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Glad to hear you got it working! What sort of quality numbers are you getting? On the weakest transponder I'm getting numbers that are halfway between the lower threshold of receivability and 100%. That's pretty lousy for that satellite, but the tree branches are partially responsible for that.

I think the key is to use whichever one makes you aim the dish higher. On a dish skewed 90 degrees that would be the topmost socket. That should minimize ground noise. I hope you won't be disappointed when EchoStar 5 takes over that orbital slot. At least you'll know whether you've got good...

An 18" dish should even work for 148W. The first picture is of such a dish, and as you can see it was partially obscured by trees (I took that during a solar outage, which you might be able to deduce from the LNB's shadow). That dish worked fine last summer, but this year after the leaves came...

I voted "no" because when I shop at satellite stores (online), I always go in with the intent of buying every reasonably-priced item that I might need in the foreseeable future. Then I come to my senses and drop a few items from the cart to get the total down to something sane. :)

A Dish 500 works pretty well on a tripod. I got the tripod for $18 off eBay, and used half of a fence post for the pole. It's actually pretty stable even with nothing weighing it down, although in windy areas I would recommend putting heavy bricks or cinder blocks on each of the feet. I...

Aren't there are really only 3 points difference between a quality of 70 and 88 on a Coolsat 5000/6000? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but as the quality increases the meter goes 69...70...86...87...88 (this is also evidenced by the quality numbers you reported above: there is none between 69...

Yep, that's the one! I think gillham is right about its purpose: the two big dishes look like they're pointed at 95W.

Not exactly FTA, but have you seen the dish farm at the intersection of Via Oro Ave. and Hughes Way (right next to the 710/405 interchange)? I think it's one of the uplinks for 123W. Among other things they have a 25m toroidal with 15 or so LNBs on it. It's right next to the street so it should...

76cm is probably the practical lower limit, but 120cm will give you a narrower beamwidth and almost three times the gain. I can't tell you how many additional channels that translates to, but I'd guess between 2 and 4 times as many. So, it's really more a question of how *big* you're willing and...

magnigyro: Impressive setup you've got there. Many of us have fixed dishes, but very few have ever taken the concept to its logical conclusion. You're not quite there yet though... have you ever thought about C-band? :D Seriously... there are at least half a dozen satellites that deserve a Mini-BUD.

In the early '80s my uncle had a satellite dish on what I think is called a track-and-wheel mount. It was a concrete pad with a circular track on it that was about the same diameter as the dish, and the dish sat on wheels that rode in the track. The track was perfectly horizontal so I can't...

Anole: I was just on the roof and took a look at my Primestar. The logo is just a sticker... well, WAS a sticker in my case; it's completely disintegrated now. From a distance it looks like the surface where sticker was is smooth, but up close I can see that it's nothing but a very persistent...

You can get the DVB-S2 board here for $135 + $10 shipping. It's not an authorized dealer as far as I can tell, but it's someone I would trust as much as I trust SatelliteAV or Sadoun, which is saying a lot. I guess it comes down to whether you want a warranty and official support or not.

Only the Technisat SkyStar 2 v2.3 does, and it doesn't receive DVB-S2. I couldn't find anyone selling one either. Other cards can do software blind scan but that can take hours. I use a cheap standalone SD receiver to do blind scanning, and if it can't decode the video because it's HD or 4:2:2...

The problem is that some TVs don't make it easy to switch between NTSC and ATSC. Mine makes me rescan all the channels! :eek: Switching between ATSC and composite shouldn't be a problem though, so one could split the RF input into a demodulator (i.e. a VCR) and hook that to the TV's composite input.

I starting to think that what allows the Ecoda to have DiSEqC switches cascaded behind it is that it intentionally passes DC and 22kHz to both inputs. I had always assumed that it uses something more complex like storing DiSEqC messages and then forwarding them after the 0/22kHz port selection...

I don't know about the Ecoda, but I know that some 22kHz switches pass power to both inputs at the same time, regardless of whether the tone is on or off. DiSEqC works by modulation of the LNB power, so you can expect both motors to move at the same time. Now, if you don't care about that, and...

Try setting a limit and then selecting "disable limits". Or are you saying that the box won't even let you set a limit?

Fox News was FTA for months if not longer on that transponder, but a day or two after it got listed as such on Lyngsat, they started encrypting. Unfortunately archive.org doesn't seem to archive Lyngsat anymore so I have nothing to back that up with. It could have been coincidence but I tend to...

What voltage are you seeing at the coax when VSEL=1? Is VCTRL connected to anything or is it floating?

Use a voltmeter to check whether the cable has ~18V when horizontal is set. I have seen receivers with a damaged regulator that would only put out the correct voltage on one polarity. Also make sure you are waiting long enough after setting the LNB voltage before sending the command. I think...

D means go west of zero, and E means go east of zero. I don't believe 0, 1, and F are applicable to this type of motor (again, DiSEqC positioner application notice section 3.10 only specifies commands for terrestrial positioners). I don't know why 0 worked to move east in that nibble for you but...

You're using the wrong command set... those are for terrestrial antenna rotators. The correct commands are E0 31 6E D1 40 for 20°W and E0 31 6E E1 40 for 20°E. The last nibble is the fractional degree setting, which is in units of 1/16° (the DiSEqC spec explains this almost correctly, but...

It has a Mexican Ku beam that reaches into the southern U.S. but I don't know if it's active. I'd check it myself but none of my dishes has LOS to it. I always thought that motor was an exclusive Sadoun product for some reason, but now that I look at the box it's actually sold under the...

I could be mistaken but I don't think there are any known transponders at 70W that can be seen from North America, so it wouldn't be possible to use it for alignment purposes. As for motors, I have my 90cm Fortec on a Sadoun DG280 and I'm very happy with it. Even with a lot of weight on the end...