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The timer issue is that, for a lot of people, the timers won't work unless you leave the receiver on because it forgets the time when you turn it off. No big deal leaving it on since it only uses 10 Watts, but the other problem is that after it does a timer recording, it shuts itself off so you can't schedule more than one recording at once.

Actually, the exact problem seems to be that it remembers the time when shut off, but forgets it when it starts up! I tried it recently with two timers and it awoke at the time of the second timer, but didn't record anything. Maybe this could be alleviated by setting it to get its time from the satellite, but I haven't tested it because even if true, it would be of limited real-world use. Why? Some transponders don't broadcast the time, others broadcast their LOCAL time instead of GMT.

Confusing the issue further is that there have been one or two reports of properly-working timers, and they say that the box displays the clock on the front panel when it's shut off. Neither mine nor the vast majority of others' boxes do that.

Firmware updates are indeed a frustrating issue, as I only know of one American, non-pirate site that gets most of the updates, and aside from only providing most of them to their own customers, they're also irrationally hostile to this site, so I don't like referring people to them. You can of course find the European pirate sites on your own and download the current firmware, no harm done since it won't descramble anything without the user entering an address and login for a key server, but you can't post links to such sites on reputable sites.

But, you're probably not missing anything. Virtually all of the fixes that have come out for many months have just been to fix glitches with pay services. The only other thing you get by getting an updated file from an American dealer is that they'll get rid of the European satellite list and put an American one in. You can do that yourself though, either with the editor program or, laboriously, with the remote control. If you already have your dish aligned well, you don't need to go to all the trouble of keying in transponders for all the satellites, just put the satellite names and positions in and do a blind scan on all of them.

I think Sadoun has an Americanized version of the firmware free for everyone on their website. It's nowhere near the latest version, the last time I checked anyway, but like I said, it works fine for our use and should have a usable satellite list if you don't want to make your own. (I made my own because, with me only having Ku-band, the list with C and Ku listed as different satellites was both crowded and ugly.)

I'm sure if a groundbreaking firmware update that actually fixes any non-encryption-related bugs or unpleasantness ever does get released, we'll hear about it soon enough whether from an official source or not. I just wish we had assurance that someone was actually working on such a thing!

Jim S. said:

Actually, the exact problem seems to be that it remembers the time when shut off, but forgets it when it starts up! I tried it recently with two timers and it awoke at the time of the second timer, but didn't record anything. Maybe this could be alleviated by setting it to get its time from the satellite, but I haven't tested it because even if true, it would be of limited real-world use. Why? Some transponders don't broadcast the time, others broadcast their LOCAL time instead of GMT.

Click to expand...

I did some experimenting and found that if I set the time manually, and then set two recordings for different channels, the first recording works, but the second doesn't--exactly as you describe.

If I set it to get time from the stream, both recordings work and the time is on the display between the two. The only problem is, you need both channels to either be on the same transpoder with the correct time being sent or on different transponders with the same time being sent. If the times sent are different...

Another thing I tried with a manual time setting was setting two timer recordings: the first with a duration on 00:00 and the second with the length of the program. I was away between the two programs, so I didn't see what happened, but when I got back, the receiver was on and there was only the first recording on the hard drive with a length of 2 hours. I was also on the channel of the first recording and the time was back to 1-1-2008... I thought sure the right time was set when I set up the recordings...Weird!

Apparently, if you set a record length of 00:00, the unit uses its default time of 2 hours and stays on.

More experimentation is necessary...

About tuning in a low symbol rate... I like to go into the transponder edit menu and adjust the frequency up and down around the one originally set and see which one, when saved, causes the receiver to get a lock the fastest. That's the one I use. It may be off the correct frequency by one or two, but whatever works... Until, of course the weather changes and the frequency in the LNBF changes ever so slightly and I have to do the process all over, again...

Copykat said:

I did some experimenting and found that if I set the time manually, and then set two recordings for different channels, the first recording works, but the second doesn't--exactly as you describe.

If I set it to get time from the stream, both recordings work and the time is on the display between the two. The only problem is, you need both channels to either be on the same transpoder with the correct time being sent or on different transponders with the same time being sent. If the times sent are different...

Click to expand...

I just tried it with it set to get the time from the stream, and it worked for both recordings as you said. The only difference is, there is NO time display on my front panel. Never is, never was, with any version of the firmware. This has got to be more than a simple wiring issue, because the display works when the unit is running. I thought most if not all people had no time display, that's why I set up the poll that I did last week, but hardly anybody is responding to it -- although everyone who has says that theirs works like mine.

Would one of you guys please describe how you manually enter a transponder, or as someone referred to edit a TP. Also, what do this receiver mean when it asks if you want to search for networks or not? I believe it's in the search one satellite at a time. I haven't had any luck getting any of the S-2 signals.

to add/delete/edit a transponder go into the "transponder list"...its below the option to do a satellite scan

red button to edit tp
green to add
yellow to delete

I think thats right...mine isnt hooked up anymore so the color buttons may be different

also network scan here in north america is useless. Some providers will load all the transponders they use so if you have a non-blind scan receiver you can enter one transponder and search network. Dish and Bell I know have that option

Otherwise Globecast does too. If you enter one globecast transponder and do a network scan it should load about 10 more TP's. Now the TP's that are run by other folks (Glorystar TP'
s) wont load...but a blind scan does that

One thing I noticed is its picky when you have news feeds that are bunched together

example is 91W...there were news feeds at 11945, 11950, 11955, 11960, 11965
all V polarity
all 3978 symbol rate

SSO skipped most of them (I think it got 11945 & 11955).....Coolsat 5000 picked them all up