Hit the Jackpot

[wvman]

I hit the jackpot over the weekend. I located 2 10 foot wire mesh dishes, one Perfect 10, one Unimesh in excellent condition free to get them out of there. I originally installed the Perfect 10 when I was in business. It had a little hail dimples, but those are easy enough to repair. I would have taken one of them yesterday, but it had a hornet's nest on it the size of a basketball. I plan on installing these two dishes at my house and lock them on different satellites.

With the 7 1/2 foot and these, I am going to make a dish farm or sorts and I need a little advice. I have two receivers in the house and I need to know how to get all three dishes tied together with both polarities on all three dishes. I need to know how many switches I'll need, and if I'll need a power inserter and how to wire them so I'll have programming from all three dishes at each receiver.

I was thinking of locking one ten footer on Galaxy 16, the other on SES-1 and the 7 1/2 footer on Galaxy 19. I have a bit of a signal problem on SES-1 with Movies, Decades, H&I and MeTV. I hope setting them this way will eliminate the problems with these channels and make it easier to switch channels.

 

[migold]

It sounds like you want to do what I have done. I have one 8 ft stationary on 99W and 105W [Dual C-band LNBFs]; one 10 ft moveable on 97W and 103W [Dual C-band LNBFs]; and one 90cm Ku moveable usually aimed at 125W. I have attached the connection diagram.
Satellite_System Hookup_2016.pdf
This system has been put together slowly over the past few years. It uses 4X4 switches and 4x1 DiSeqC switches. If you are in southern WV, you are probably not far from my location.

 

[ancient]

I hit the jackpot over the weekend. I located 2 10 foot wire mesh dishes, one Perfect 10, one Unimesh in excellent condition free to get them out of there. I originally installed the Perfect 10 when I was in business. It had a little hail dimples, but those are easy enough to repair. I would have taken one of them yesterday, but it had a hornet's nest on it the size of a basketball. I plan on installing these two dishes at my house and lock them on different satellites.

With the 7 1/2 foot and these, I am going to make a dish farm or sorts and I need a little advice. I have two receivers in the house and I need to know how to get all three dishes tied together with both polarities on all three dishes. I need to know how many switches I'll need, and if I'll need a power inserter and how to wire them so I'll have programming from all three dishes at each receiver.

I was thinking of locking one ten footer on Galaxy 16, the other on SES-1 and the 7 1/2 footer on Galaxy 19. I have a bit of a signal problem on SES-1 with Movies, Decades, H&I and MeTV. I hope setting them this way will eliminate the problems with these channels and make it easier to switch channels.

I don't know what is wrong with SES-1 but I am having the same issues even using a 10 foot dish. Also I will say that if I were you I'd consider using the 10 footer for Galaxy 19 and the 7½ footer on Galaxy 16. If you aim the smaller one properly you should have no problems with most of the signals there, except maybe the one from Missouri which seems to be having a lot of issues lately. But if you are trying to get the high bandwidth signal on Galaxy 19 (you probably know the one I mean; the 4:2:2 one that most receivers won't play in real time) or especially that elusive 16APSK one, then you need every little bit of signal strength you can get.

With three or more dishes I think I'd consider setting up a satellite backend system using TVHeadEnd and a couple of tuner cards (at least a quad input one). Better if you had two such cards so you could have six or more inputs and dual output LNB's on all your dishes, then you could record from up to two different transponders (regardless of polarity) on each satellite at the same time, without ever having to switch inputs. And you can play the live streams or recordings on any device connected to your local network that can run Kodi or VLC, with the caveat that some of the lower-powered devices (like a Raspberry Pi or most Android-based devices) may not have enough power to play those high-bandwidth streams or recordings smoothly. But the initial investment on that can be a bit costly and also there's quite a bit to learn before you will have it running smoothly. On the other hand, receivers are cheap and getting cheaper, so if you plan to do all your viewing in a single location those are the least costly option, but many of them may not be able to play live TV or recordings from those high bandwidth transponders. You could have a receiver for each dish and then use a HDMI selector switch (assuming you don't have enough HDMI inputs on your TV) to switch between them.

I think TVHeadEnd might become a lot more usable for us if they ever actually get around to releasing version 4.2, but something keeps delaying it. I know the 4.0 version will not scan in channels from some of the newer TBS cards; don't know if 4.2 will fix that or not.

 

[wvman]

I don't know what is wrong with SES-1 but I am having the same issues even using a 10 foot dish. Also I will say that if I were you I'd consider using the 10 footer for Galaxy 19 and the 7½ footer on Galaxy 16. If you aim the smaller one properly you should have no problems with most of the signals there, except maybe the one from Missouri which seems to be having a lot of issues lately. But if you are trying to get the high bandwidth signal on Galaxy 19 (you probably know the one I mean; the 4:2:2 one that most receivers won't play in real time) or especially that elusive 16APSK one, then you need every little bit of signal strength you can get.

With three or more dishes I think I'd consider setting up a satellite backend system using TVHeadEnd and a couple of tuner cards (at least a quad input one). Better if you had two such cards so you could have six or more inputs and dual output LNB's on all your dishes, then you could record from up to two different transponders (regardless of polarity) on each satellite at the same time, without ever having to switch inputs. And you can play the live streams or recordings on any device connected to your local network that can run Kodi or VLC, with the caveat that some of the lower-powered devices (like a Raspberry Pi or most Android-based devices) may not have enough power to play those high-bandwidth streams or recordings smoothly. But the initial investment on that can be a bit costly and also there's quite a bit to learn before you will have it running smoothly. On the other hand, receivers are cheap and getting cheaper, so if you plan to do all your viewing in a single location those are the least costly option, but many of them may not be able to play live TV or recordings from those high bandwidth transponders. You could have a receiver for each dish and then use a HDMI selector switch (assuming you don't have enough HDMI inputs on your TV) to switch between them.

I think TVHeadEnd might become a lot more usable for us if they ever actually get around to releasing version 4.2, but something keeps delaying it. I know the 4.0 version will not scan in channels from some of the newer TBS cards; don't know if 4.2 will fix that or not.

FYI, Monster Cable makes a 6 in, 1 out remote controlled HDMI switch for under a hundred bucks. I have one and it works great. The Pansat motor drive box I ordered a while back has a remote that uses a couple of the same infrared codes as the HDMI switch and kept changing to one particular input on the switch when I changed satellite positions. I remedied the problem by switching the satellite receiver to the input it kept switching to in order to avoid having to use the HDMI switch remote to change it back.

I knew it could get a little costly to do what I'm wanting to do, but what the heck, I'm in it deep enough now it's become a bit of a hobby. I did run into an odd situation when I upgraded receivers. I bought 2 HDVR3500's to replace the HDVR1200's we were using. I ran into a bit of a problem getting the TV and satellite receiver output to match up. Some of the channels, HD & SD, are pulled in at the sides, and some of the screens is just a small viewing area with a large black area at the top, bottom and both sides. Never had that with the HDVR1200.

I contacted GeoSat, but have not been able to reach Eugene by phone to see if we can resolve the problem. I know this is supposed to be set by the television, but the old receiver never had this problem, and it's on two different televisions with the same model receiver. I decided to try something last evening, so I went out and purchased a new 60 inch Sony TV to see if that fixes the problem. My other TV is only a 1 1/2 years old, and I've tried every setting in the TV and the receiver trying to get it to fill out on all the channels. We'll see how that pans out when I hook it up this evening.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I'll see what I get into with this.

 

[Titanium]

The image size or squishing is the aspect ratio setting on the receiver and/or the TV. Change the aspect ratio setting to either auto or a fixed aspect ratio.

 

[wvman]

It sounds like you want to do what I have done. I have one 8 ft stationary on 99W and 105W [Dual C-band LNBFs]; one 10 ft moveable on 97W and 103W [Dual C-band LNBFs]; and one 90cm Ku moveable usually aimed at 125W. I have attached the connection diagram.
Satellite_System Hookup_2016.pdf
This system has been put together slowly over the past few years. It uses 4X4 switches and 4x1 DiSeqC switches. If you are in southern WV, you are probably not far from my location.

Very nice diagram. It will be very helpful when I get everything in place. Thanks a million.

 

[wvman]

The image size or squishing is the aspect ratio setting on the receiver and/or the TV. Change the aspect ratio setting to either auto or a fixed aspect ratio.

I've tried every setting in the receiver and television, and still have the same problem on two different TV's with the same model receiver on both. What's really odd is the fact that the HDVR1200's I had never did this. It only happened after I upgraded to the HDVR3500's. The HDVR1200's had a setting in them that was 4.3PS, which I assume stood for progressive scan. The HDVR 3500's don't have it. Just for grins and giggles, I went out day before yesterday and bought a Sony 65 inch TV to see what it does.

Haven't had time to hook it up yet as we have been very busy this week. I'll get in installed this weekend and see what happens. I'll post the results in here. If anyone else has had that problem, I never saw the thread. It's kind of strange it started just by switching receivers.

 

[wvman]

I don't know what is wrong with SES-1 but I am having the same issues even using a 10 foot dish. Also I will say that if I were you I'd consider using the 10 footer for Galaxy 19 and the 7½ footer on Galaxy 16. If you aim the smaller one properly you should have no problems with most of the signals there, except maybe the one from Missouri which seems to be having a lot of issues lately. But if you are trying to get the high bandwidth signal on Galaxy 19 (you probably know the one I mean; the 4:2:2 one that most receivers won't play in real time) or especially that elusive 16APSK one, then you need every little bit of signal strength you can get.

With three or more dishes I think I'd consider setting up a satellite backend system using TVHeadEnd and a couple of tuner cards (at least a quad input one). Better if you had two such cards so you could have six or more inputs and dual output LNB's on all your dishes, then you could record from up to two different transponders (regardless of polarity) on each satellite at the same time, without ever having to switch inputs. And you can play the live streams or recordings on any device connected to your local network that can run Kodi or VLC, with the caveat that some of the lower-powered devices (like a Raspberry Pi or most Android-based devices) may not have enough power to play those high-bandwidth streams or recordings smoothly. But the initial investment on that can be a bit costly and also there's quite a bit to learn before you will have it running smoothly. On the other hand, receivers are cheap and getting cheaper, so if you plan to do all your viewing in a single location those are the least costly option, but many of them may not be able to play live TV or recordings from those high bandwidth transponders. You could have a receiver for each dish and then use a HDMI selector switch (assuming you don't have enough HDMI inputs on your TV) to switch between them.

I think TVHeadEnd might become a lot more usable for us if they ever actually get around to releasing version 4.2, but something keeps delaying it. I know the 4.0 version will not scan in channels from some of the newer TBS cards; don't know if 4.2 will fix that or not.

It would be nice if GeoSat would include the 4.3PS format in their next system upgrade if that's possible. My older TV is less than 2 years old, so it should have the necessary settings to handle just about anything. I still haven't heard back from Eugene at GeoSat. I'm going to try to call him this evening. I'd like to do that before I switch TV's.