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I installed a 12' Unimesh dish on an AJAK 180 H-H mount a few months back and am looking for some suggestions on a positioner unit.

I already owned and have tried a G-Box and a V-Box on this behemoth, neither seems to have the cajones required to swing it. Both of those devices will take the dish about 20-25 degrees either way from apex and slowly bring it back, but I need to be able go around 50 degrees to the east and west from my 93 degree true south location.

I had never had any issues driving a BUD with a G or V-Box in the past, but had never tried using them on a 12' dish before. At first I thought I may have internal issues with the AJAK, but I knew it was well cleaned and lubed, and that it had run fine on my bench with no load. And I had the -Boxes close-hooked to the motor on about 6' of 16 ga. wire so didn't think that was the issue.

I came real close to pulling the dish off the mount and removing the mount for troubleshooting when I remembered I had an old MTI 2800 positioner box. I hooked it up and voila, was able to run the dish from limit to limit (AJAK internal limit switches)...a little slow bringing it up from the extremes, but it will do it. I would just use the MTI but it has no remote, and the display is out of it, would like to have both of those items in whatever I can come up with.

I believe my 3 choices are:

1.) Old-school standalone positioner box? I would not mind using one of these, just tune to a hot tp and watch my meter for peaking, but would like it to have a remote control, and some sort of display...ideas?

2.) Analog receiver? I still use a Toshiba 1820 to drive my first BUD (installed in 1993) and it has been bulletproof, great unit. Pretty sure I could drive tent stakes with it and not hurt it.

I have a spare 1820 but the problem with this model Toshiba (AFAIK) is you need an analog signal on each sat that you want to save a position for, once a signal is locked the receiver then goes through an autopeak and autoskew routine, and then it saves the position. It also only will display one letter and one number for the position (G5, W2, T4, etc.), it does not have a numerical readout that can be correlated to a position. The 1 letter/1 number display is not a deal-breaker though.

I have no experience with any other analog receivers, is there an analog unit that you can use like a G-Box...that is, move it from sat to sat, use a digital receiver to peak the signal, and then save the sat position in the analog receiver? And preferably with a numerical readout to visually see the position and dish movement?

3.) 4DTV receiver? I know nothing of the Motorola 920 & 922's but I have read on the forum about them. It sounds like with the new maps you are able to have quite a selection of sat locations, but I don't know what they all are, or how much the user can define them, if any. I would like to be able to have all locations from around 40W to 139W, if possible. I do not need the unit to be authorizable, but it would need to be capable of receiving the new maps (tiles?).

Also, I do not need to be able to control a servo, I am using a SatAv C2 right now, and may go C-band ortho in the future.

Does anyone know of anyone with a 12' Unimesh on an AJAK 180 that is running with a G or V-Box? I suppose I could have issues with my mount but since the MTI runs it ok I really think the little China-boxes just can't push enough juice to run this big boy.

Any ideas, thoughts and/or suggestions are welcomed.