Big Dish conversion to digital FTA

[Tron]

You can't go wrong with the Pansat 3500, its a great receiver. Others to consider are the Fortec Mercury II, Coolsat 5000 (if you can find one), and the Visionsat IV-200 (which has a USB port to connect an external hard drive or USB flash drive for PVR functionality )

 

[Anole]

maximizing your options

Well, while all those are good receivers, if he wants to keep his existing LNB and co-rotor assembly, yet eventually abandon the old analog receiver, then an FTA receiver with co-rotor control might be a wise choice.

The alternative would be to discard a perfectly good feed horn and LNB, and convert over to an electrically controlled LNBf such as the BSC-621 or CK-1.
While some members do get those to work, and they are not expensive, I felt offering that more difficult solution was probably not helpful.

If someone gave me a nice classic BUD with analog receiver, I'd certainly slave a digital FTA box to it.
But, since I have my eye on a particular 180cm commercial Ku dish, with no C-band LNB, I've already bought an electrically controlled CK1 C-band LNB to go with my Mercury II and Visionsat receivers.
...and have no intentions of running a co-rotor any time soon.

It really all comes down to maximizing your options with what you have (or are willing to buy).
So, there is probably no wrong choice... :up

 

[FranO]

Thanks again for the excellent advice! I currently have an 8 ft. Paraclipse Hydroform BUD which gets excellent C-band and KU reception with my General Instruments 2400 (classic) analog receiver. With my recently slaved-in Captive Works CW-600 digital FTA receiver, I'm now getting good digital reception also. My only problem is that with this particular receiver, I can't make any blind scans to enable me to pick up backhauls and such. Sounds like all I need to do is trade in my CW 600 for a Pansat 3500, and I should be in business. Does that sound like the way to go?

 

[Anole]

If you're keeping the analog receiver in the loop (so to speak) then I'll side with Tron on receiver choices.

Compared to your CW600, the Mercury II will be less expensive (from one of our sponsors).
And the VisionSat will give you wonderful PVR flexibility (from another sponsor).
I have both and don't have the Pansat 3500, so I was just trying to present the widest range of choices to work with your gear.

It's all good, just so long as you have blind scan.
Now that you are fully briefed, you can make whatever decision is best for you.

 

[FranO]

A final thanks to all who helped me with this! Before we wrap -up this discussion, I have one last question (probably a stupid one): What is PVR?

 

[Anole]

PVR = Personal Video Recorder.
DVR = Digital Video Recorder.
TiVo= beats the hell out of me, but a registered trademark.

The Visionsat has a USB connector, where you can plug in a user-supplied hard drive up to 500gb.
Shows can be recorded while away, played back over and over, skip forward or backward.
And, by plugging the hard drive into your computer (with the right simple software tools), you can make the shows into playable DVDs.

I have a tiny 60gb drive, which I use as described, and I'm quite happy.
300 and 500gb external USB drives go on sale for under $100 at every holiday, so by all means get a big 'un. -

edit: oh, and I forgot,,, at least with the Visionsat, you can plug in a 2gb or bigger thumb drive and get similar capability.

 

[jollyrgr]

Here is my two cents on the big dish with analog receiver.

It is MUCH easier to align a dish using an analog receiver. I still use my analog receiver to move the dish and make sure it is still "peaked" on the satellite position and polarity.

I use two manual AB coax switches. One switches the C band LNB between the analog receiver and a second AB switch. The second AB switch goes to the digital receiver. I can then watch a C band analog singal to peak the dish and know it is right on the satellite. Flip one switch and I can use the second AB switch to change from C band or Ku Band input to the digital receiver. I don't bother with the analog signals on Ku so that is not a problem. I change a channel on the analog receiver to swap polarity. It is a bit "goofy" but it works perfect for me.

 

[FranO]

Thanks for the input, Jollyrgr. The more information I get from you guys, the better I further understand what I'm dealing with here! I'm using all this info to figure out how to finally complete my new hook-up, and this helps.