New developments. I've been thinking about that display and looking it over. I noticed there is a jumper configuration chart on the back of the display. It indicates two ways to enable the backlight which this doesn't have. I got to looking at the display that does have a backlight. The only visual difference between the two was that the backlit one had the jumpers soldered. That made me think that maybe there was a backlight in the one and I just needed to solder the jumpers for it. Couldn't hurt to try. I already messed it up by plugging it in backwards right? Well I was certainly shocked when I plugged it in and although here was no backlight the unit was functioning perfectly. huh? OK then! A little more investigating led to the real problem. Poor connections. Break out the "Stabilant-22" and no more problem
I
that stuff. I didn't hurt the display after all.
The backlight can made to run on a separate power circuit via pins 15 & 16, or you make it come on when the display is powered via pins 1 & 2. there are jumpers to enable all 4 pins. The backlit one comes with pins 15 & 16 enabled. Since I have a 5v source in the VBox it would be a simple thing to put a switch on the back to turn on the backlight
What we need now is a add-on circuit to insert LNB power 18v - 24v and have less signal loss than a separate device with coax connections.