Vintage C-Band Dish Mover for Spare

Captain Midnight

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Sep 16, 2019
627
425
Greers Ferry, Arkansas
I'm getting my first BUD up, an 8ft SAMI Mesh dish w/ 24" actuator, and I am thinking of trying a vintage dish mover to start with and keep as a spare once I find a good V-Box or used ASC-1.

Thoughts on any good old school movers to look for? I found this on eBay and am curious on if they should be decent for moving a light 8 footer. RoyalSat SR120 and ProSat 210 Satellite Positioners | eBay
 
The ebay link is for an old receiver and the positioner is a variable resistor type sensor. Both are too old and not much use today.
 
I'm getting my first BUD up, an 8ft SAMI Mesh dish w/ 24" actuator, and I am thinking of trying a vintage dish mover to start with and keep as a spare once I find a good V-Box or used ASC-1.

Thoughts on any good old school movers to look for? I found this on eBay and am curious on if they should be decent for moving a light 8 footer. RoyalSat SR120 and ProSat 210 Satellite Positioners | eBay
Any old analog c band receiver from ebay with m1 and m2 terminals on it should work

Sent from my SM-G955U using the SatelliteGuys app!
 
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I have no connection to any of these auctions. The first one will work automatically with your fta receiver. The second one is cheap if you get it for the default bid, but you'd have to use it to manually move your dish if needed. You could use a notepad, and manually write down the counts that correspond to what satellite. Then just go to that number for that sat when needed.:

C-Band Satellite Dish Positioner | eBay

VINTAGE SATELLITE MICROPROCESSOR SYSTEM STS MBS-AA Satellite ANTENNA ACTUATOR | eBay
 
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Okay, I ended up scoring 2 ProSat 210s for $45 including shipping. But I think I have the wiring wrong. Or something is bad with my actuator.

I'll post photos, but I did get the actuator to fully extend and fully retract by reversing the motor power wires. I tried to wire the sensor wires both ways but had no luck with getting the mover to pull the arm back in after retracting it (without reversing M1 and M2).

I have not looked much on google for help yet, but I figured someone here could help me faster LOL.

Also, the "West" button is the only button that seems to have power. "East" does nothing when pushed. Same for both units! Makes me think something is just not wired right or the actuator is bad...

Thoughts?
 

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Prosat 210's are for actuator motors with old-school POTENTIOMETER sensors. They won't work with reed switch. I know this for a fact, because I used one years ago. In fact, I still have it, though I can't use it anymore as I don't have available one of the old arms that used it.

You could use it as a straight power supply East or West, but it won't read the counts on reed switch.
 
Prosat 210's are for actuator motors with old-school POTENTIOMETER sensors. They won't work with reed switch. I know this for a fact, because I used one years ago. In fact, I still have it, though I can't use it anymore as I don't have available one of the old arms that used it.

You could use it as a straight power supply East or West, but it won't read the counts on reed switch.
Ah, well that's the drawback of old tech. At least both have 30 day returns. I'll keep one just for the 36V for testing.
 
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The old tech can still be made useful sometimes. I like to deconstruct and re-purpose the parts for my uses. The old DSR920s are full of useful components for my purposes. I have an old sidecar positioner (DSB300) That I gutted and kept the case and transformer. I dropped a VBox X board , display and buttons into it. It's now a way improved very powerful VBox :) I've used the transformers in the DSR units to power other VBoxes and an ASC1. :)

DSB300 003.JPG DSB300 001.JPG VBP2 012.JPG VBP2 019.JPG VBoxDuo3 001.JPG VBoxDuoB 009.JPG
 
The old tech can still be made useful sometimes. I like to deconstruct and re-purpose the parts for my uses. The old DSR920s are full of useful components for my purposes. I have an old sidecar positioner (DSB300) That I gutted and kept the case and transformer. I dropped a VBox X board , display and buttons into it. It's now a way improved very powerful VBox :) I've used the transformers in the DSR units to power other VBoxes and an ASC1. :)

View attachment 141729 View attachment 141730 View attachment 141731 View attachment 141732 View attachment 141733 View attachment 141734

Great project Magic Static! The sidecar that you used in your project looks exactly like the positioner sidecar for the Uniden UST-9900. I know that I have one of these somewhere, along with a few Drake.

Your project has really got me thinking. There must be many of these old positioner sidecars still out there collecting dust. As you know these old units are built substantially better than any V-Box on the market.

What we need is someone to design an interface, like the V-Box module that you used. Perhaps an Arduino could work. If I was smart enough I would do it. LOL
 
Would anyone know how I might go about disabling the sensor limit system in the ProSat for just driving the dish manually back and forth?

It works as-is just for driving your dish east or west. At least mine does. I never had to disable the sensor circuit, just don't try hooking that up to a reed switch actuator.

It wouldn't be very useful without getting counts though.
 
It works as-is just for driving your dish east or west. At least mine does. I never had to disable the sensor circuit, just don't try hooking that up to a reed switch actuator.

It wouldn't be very useful without getting counts though.
Mine as-is was showing it was on the eastern limit and wouldn't drive east. Once I bridged the sensor terminals with a resistor, it allowed me to send the dish east and west. So, it is working fine for me now.
 
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