Social Feed

Have a Portable DVD Player with Video in?

If you have a computer receiver, either PCI or USB, then you can use a laptop. Most USB type receivers require external power, so if you take a laptop with USB receiver out to your dish, you'd probably also have to run a power line out there too.
However what I've done (with some difficulty) is to use the PCI card receiver on my desktop computer. I have a VNC server running on that computer so that I can display my desktop computer's screen on my laptop over my wireless LAN. So as long as my laptop can see my LAN out at the dish, I can display the S/Q readings out at the dish using my laptop remotely controlling the PCI receiver. When working on my motorized Ku dish, I can even move to another sat, change channels or polarity, etc, etc, all from the laptop out at the dish.

Two problems though. First of all, many laptops have screens that are quite hard to see in direct sunlight, so I usually have to set up some sort of sun screen so that the computer is in the shade, or I can't see the screen. However this is true with my little TV too. The other problem I have, which probably isn't a problem for most people, and that is that I have a metal roof, and my wireless router is located at a point where the rf would have to go through the metal roof to get outside to the dish. So what I've had to do was set up a 2nd wireless access point (WAP) out in my garage to extend the range of my LAN so that my laptop can see the network out there.

But if you have a computer based receiver and a wireless LAN, this is a very simple way to do everything with a laptop out at the dish. I use a free program called UltraVNC. I run the server on my desktop and the client on my laptop. This is also how I routinely control 3 different receivers that I have on my desktop remotely from my recliner, all without ever getting up and going downstairs.

Even though it's a good method, I rarely do it though, because of the sun problem. I just find it really hard to see any computer or TV screen out there unless I do it at night.

B.J. said:

I just find it really hard to see any computer or TV screen out there unless I do it at night.

Click to expand...

That is my solution. It is cooler at night, there's no glare, and if you pick a night when the moon is full, you get plenty of light to see what you're doing.