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According to one write up, it is supposed to use the Null cable!


From SatelliteAV's web site:
The new Fortec Star Dynamic satellite receiver provides digital free-to-air satellite
reception without compromise.

The Dynamic is a cosmetically redesigned Mercury II receiver with all the great features
and reliability that you expect from the Mercury II hardware.

I could not get a Null Cable to work STB to STB! PC Cable yes!

Now what is strange is the Fortec Star Web Site Says this for the Mercury II:

Uploader - (Female-to-female 9-pin NULL modem cable needed.)

Channel Editor v.1.0 ( May 16, 2006) - (Female-to-female 9-pin NULL modem cable needed.)

I don't know, but unless a got a couple strange Dynamics, seems like they are wrong with the Null cable thing!

Have not yet had a chance to play with the Channel Editor yet with either cable. I will do that today sometime and let you all know what cable works with that!


There is a 2008 firmware version the Dynamics are using now, the new one I got had it in there before I moved the 2007 firmware to the new one by accident! both now have the 2007 version! O~well they are working fine just the same with the 2007 version of firmware!



B~Man

FTABman0 said:

According to one write up, it is supposed to use the Null cable!


From SatelliteAV's web site:
The new Fortec Star Dynamic satellite receiver provides digital free-to-air satellite
reception without compromise.

The Dynamic is a cosmetically redesigned Mercury II receiver with all the great features
and reliability that you expect from the Mercury II hardware.

I could not get a Null Cable to work STB to STB! PC Cable yes!

Now what is strange is the Fortec Star Web Site Says this for the Mercury II:

Uploader - (Female-to-female 9-pin NULL modem cable needed.)

Channel Editor v.1.0 ( May 16, 2006) - (Female-to-female 9-pin NULL modem cable needed.)

I don't know, but unless a got a couple strange Dynamics, seems like they are wrong with the Null cable thing!

Have not yet had a chance to play with the Channel Editor yet with either cable. I will do that today sometime and let you all know what cable works with that!


There is a 2008 firmware version the Dynamics are using now, the new one I got had it in there before I moved the 2007 firmware to the new one by accident! both now have the 2007 version! O~well they are working fine just the same with the 2007 version of firmware!



B~Man

Click to expand...

FTABman0,

I have made all my cables from scratch. We use all sorts of strange cable types at work to communicate with Allen Bradley and Modicon and many other brand devices for industrial PLC control of automated equipment so I have access to a lot of manufacturer's components and cables. When we decommission or refurbish a machine, I can get a "grab box" full of all sorts of goodies for $2.00! A nice perk for working in the maintenance and engineering department.

With my Coolsat 5K, I used a straight RS232 cable to communicate between the receiver and the PC, but required a crossover cable to transfer data from receiver to receiver.

For the Fortec Dynamic, I used the crossover cable to communicate between the receiver and the PC. That was using the channel editor-loader program. I assume that I would have to use a straight cable to transfer data between receivers, but I only have the one IRD at this time so I cannot test this.

You mentioned two firmware revisions for the Dynamic. Do you know what the differences are? Do you have both revisions? My Dynamic shows the following info:

Model: Dynamic
Last Updated: July 16 2007
S/W Version: V1.53
H/W Version: V1.00
Loader Version: V1.0

RADAR

AcWxRadar said:

FTABman0,

I have made all my cables from scratch. We use all sorts of strange cable types at work to communicate with Allen Bradley and Modicon and many other brand devices for industrial PLC control of automated equipment so I have access to a lot of manufacturer's components and cables. When we decommission or refurbish a machine, I can get a "grab box" full of all sorts of goodies for $2.00! A nice perk for working in the maintenance and engineering department.

With my Coolsat 5K, I used a straight RS232 cable to communicate between the receiver and the PC, but required a crossover cable to transfer data from receiver to receiver.

For the Fortec Dynamic, I used the crossover cable to communicate between the receiver and the PC. That was using the channel editor-loader program. I assume that I would have to use a straight cable to transfer data between receivers, but I only have the one IRD at this time so I cannot test this.

You mentioned two firmware revisions for the Dynamic. Do you know what the differences are? Do you have both revisions? My Dynamic shows the following info:

Model: Dynamic
Last Updated: July 16 2007
S/W Version: V1.53
H/W Version: V1.00
Loader Version: V1.0

RADAR

Click to expand...

RADAR,
I have boxes of cables too and just found that old PC data transfer cable that did the trick on the clone of the STB'S!

I tried the old coolsat Null Cable the other day and was not able to use the Channel Editor on any single Dynamic. Was strange but there was no need for me to go into it more after that so I never tried to push the issue of trying after that.

The boxes did clone fine on the PC cable I used just fine.

Now on the firmware, the new Dynamic that I got from Sadoun last week, it had 2008 firmware in it! I lost it cloning my last year's box by mistake (2007 version) to the new one. I would say there is not much difference between the 2008 or the 2007 version but I did find it odd that the new Dynamic had the 2008 version and I can't find it anyplace! Just the 2007 version! Maybe Sadoun can chime in here and tell us why!

I wonder whey the sales outlet's of these boxes do not write a background screen promoting their business in the OSD part of the screen for advertisement! Where it says Fortec Star in the OSD background they could have their own firmware that has the company you bought it from! You know if you never liked it you could always go to the Manufactures website and change it back to factory firmware to get it back looking OEM!

If it was thought of we would have seen it by now you know! Remember any Gold Sponsors that does this, I thought of it first!

The new system is up and running great and I have to give a : to Sadoun for getting that system out FAST for my weekend install! About 3 days out of the shop to here! It went out to a friend of my Father N Laws house and he could not be tickled more!

B~Man

MOst of the receivers I've used require a null modem for computer-receiver but receiver to receiver uses a straight through for some odd reason

I know the Coolsat 5000 does it that way

Iceberg said:

MOst of the receivers I've used require a null modem for computer-receiver but receiver to receiver uses a straight through for some odd reason

I know the Coolsat 5000 does it that way

Click to expand...

Thanks Tony, the point was that I did get it to work with the PC cable STB to STB!

B~Man

FTABman0 said:

Thanks Tony, the point was that I did get it to work with the PC cable STB to STB!

Click to expand...

My money says that is a "laplink" style cable. I have the exact same design with a DB9 and DB25 on each end. It is a null modem cable that is designed to let you hook up two PCs whether they had old 25 pin serial or new 9 pin. Initially for desktop to laptop file transfer, hence the name.

If you tone that cable out I'm sure you'll find it is not a straight through cable. Just check pins 2 & 3 on the DB9 ends.

gillham said:

My money says that is a "laplink" style cable. I have the exact same design with a DB9 and DB25 on each end. It is a null modem cable that is designed to let you hook up two PCs whether they had old 25 pin serial or new 9 pin. Initially for desktop to laptop file transfer, hence the name.

If you tone that cable out I'm sure you'll find it is not a straight through cable. Just check pins 2 & 3 on the DB9 ends.

Click to expand...

Will have to do that and try! All I know gillham, is the regular cable that comes with most of the FTA STB'S did not work with STB to STB but the cable in the picture did work! Something is not the same here! Again, it worked and the Sat list came off and firmware cloned fine with the PC cable, the old Coolsat cable was a dead hookup!

B~Man

gillham said:

My money says that is a "laplink" style cable. I have the exact same design with a DB9 and DB25 on each end. It is a null modem cable that is designed to let you hook up two PCs whether they had old 25 pin serial or new 9 pin. Initially for desktop to laptop file transfer, hence the name.

If you tone that cable out I'm sure you'll find it is not a straight through cable. Just check pins 2 & 3 on the DB9 ends.

Click to expand...

I absolutely agree. The cable that connects 2 PCs is definately a null modem, and the Coolsat cable is most likely a straight through.

The reason I'm responding though is that the end of your post is pretty important if you have one of those 4 ended cables you describe, ie the part about using the "DB9 ends". I generally wire my own cables, but once was wiring a cable to go between 9 pin and 25 pin devices. I knew that both the 9 and 25 pin cables use pins 2 and 3 for receive and transmit, but I had never noticed that they are reversed. Ie on the standard 25 pin cable, 2 is transmit and 3 is receive, but on the 9 pin, 2 is receive and 3 is transmit. This had me VERY confused one day. I always check cables with a voltmeter before using them, because few of them tell you what kind of cable they are.
But the bottom line is that in 99.9% of serial devices, you have to connect the send line of one device to the receive line of the other, and if the two devices are the same, then that's when you need a null modem or in this case a simple 3-wire reversing cable. Computers now all have DTE configuration with pin 2 receive (9-pin). This wasn't the case back in the 80s, which resulted in me smoking a computer once. Some receivers have DTE configuration, and some receivers have DCE configuration, which has the reverse, pin 2 transmit (9-pin). To connect two DCEs or two DTEs, you use NULL MODEM. To connect a DTE to DCE, you use straight through.

I got a couple of boxes from SatelliteAV and they do have SatelliteAV and/or Glorystar branding in the menus. The DVR's also auto update and have news from Glorystar on the first 5 channel displays!

FTABman0 said:

RADAR,
I wonder whey the sales outlet's of these boxes do not write a background screen promoting their business in the OSD part of the screen for advertisement! Where it says Fortec Star in the OSD background they could have their own firmware that has the company you bought it from! You know if you never liked it you could always go to the Manufactures website and change it back to factory firmware to get it back looking OEM!

If it was thought of we would have seen it by now you know! Remember any Gold Sponsors that does this, I thought of it first!



B~Man

Click to expand...

rv1pop said:

I got a couple of boxes from SatelliteAV and they do have SatelliteAV and/or Glorystar branding in the menus. The DVR's also auto update and have news from Glorystar on the first 5 channel displays!

Click to expand...

Thanks Pop, guess that someone has thought of that idea! I have not yet installed one yet just for Glorystar programming, but I think that is going to be soon for I had someone ask from Clarksburg WV today about "just Glorystar".

So it looks soon I will have my hands on one of them to check out before it gets a new home!

Thanks again Pop!

K E V I N

Radar, yes it has been done before for several years.

We don't usually put our background image (we should ). We used to do it on the old Coship receiver about 6 years ago.