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_drew_

Last reply Oct 25, 2007 · posted in Free To Air (FTA) Discussion

Need help Choosing Satellite dish package

Well I'm just starting to get in to this FTA have been reading past few weeks.I don't have any spare PCI slots left in my machine.I"m just starting out,I went to by a USB receiver and the DVB world Box had good reviews on this site,but this is no longer being sold I'm told,in it's place they are selling a device called Match Box Pro USB DVB-S Satellite Receiver .I just bought one of these,this seems to have everything the DVB WorldBox had.Now what I am looking for is a simple dish LNB and motor Combo.I will just be using this receiver on only my main PC which is connected to my HDTV LCD in the living room.I have been looking at packages from Sadoun Satellite systems..looking at this package here MKit 2 Package:eSame as above, but here you get a 90cm dish instead of 80cm and a SatControl motor.This comes with a 36 inch dish.I'd like to know what you all think that have been into this FTA..and would welcome any suggestions you would have for Dish packages..thanks in advance.

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stogie5150

Oct 23, 2007

You're in for a steep learning curve. The standard advice here is to get a settop FTA receiver first, set the dish up, concentrate on learning how to aim at one satellite. When you have that mastered then you can move on to the motor. Motors have their own learning curve too. THEN you can slave your USB box to the FTA receiver and get what you want. That's how it was suggested to me, that's how I did it, and having done it, That's how I suggest everyone do it. Yes it seems like a pain from the outset, but there are very good reasons to do it that way, that will only become apparent when you actually do it. But once you do it, you will quickly understand why.

Setting up a motorized dish with JUST a USB Box is gonna be danged near impossible. They're just not designed for that.

As far as suggestions....I use old Primestar dishes...hey, they were free. But if I had to buy a dish I'd get a 90 cm/1m dish providing I had a place to ground mount it. You want, if at all possible to mount your dish on a pole concreted in the ground because you WILL be spending a lot of time out at the dish aiming, tweaking, etc.

Now, as far as specific receiver reccomendations...you can look in my sig and see what I have, out of all of them I like the Coolsat 5000 the best. It was my first receiver, but I still like it the best. They do not sell them anymore to my knowledge, but you can get a 6000 which is about the same, function-wise.

Motors, all I have experience with is the Sg2100, I like them, I have two, they are solid pieces of kit.

Hope some of the above rambling helped.

Anole

Oct 25, 2007

I'm with Stogie

I looked up your Mkit2 package.
It seems to be a pretty good value for all the pieces.

But, I have to echo what Stogie said.
I bought a similar pack with a USB receiver a few years ago.
Was a real chicken and the egg battle:
- can't get the dish aimed without a working receiver
- can't get the receiver to work without having the dish aimed.
- can't get the motor working at all.
- the software was a nightmare !

You should really search the forum here, using keywords like: "USB"
Read everything you can - it'll do you well.
Scan through the DVB forum section and look for interesting threads.
Here's one thread worth a look.

dishstaller

Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter

Last reply 44 minutes ago · posted in The Chit Chat Club

You can't even trust the cost per ounce info in grocery stores anymore

I'm surprised Walmart hasn't banned this guy from all of their stores. He has been on their CASE the past few months.

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/f3zr37ekgKM?feature=share

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Jimbo

Today at 9:23 AM

dishstaller said:
I'm surprised Walmart hasn't banned this guy from all of their stores. He has been on their CASE the past few months.

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/f3zr37ekgKM?feature=share

Walmart isn't the only one ...

Juan

Today at 11:17 AM

dishstaller said:
I'm surprised Walmart hasn't banned this guy from all of their stores. He has been on their CASE the past few months.

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/f3zr37ekgKM?feature=share

When walmart set a price...they weigh the container and the product...the product label only shows the weight of the product...I am sure if you brought your own plastic baggies to bring the product home you could get the cheaper price

harshness

Today at 11:18 AM

Jimbo said:
Walmart isn't the only one ...

I've been seeing this more and more on Amazon. Sometimes it seems there is no way they could have arrived at the number.

What rankles me even more is Costco changing units of measure between similar products, so you have to convert them to compare prices.

dishstaller

44 minutes ago

Juan said:
When walmart set a price...they weigh the container and the product...

Then they are stupid. Everyone knows that the price per ounce should be the price per ounce of actual product.

Scott Greczkowski

Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge

Last reply 49 minutes ago · posted in The Chit Chat Club

Song Name Game Part 3!

Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne

Get it?

An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....

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sdfntx

Today at 9:36 AM

Love Every Little Thing About You - Gallery

gms49ers

Today at 10:40 AM

Where's My Thing? - Rush

harshness

Today at 11:08 AM

I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing - Aerosmith

Reactions: dishstaller

Bobby

Today at 11:20 AM

Good Golly, Miss Molly - Little Richard

Reactions: gms49ers

dishstaller

49 minutes ago

Little Miss Dangerous - Ted Nugent

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dfergie

Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!

Last reply Today at 11:26 AM · posted in The Chit Chat Club

Gas Price Info With National Gas Temperature Map

Stumbled across this ... http://www.gaspricewatch.com/USGas_ZipSearch.asp
I found no local prices, although it did show stations at my location...
Added these to this post...
USA National Gas Temperature Map
State By State Gasoline Taxes
Gas Buddy

Ethanol Free Stations

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harshness

Sunday at 11:30 AM

I wonder if California is getting into the Winter formula.

harshness

Yesterday at 5:32 PM

harshness said:
I wonder if California is getting into the Winter formula.

It turns out I was justified in my suspicion.

Gavin Newsom somehow authorized the temporary move of the distribution date of the Winter blend to September 28th.

Foxbat

Yesterday at 8:39 PM

harshness said:
It turns out I was justified in my suspicion.

Gavin Newsom somehow authorized the temporary move of the distribution date of the Winter blend to September 28th.

Does that raise, or lower, the overall price? Our State Government has been doing everything it can to minimize the impact of the current situation and put a freeze on the State Taxes on fuel sales at the pump. That's why we're still under $4.00/gal. while across the border in Michigan it's much higher.

Bobby

Yesterday at 9:05 PM

Foxbat said:
Does that raise, or lower, the overall price? Our State Government has been doing everything it can to minimize the impact of the current situation and put a freeze on the State Taxes on fuel sales at the pump. That's why we're still under $4.00/gal. while across the border in Michigan it's much higher.

Winter blend is cheaper than Summer blend.

Reactions: dishstaller and Foxbat

Bobby

Today at 11:21 AM

Regular$5.839
Premium$6.299
Diesel$7.999
at Costco, Rohnert Park.

harshness

Today at 11:26 AM

Foxbat said:
Does that raise, or lower, the overall price?

Winter blend is reportedly 10-30 cents cheaper, but I would point out that prices have dropped as much as 62 cents at RP.

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reubenray

Today at 11:19 AM · posted in DISH Network Support Forum

Dish vs Streaming Apps?

Every time my Dish contract comes up I weigh the options of keeping Dish or switch to streaming. Right now I can watch/record the OTA channels vis my HDHomerun. I also can stream CBS and NBC via the Paramount+ and Peacock apps. What I would need to find is how to watch the Food Network, HGTV, Syfy, USA, Hallmark channels, Great American Family, Lifetime channels plus a few more with an app or two. My current Dish bill is $118, so I should be able to get a few apps for a lot less.

Any suggestions? I would want the best picture quality and audio quality I could get.

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Former member 209992

Last reply Today at 11:18 AM · posted in SatelliteGuys Support Center

Site is slooooow

For some reason, the satelliteguys.us site is loading a lot slower than usual on both Chrome on my Asus laptop and Safari on my iPhone.
I'm also seeing longer appearances of the blue bar at the top and the "3 blue bars" loading symbol.
Is anyone else also having the same problem? Thanks in advance.

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Scott Greczkowski

Saturday at 3:21 PM

Ok checked it out and for some reason the web server (NGINX) tried starting before the DNS resolver fully loaded. This is why it worked when I rebooted the machine.

Thanks to ChatGPT it had me change the NGINX config to prevent this from happening again.

With that said I can't prevent the ISP from doing emergency upgrades which was the cause of all of this.

Reactions: long_time_Dish, Foxbat, FTA4PA and 1 other person

navychop

Saturday at 3:39 PM

Nature will develop better idiots.

Reactions: charlesrshell

TRG

Saturday at 4:19 PM

navychop said:
Nature will develop better idiots.

God help us.

Reactions: FTA4PA and charlesrshell

Scott Greczkowski

Monday at 11:15 AM

I guess this is what the downtime was about.

Reactions: long_time_Dish, Foxbat, Bobby and 3 others

Scott Greczkowski

Today at 11:18 AM

Just a heads up... I just patched our PHP to close the major PHP exploit announced this morning.

Now on PHP 8.4.27 (cli) (built: Oct 20 2026 00:00:00)

Reactions: dishstaller, FTA4PA and charlesrshell

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Booredatwork.com

Today at 10:52 AM · posted in BooredAtWork.COM

iPhone Duo Folio Kickstand Case!

Time for another AWESOME video from BoredAtWork!

View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RTpsyCQSAgA

Direct YouTube Link - iPhone Duo Folio Kickstand Case!
Booredatwork.com Website
Booredatwork on Facebook

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Gary Toma

Staff member Pub Member / Supporter Cutting Edge

Last reply Today at 10:40 AM · posted in DIRECTV Technical Resources Forum

DIRECTV Transponder Map ~ Data 10/14/2026

The TPN Map Excel Presents all DIRECTV Channels:

National (50-States or wide/NAT+PR beams)
Local (Local-Into-Local or narrow/Spot beams)

Additional tabs provide:

OTA the (Over-The-Air) Database
VOD (Video On_Demand) Records
Offline Records
Engr Records
Net Decoder a graphic presentation of all satellites and transponders

Domestic Satellites
@99W...... D11, D14
@101W.... D16
@103W.... D12, D15
@110W.... D5
@119W.... D8

Understanding the TPN Map

Making Sense of the TPN Map Display Conventions

DIRECTV_TPN_Map_261014.xlsx 1,874 KB

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KyL416

Yesterday at 2:37 PM

WCWW/25 CW South Bend and WBKP/5 CW Marquette are now testing on the stream server. These are both already available on satellite.

Now live in the satellite guide:
663-2 PISTONS (663-1 is likely being reserved for an overflow feed of Detroit Sportsnet, if there's a 2027 MLB season)
675 THUNDER
693 CLIPPERS

Reactions: Mr Tony

doctor J

Today at 7:22 AM

DirecTV Satellite Transponder Updates for Oct 21 2026

Comparison of Transponder Data for Oct 21 2026 vs Oct 14 2026:

No changes in system tables for any transponder tuning parameters.

Changes to the use of defined transponders:

1 Transponder cleared of all Streams::
Net 10 TID 126 Beam NAT is a National Transponder on D11@99cb, TPN 3

1 Previously unused Transponder with current APG records::
Net 15 TID 15 Beam NAT is a National Transponder on D12@103ca, TPN 16

Stream (PID) counts:

LIVE Streams	National		Spot Beams
	Count	Change	Count	Change
4K	4
HD	264	2	1449
SD mpeg4	145		194
SD mpeg2	433
RB
Audio	89
Push	26
Slate	19		1

TEST Streams	National		Spot Beams
	Count	Change	Count	Change
4K
HD			1
SD mpeg4
SD mpeg2
RB
Engr Work	38	-2

The PID count Excel workbook provides much more count detail.

Newly updated tables of Streams on each transponder are available in the DataDigesters TPN Grids

More details of changes in individual channels will follow in the Weekly Analysis
and Gary Toma's Domestic TPN Map Excel files

NBA Updates
Weekly Analysis soon
Enjoy
DataDigesters

doctor J

Today at 7:23 AM

weekly Analysis for 10/21/2026:

Weekly_Analysis_261021.xlsx 16 KB

KyL416

Today at 7:25 AM

HAWKS, HORNETS, GRZZLIES, HEAT, MAGIC, CAVLIERS, TWOLVES, BUCKS, PACERS and SPURS channels have also been added, however they are pointing to a TV Promise slate, which says they are working with DAZN and others to strike a deal for those teams.

Some more TPN swaps

Mr Tony

Today at 10:40 AM

KyL416 said:
HAWKS, HORNETS, GRZZLIES, HEAT, MAGIC, CAVLIERS, TWOLVES, BUCKS, PACERS and SPURS channels have also been added, however they are pointing to a TV Promise slate, which says they are working with DAZN and others to strike a deal for those teams.

Some more TPN swaps

Wait…..
So even though DAZN keeps touting 'only way to see games' if you are a subscriber to Choice (like my stepdad) if an agreement is reached he can see the Wolfies on 668?
I know the Wild are in dispute and a slate is on 668-1.

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Marques Brownlee

Today at 10:32 AM · posted in Marques Brownlee