6 feet. If you have a big dish, you've already got the costliest item. The rest of it won't cost more than $200. Read the internet. Its easy and fun. A dish mover (24-36 volt) will cost 35-40 bucks. Some call them a g-box. Others a v-box. I've heard of folks using a car battery and pointing their dish permanently at one satellite only. Trash the analog receiver. Some do use the analog receiver to point their dish.

I live way down South. Big dishes work good and are easy to find down here. Lots of c-band is high def.