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PopcornNMore
Last reply · posted in Free To Air (FTA) Discussion
This weekend I'll be working on a project that I have been wanting to work on now for over 5 years and that is turning 2 Directv dishes in wall sconces for our home theater.

I plan on painting the dishes black as well as the LNBs and then running lamp cord up the LNB arm and placing a 10w candelabra bulb and socket into the LNB housing. The light will then reflect into the dish illuminating the area.

Tonight I purchased the sockets, bulbs, lamp cords and black spray paint. I also removed the housings from each of the LNBs and removed the back metal cover plates. Tomorrow I'm going to remove the circuit board and "F" connectors and install the bulb and socket which fit perfectly and get the dishes painted. I'm going to take many pictures and will post this weekend.

My only problem is how does the plastic LNB cover get removed? I've tried turning and pushing with no success. I didn't want to pry with a screwdriver in fear of damaging the cover. Once the LNB housing is painted and the socket and bulb installed the cover will be put back into place.
27 Replies · 9679 views
PopcornNMore
Perhaps I didn't properly describe my project intentions and mislead people to believe that I wanted the light to reflect off the dish surface, so please let me begin again...

A few years ago I started to build a home theater in our basement since my family enjoys watching movies. Most home theaters have a "theme" and since I'm into satellite communications I thought about installing one or two old DirecTV dishes I had lying around in the garage onto the walls of the home theater. They would be a good conversation piece and add to the décor of the theater. Plus some people might think that they are actually receiving a signal. To take this idea a step further I thought about adding a light within the LNB that would shine onto the dish like how lights are pointed at pictures and movie posters. The dishes would be painted black not to reflect light, but to match the color décor of the theater (black and maroon). These dishes will be installed directly above the rear seats in the theater and turned on along with the step lights mounted within the riser for when viewers wanted indirect lighting that would not disturb the movie when they want to leave for a snack or to go to the bathroom. Having the dishes illuminate a light around the dish as well as the LNB itself accomplishes this goal.

I understand about the heat concern and will probably drill a hole within the plastic cap to allow the heat from the bulb to escape.

The first picture (no flash) is what the area of the dish looks like when the theater lights are off. As you can see complete darkness. The second and third pictures (no flash) are of the dish area behind the dish away from the theater screen in order to not disturb the movie, but enable viewers to have some indirect lighting to see when they enter or exit the theater. The light actually looks brighter than in the pictures. However, I'm going to experiment using higher watt bulbs until I get the light desired. I found 60w bulbs as seen in the fourth picture.
Anole
variations on the theme

I hadn't fully understood the idea, either.

If the lighting level is too low, may I suggest maroon for the dish face instead of bigger bulbs?

Or, what about a lamp behind the dish? Small one should be fine. :)

I also favor frosted over clear, too.

edit: last thought...
if you make the fixture too bright, a dimmer will solve that since you're using incandescent lamps.
.
wallyhts
Lol popcorn, I think I would be in the divorce line if i mounted a dish inside. Nice project!!!
M
I like it! Looks good. Gives me all kinds of ideas myself. I've been thinking outside C-Band dish and LED ropes. Imagine this, programing the LEDs to emulate the "Death Star Ray" effect from Star Wars. Mount a speaker for the audio and every twelve year old for miles will be at you house LOL.
PopcornNMore
When my dad was alive he always reused items around the house and turned them into something else. We now live in a throw away society and many young people no longer work on projects such as this. Take away my daughter's iPod and all of a sudden she is "bored" with nothing to do. When I was her age I was working on electronic projects, silk screening t-shirts, building computers, woodworking, etc.
Y
Pub Member / Supporter
· posted in The Sports Section
Mexico takes on South Africa to open the World Cup Final (it is called the Final... this just isn't the World Cup Final... Final). The tournament has been plagued with rife malfeasance as FIFA has been committing all sorts of fraud with the ticket sales. Hotel rooms have gone unfilled as the prices to attend a game and stay somewhere are through the roof. I swear this is impacting Mansfield, OH hotel rates which are higher than average for the Indycar race. And there is a broadening VAR presence which will ruin things as nothing worse now when scoring a goal and knowing you can't quite celebrate yet as they check to see if a player was offside by a pixel a half-hour ago.

The Group Stage used to mean something, but now 32 of the 48... yeah, 48 teams are going to the Knockout Round. Getting into the Knockout Round used to be a big deal, even for the US. But now... if you don't lose all of your group stage games, you get to move on. Oi! And this is avoiding all the political stuff!

I have never been so unexcited for a World Cup before. Every game used to matter. But FIFA be darned if they don't try to squeeze out every dime they can out of the players, refs, and fans.
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dfergie
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!
Last reply · posted in The Sports Section
Anybody been following the Tournaments? I've been watching all weekend on the various ESPN's...
1128 Replies · 100776 views
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dfergie
Not a good inning… Kavan coming on could be the nail.
dfergie
Better team won tonight…
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osu1991
Well crap. That wasn't fun. Oh well on to the CFL opener on cbs sportsnet.
RaiderPower
"In the end, there can be only one" - Duncan MacCleod of the clan MacCleod
dfergie
Last weekend I got in on a MLB game top of the 8th 1-1, first thought was extra innings... :D and it actually went extra after the 9th.
Catching a little of the AUSL, something to watch when I can't get into anything else.
dfergie
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!
Last reply · posted in The Sports Section
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Y
Caught up to the 500... err... k in St. Louis. What a race! Andretti Motorsport were doing very well with Ericsson and Kirkwood, meanwhile Power was moving up the grid. Veekay started cautiously. He was working the tires just right, becoming more lethal later in the stint. Rasmussen was racing likewise, not nearly as insane as he has in the past. Palou was leading the race, in a shocker to all. Caio Collet was having a wonderful ride, making Ferucci potentially sweat a bit. Rain came, rain went, rain came, rain went. Generally mild sprinkles, but enough to pause racing on an oval.

Palou would kind of send Siegel into the wall. Siegel really didn't do much wrong. As he noted, you have to turn at some point. Palou had acres of room below and Siegel might have had his ticket out of Indycar stamped. Dixon was doing the fuel thing and got busted twice by yellows, not pitting before the flag came out. Then the most critical happened... Palou ran out of gas on pit lane, effectively giving Newgarden the race lead and win. Newgarden had a very early pit, so he was able to slide in, get service and go. Meanwhile, everyone else was confused and stuck behind Palou for a bit. Once people figured what was happening, Newgarden had a major advantage of several seconds. Newgarden wouldn't look back and when it went green again, he'd hold the lead for the win.

Massive credit to Juncos Hollinger who bested Penske in getting Veekay out before Malukas in a transition that was oddly bizarre. I haven't had time to check, but I'm wondering if Veekay was about to run out of fuel or cut a tire. He was charging late in a stint, got up to fifth, and then tailed back for a few laps to 10th or 11th. It looked like it was over. Went into the pits, and after the pitting sequence was over, Veekay was well inside the top ten again. It was weird. And he charged, getting up to fourth. He made a late move on Rasmussen, but Rasmussen held his position with some great driving. In fact, there was a ton of incredible racing passing, not passing all race long. Veekay would finish 4th. A podium would have been awesome, but it is a great outcome for a guy who hopefully will get a break with a big team. We saw what Veekay could do with a Honda last season with fuel save, imagine replacing Simpson on Ganassi and having speed to go with fuel saving. His 6th at Indy and 4th at St. Louis get him up to 13th in the points standings and only 5 points outside of the top 10.

Ericsson finished second, resigned to finishing behind the current best in the world guy on a short oval. Rasmussen got the final step on the podium, a nice rebound to what has been an otherwise bad year for him, and a good reward to ECR who just extended his contract.
Y
They raced USAC cars at Daytona once. Once! People died. Aj Foyt said 'f this', and left after the first go around. AJ freaking Foyt thought it was crazy! And cars weren't nearly as fast as they are now.

I think they tried Talladega once too.
Y
LeMans qualifying on going. WEC has d9ne a great job expanding the automotive company entries. Even without Porsche, a large nunber of manufacturers.
jcrandall
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!
Last reply · posted in DIRECTV Programming Forum
So...DirecTV advertises the Choice package with 95+ bonus channels for Satellite customers. You don't want 90+ of the 95...

Excluding PPV, premium networks, infomercial, shopping, religion, and non-English programming, there are 7 channels on satellite that are not on streaming:
NFL Network, MavTV, FE TV, Free Speech, NASA, INSP, and Pursuit. I'm pretty sure a couple of those are public interest that they have to carry to meet an FCC quota on satellite.

I hope they get called out for this advertising because that is ridiculous. One big network, NFL, will probably get added to streaming when their next agreement comes up, and the rest are likely very low viewership.

What about streaming, what do you get extra with the Choice package that isn't on Satellite:
Two stations - one of which is an internet TV - Fox Weather, and Heros & Icons (a diginet). Nothing special here to look at either.

If they cleaned up a couple of their agreements, added a few public interest stations to streaming, they could probably have their lineups match. It's close now, if you take out all the garbage on satellite that they earn money on. If they can sell infomercials on satellite, why can't they on streaming, seems like a miss. A bigger miss, including those stations in the "bonus channels just for satellite customers." Pretty sad marketing right there.

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Attached is a comparison sheet of satellite vs streaming for the three main packages if anyone is interested.

MOD EDIT: See Post #3 for an up to date list of what channels are available on sat but not on streaming/internet, see Post #21 for an up to date list of what's available in the app for streaming customers, but not for sat customers.
220 Replies · 30374 views
K
107 LIVE4K3 and 108 LIVE4K4 are now testing on the stream server
M
107 LIVE4K3 and 108 LIVE4K4 are now testing on the stream server
Happy to see that DTV Stream will finally line up fully with the DTV Satellite 4K content and Channel Guide.
M
107 LIVE4K3 and 108 LIVE4K4 are now testing on the stream server
They turned them on today !
M
They turned them on today !
I see in the 4K Channels Guide that the Telemundo WC games will be airing in 4K. I believe this is the first time ever we will have Spanish-language broadcasts in 4K (in the USA). Did not happen during the last World Cup in Qatar 2022.
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dtv757
4K telemundo working !

406 still SD here in Norfolk Va 📡
Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
67107 Replies · 2662299 views
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harshness
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
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sdfntx
Right on Time - Brandi Carlile
gms49ers
Time Stand Still - Rush
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Bobby
I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You) - B.J. Thomas
long_time_DNC
Help Is On Its Way - Little River Band
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
· posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network
0 Replies · 3 views
T
· posted in DISH Network Support Forum
Hello everyone, new guy here. I'm trying to solve problem I'm having with Dish bonus view channels. When I'm watching the bonus view channels then I switch back to regular dish channels, after few minutes the screen flips to black and after 30 seconds flips back to regular channels and continues to flip back and forth until I turn off TV. After I wait 30 minutes and turn back on , I can use regular channels again. So, its after I switch from bonus view channels to regular dish channels the problem starts. Been trying to fix this for a month, but no luck
Here what I've done.
i contacted Dish support and they sent me a new Joey3, but no help. Switched to a different HDMI input on TV, no help. Used different HDMI cable , no help. Used different electrical wall plug, no help.
Finally got a Dish tech to check it. He ran all systems check and was OK. Finally he brought in a small TV and plugged in the HDMI out from the Joey to the small TV. He could not get the problem to occur on his small TV, so the new Joey was working OK. So, then the problem must be myTV. He made some phone calls and came back with the answer that there must be a problem with the analog to digital switch in my TV. Has anyone ever heard of a problem like this, or is it time to be looking for a new TV? My tv LG OLED65C8PUA. TV has been trouble free til now. Thanks
0 Replies · 20 views