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Almighty1 said:

I remember this in the news too...

$14,000 spent on rented rotary phone

A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now- outdated phone.

www.nbcnews.com

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rvvaquero said:

Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson had an argument about who was responsible for the dynasty building of the early 90's Cowboys.

The rest of us figured it out in about 3 years, Jerry has had over 30 years but still can't admit it. It's all he lives for, to show everyone he can put together a winner. I don't think he can. His kids only know what he taught them.

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Yespage said:

Johnson built it, but without the Herschel Walker trade, it never happens.

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SkyWatcher57 said:

Hello folks, well my luck ran out last week with a nasty thunderstorm and after 39 years here, finally took a hit. Now, the FTA receivers I had for some years worked great until now. Recently picked up a fairly cheap receiver, online, KOQIT and seems to be good, but for the life of me, I cannot get the HDMI output to work with 3 of my Samsung monitors. I can hook it up to my Samsung TV and its HDMI input and it works fine. The 2 receivers I lost also worked fine with them, so am I going crazy? anyone have come across this or have any suggestions? And, since this is a somewhat cheap unit but works, what is everyone out there using for receivers these days? without breaking the bank? I enjoy watching FTA TV, so I will invest more if needed, what is a really good, detailed unit these days. I'm so use to watching a few of them HD channels. Right now I'm down to composite hookups, yuck! Any help or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Frank

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SkyWatcher57 said:

Hello folks, well my luck ran out last week with a nasty thunderstorm and after 39 years here, finally took a hit. Now, the FTA receivers I had for some years worked great until now. Recently picked up a fairly cheap receiver, online, KOQIT and seems to be good, but for the life of me, I cannot get the HDMI output to work with 3 of my Samsung monitors. I can hook it up to my Samsung TV and its HDMI input and it works fine. The 2 receivers I lost also worked fine with them, so am I going crazy? anyone have come across this or have any suggestions? And, since this is a somewhat cheap unit but works, what is everyone out there using for receivers these days? without breaking the bank? I enjoy watching FTA TV, so I will invest more if needed, what is a really good, detailed unit these days. I'm so use to watching a few of them HD channels. Right now I'm down to composite hookups, yuck! Any help or info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Frank

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(((Garyd))) said:

Take the cover off, show me pics of the board of the bad one and also the bottom of the board. I'm an old hardware electronics tech plus a satellite dealer; I fixed a lot of FTA and regular receivers. I may be able to fix it for you. And yes, they got hit by lightning; it's best to email me the pics at diamondsatellite@snet.net or call me at 203-232-8888. I give you a 50-50 chance of fixing it; I do have spare parts. my phone is a fliptop phone
Gary

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SkyWatcher57 said:

Hi Gary, just saw this, ok, I'll grab some pics tomorrow and post them. thx

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telstar_1 said:

TrumpRx?!?

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comfortably_numb said:

Usually it's Walmart or Sam's + GoodRx

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navychop said:

That's ok. I probably take enough for the two of us.

God knows what Bobby takes. Maybe so much they count as a meal?

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Bruce said:

Sony is discontinuing it's last 4K disc player, Panasonic has been rumored to be doing the same, the end of physical media is unfortunately, about to happen.

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dishstaller said:

Hate to hear that. If you don't physically have something in your hand, you don't really own it.

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Bruce said:

Sony is discontinuing it's last 4K disc player, Panasonic has been rumored to be doing the same, the end of physical media is unfortunately, about to happen.

Bad News For Blu-ray Fans: Sony Has Stopped Making a Popular Player | Cord Cutters News

Sony has discontinued its final standalone UHD Blu-ray player, the UBP-X700/K, ending shipments of the device with no successor model announced. The move, first spotted by Japanese website Kunkoku.jp and confirmed through the status of the product on Sony’s own website, marks the company’s...

cordcuttersnews.com

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ncted said:

I am so done with Sony on so many levels. This is just one small piece of it.

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Bruce said:

just extremely harder to pull access vs digital.

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Jimbo said:

I Love my Sony equipment

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TvMind said:

Howdy folks long time no write.

Issue(s): Horizontal transponders (esp. Weigel mux) breakup/mosaic/sputtering audio, JTV less so (but received perfectly up until a month or so ago.
Vertical is fine (Daystar). Up until recently couldn't even get any signal on Weigel Mux but JTV was perfect.

What I did to improve things: A slight westward move improved reception but only slightly (approx 72 on the micro HD, sorry no dB to post). I removed the 3-way C-Band splitter and used a 2-way to get a 1-2 db signal gain ( the power port goes to the Startrak - the micro HD doesn't have enough juice ! (1st clue) even after swapping the switching power supply it came with with a heftier linear 12 V supply (less RFI too !).
I have had issues with the uHD before signal breaking up that a reboot would clear up (clue #2 = dying tuner?) - FYI, I reinforced the IF input and removed all flux from the pcb completely with a Flux Removal Pen (MG Chemicals Cat No. 4140-P) which definitely makes a huge difference.

I went outside and pushed and pulled reflector slightly and no improvement. Pole (actually tower in yard - the neighbours love me..NOT) is plumb, checked with carpenters level. Dish was last peaked in 2017 or so, after overhauling 24" Von Weise, new Acme, fresh grease, etc. Focal length, f/d ratio etc meticulously adjusted. One panel has a tear so planning to repair that this weekend when my cousin comes over ( to help me out (old guy here) forecast calls for sunshine.

What has changed: My utility company has installed new high tension line poles (one smack dab in the middle of 101°W target! But they put it in last year and reception (of JTV (HOR) at least) was fine, BUT when they came out to transfer the wires over this year from the old (sawed in half) pole that's about when the troubles started (coincidence?), but again Daystar (VER) was fine. I always had this pole in the light of sight of 101° before with no issues. (fyi my zenith sat 74° is unobstucted, but can't test)

In the meantime Weigel mux is trying to break in MOSTLY in LATE at night (less cell usage?) (audio not video except for a frame here or there) so don't know what has changed with this mux which suddenly "woke up". I have never had to fuss with dish moves on this satellite ( the slightest move +/- motor clicks loses lock, wheres normally on C-band I can go significantly wider east or west and still have a strong signal ( have these gone "spot beam" or narrower somehow and what is the slight difference in Az listed on Lyngsat to 100.9° affect things ( isn't that the declination i.e. requiring a tweak of declination?).

Long story short (too late, ha), if I had another DVB-S2 box to try and / or a newer more stable PLL lnb ( I have been meaning to upgrade many a time but never got arround to it) I could determine if it's my antiquated receiving equipment, or my dish/feed alignment ( doubtful as it tracks everything from 55 °W to 133 ° W nicely.) or the dreaded 5G! (BUT only on HOR and not VER?).
I read another post where the OP (with his smaller 7.5 footer) played around with the illumination to peak desired transponder and reduce qrm on interfering/ stronger xpndrs (even on 103° W). So will play with that too - and cut away the RG-6 a and pull up a fresh section with new PPC and coax Seal. Open the throat cap see if any cobwebs are there and check servo operation (also changed in last maintence 10 years ago).

Finally, this will probably be the last chance I get to play with the BUD from the looks of it (providers leaving, auctioning off rest of spectrum imminent above 4.0 Ghz, and to keep the peace with neighbours so it would be nice to have that mux back for the long, cold and dark winters to comfort this old man before I call it quits and buy a VHF/UHF/FM Yagi and get MeTV, H&I from my Vermont local stations (checked at a friends today and they come in nicely - except ABC) .
Only one guy in town (Montreal) I may be able to get a receiver or PLL lnb from to try (RPS Sat) so hopefully with elimnate that as a possible culprit. Be nice to pick up a cheap or used PLL lnb to try w/o 5G BPF (money is tight )

Like others I couldn't care less about "tv" (well maybe just a liitle or a lot) it's the challenge that excites me , I can get MeTV other ways OTA (no pirate crap).

So what do you guys (and gals) think ?. p.s. I don't have a spectrum analyzer and there are def/ cell towers nearby (half a Km or so away).
Oh and time permitting will hammer out dings too and wire damaged mesh on one section for an extra dB or two. Hesitate to touch Declination, Elevation and pole mount but will play around with those a little too... Why is this mux for finicky suddenly ?(8psk, 5/6 fec, beamwidthetc.. man wish they went back to VER I think everthing would be fine! For the engineers out here does 5G QRM affect one poliarization (HOR) more than another (VER)? I understand the strong interference swamps out the input mixer/local oscilator in the hapless old C-band lnb (I think it at time affect KU too esp. LPB on 101°W KU - incidentally thos were weak or "gone' but are back almost at the time MeTV improved..hmm Terrestrial interference?

Any thoughts or suggestions ( cheap or free solutions please) greatly appreciated. Cheers.

p.p.s. Micro HD can't display Decades and Toons but records them fine so I can watch on another box/media player (Ali chip set issue). Another reason to upgrade.

Anybody interested in a nice C/KU system free ? (for next Spring/Summer 2027)

[Sami 10' mesh, Corotor II+, Eagle Aspen (very old) C-band lnb, Norsat Ku lnb, Channel Master C/Ku (H/V) switch, Startrak 400 Analog receiver w/ motor control, Geosat uHD DVD-S2, CW600S for Mpeg-2]

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arlo said:

To me it looks like all of the intelligent things to diagnose the problem 'on the cheap' are being done.
I have my own thoughts of lnbf's using an external filter between the feed and coax. It would be cool to see what Brian could add.
Do his units have the filter before the actual LNA chip in the circuit? In other words, signal is focused at the lnbf throat. The probes for h & v polarity send the signal to.......filtering......then to the lna IC......
Or probes, lna, then filtering. Makes sense to trap the bad stuff before amplification to me.

On the cheap sometimes leaves questions. Enosat and El Bandido both use dvb-s pci cards and TBS USB receivers.
With those, and software. Signal analysis becomes sort of easy. Or tapping into your coax with a dc pass splitter, decoupling capacitor, and using a spectrum analyzer. Tuning across the LO band. Finding signal spikes. Digging deep.

Still making my decision on a (most probably) TBS PCIe tuner card. But I have tapped into my coax with my ancient but quite impressive HP spectrum analyzer and tinysa.
I don't have 5G interference so far that I know of. But have my suspects because I'm only able to snag signal from 131W in the winter when the leaves drop. But out of curiosity do scan it in the fall. And seem to be getting a signal that 'shouldn't' be there and a scan shows no channels. Far as I got.

An idea pops up to rig up an LNBF on a stick. Along with the tinysa and power supply and do some rogue signal searches. War Driving, of sorts. But. I wouldn't think that a chinabox, firmware based receiver would be of much help.
From what I see scanning across the frequency band. 5G cell transmission is always on and is very wide spectrum.
Whether anyone is actually using talking, texting, watching stupid human tricks on YouTube Makes no difference. The RF is there. So why would a C Band setup come and go? And what if you dumped the corotor and went modern voltage controlled polarity?

Another thought. Since you've learned the optimal position to place the scalar to illuminate out to the dish rim. And peaked the feed. There's most of a roll of aluminum flashing out in my garage that would most definitely wrap around my dish perimeter. That and a bag of large binder clips from the office supply. wally world. Ideas?

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brownsfan1 said:

I did some more investigating and found I got the MeTV mux in the early hours, until about 6am then the pixelating starts. Gets worse until around 8am its totally gone. I suspect my local cell tower is ramping up traffic as the morning goes on. My Titanium feed does a super job and most everything is clear that wasn't before but this mux is aggravating! I seem to just be over the signal threshold to work until the 5G total overwhelms my system. I'm using an old 9 foot spun aluminum dish and was wondering if I went to a 12 ft dish this would solve the problem? I know bigger is better in most satellite dish related signal problems. If this is true I will be searching for a bigger dish. I like your idea of flashing put around the dish perimeter. I have some I need to dig out and try before I start ripping out my dish. Anybody have any ideas if the bigger dish would do better? Any help would be appreciated!

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Scott Greczkowski said:

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)

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Don in CT said:

When I heard about this exploit I was wondering how quick you would be on it.

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